So this was a slight disappointment. We traveled 2 hours to get to Monument valley. But the loop required a four wheel drive which was not a prerequisite on the literature. Since the your was 120 each… Maybe next time.
Monument valley
road trip
Dam post: Kanab Utah and Page Arizona
We did two slot canyons on this day. peekaboo canyon first with a guide (Raymond). Primarily because you can’t get there without a 4 wheel drive.
Peekaboo was wider and more orange. Foreshadow: we’ve put in for the wave every day. And guess who got passes for tomorrow?
Couples photos, you get more of these if you have a guide.
Next we went to wire pass. It was really cool. A little skinnier and very high. Darker stone with big rocky bases. Plus, Way cheaper! 6$ a head to park.
Sedona sunrise to Kanab
I do believe that Sedona is one of the most beautiful cities on earth. I’m surprised they didn’t make it into a national park. May was an amazing time to visit since all the cactus are in bloom.
Because we are still on Eastern time, we got up early and went to Airport Mesa to watch the sunrise. They had hot air balloons. Yay! Next we went for a hike around mezcal mountain.
Morning finishing up in cornville/cottonwood and headed to kabab.
Featured
Sedona, cottonwood, cornville, cathedral rock.
We’ve found Clarksdale, and cottonwood to be quite accommodating. The food is amazing here too. Pizza is hard to mess up, but it truly was outstanding. The old town is charming and has a history of copper mining up in Jerome. We went to the museum in Jerome earlier in the week.
Prescott
Don’t be fooled, you pronounce this Presskit. The food was delightful, the granite dells were amazing. We had a blast in Prescott and didn’t even see a gun show nor did we have a drink on whisky row but we did see a lady who has one too many and fell down the stairs.
We did go to Watson lake and hiked all the way around, which is quite beautiful. We also saw a very large snake that I didn’t get a picture of and went to an arts and craft fest downtown.
Our food everywhere was so amazing actually remembered to take at least one picture
Sedona in spring
We decided to make a trip back to the Sedona area this May. We’re in Prescott this weekend, so I’ll safe those pictures until tomorrow but I’m the meantime, here are some of my favorites.
Sedona in spring
We decided to make a trip back to the Sedona area this May. We’re in Prescott this weekend, so I’ll safe those pictures until tomorrow but I’m the meantime, here are some of my favorites.
Hot Springs NP
Woke up in Clear Springs Park outside of Texarkana (which I thought was slang for an area, but is an actual town in that area). The park was not on the Rand McNally but we woke up to this beautiful lake. I also saw a town called Arkadelphia which for some reason, I found funny
Next stop was Hot Springs National Park. Fun fact. It’s heated geothermally and therefore doesn’t stink. You can even drink the water,(and we did) but it’s 131 (avg) degrees. They even have to chill it for the pools. Another fun fact, none of the original bath houses have any kind of outdoor facility. 700,000 gallons go through the several different springs/day. The hot springs used to join into the creek but mixed with some sewage from the town it got stinky so they buried it under the road. It’s now a closed circuit with little contamination. Most of the indoor pictures are from the visitor center which does not operate as a bath house anymore but was pretty fancy at one time. Only a few of the bath houses still operate as bath houses. Ringo got to have lunch with us in the old bathhouse converted to a brewery.
We were going to try to make it to Natchez trace State Park but we’re stuck on 40, sitting still for the past 1.5 hours. Kinda wish I’d gone into the spa. At least my hours of sitting still would have been relaxing.
Carlsbad caverns
Carlsbad caverns were found in the late 1800s when a rancher was investigating a fire. The smoke turned out to be bats leaving the cave. It became a park in the 1930s. It was ranger Joseph’s 3rd tour so he wasn’t polished but we got all the typical cave tour highlights: drapes, straws, stalagmites and tights, cave bacon, popcorn, bats and blackouts. I think the cool thing is the big room. It’s 4000 feet long and over 600 feet wide with lots of features. Only 5% of the cave is still growing. We are heading towards hot springs np today, a lot of driving.
White Sands National Monument
We got stopped by border control randomly mid New Mexico. They took one look at our camper piled with bikes guitars and a doodle and waved us on.
White sands was pretty cool. We watched the beloved park video then took a nice couple of short walks.
Fast fact: white sands is home to the oldest human footprints in North America. Link to ancient footprint info:21000 year old feetsies
Then we went to Three Rivers Petroglyph site which has the largest concentration of petroglyphs in the southwest. 21000+ I narrowed it down to my favorites, but there are a lot of shots.
For the record, I decided that this was either a game that they played like a scavenger hunt at a birthday party or an Easter egg hunt type of thing … Or perhaps it was more like getting tagged and each one of these symbols is somebody’s sign. Either way. It’s super cool 1500 years later.
Austin Semi Sabbatical 