The stuff movies are made of

We're now into Indian territory and back in to the state of Arizona. We drive through a couple of towns in a few hundred miles, Blanding(aptly named) looks like the edge of a scrapyard and Monticello, which looks like the scrapyard itself.
We drive through a baron landscape of not a lot until the sun begins to set and we suddenly drop down between a huge cut length of rock into the small town of Bluff. This is like many other towns in size and relative dustiness but manages to have a charm about it. One restaurant, one petrol station(that also doubles up as shop and pizzeria) and a friendly old wooden motel with tumbleweeds bounding about the car park beyond an outdoor jacuzzi lit by a trail of lights in a small garden.
The reason we're in Bluff is because the road through it leads on to the place above, Monument Valley. This place has featured in most Cowboy films over the years. Many a classic shot from any one of those films would show the enigmatic hero astride a horse with these horizontal rock formations standing up in the desert landscape behind. Thing is those very same cowboys were usually kicking up dust trying to find and fight with those belligerent Indians. How ironic that now the land is Indian owned, Navajo tribe in fact, and they're the ones charging film companies to come in and shot those type of movies. Well sort of. They don't really make em like they used to so the last major film that extensively used Monument Valley was Back to the Future 3.


Unfortunately for us the Navajo ownership also means that it's not part of the National Parks system so we can't use our annual pass and have to pay $10 to get in.
There's not a massive amount to see once you're in and driving around on the bumpy dirt road. A few classic shots and it gets a bit dull. It takes the sudden add of the foot on the accelerator and the imagination to become the late great Colin Mcrae and in a heartbeat we're now competing in the Monument Valley World Rally Championships. The competitors? The lumpy Americans in their oversized sloth-like 4 wheeled drives of course!


Leaving a trail of dust behind we drive on through some third world country looking towns until we arrive at Four Corners. This is the point in which four US states converge at one point. Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Typically the actual point is also Indian owned and you have to pay for the privilege to stand in the very spot. I wasn't that bothered and after driving a few metres into New Mexico we turn round and face the car towards Colorado.
We enter into the town of Cortez, it's probably called a city but as we now know in America that means nothing. We've passed through 'cities' with under 100 inhabitants. Cortez isn't a great looking place although it does have a great mountain backdrop but the usual line of fast food chains and obligatory huge Walmart spoil the view.
We're here to visit Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde is again Spanish meaning 'Green Table'. This name is probably due to the green flat top mountains around here. You climb up into the park getting wide views of the flat plains you've left behind you. The warmth of those plains is also gone and been replaced by snow and a severe wind chill.
This area is all part of an ancient American civilisation. No-one is quite sure why these peoples left the site, I reckon it's because it's frickin cold and they hadn't invented Gore-tex to keep them dry. But they did leave behind various large dwellings, the best being the cave village behind the visitors centre.

It's a complex set of buildings and small courtyards that have survived all conditions the past few hundred years have tried to throw at the sheltered cave. In fact some of the 4000 ruins that exist here date back to around 300A.D., the latest being up to 1200A.D. and are in very good condition. Some restoration has been undertaken but not massive amounts.


It's thought that around 35,000 people, Pueblans as they like to be named here, lived around the area. It seems all the more odd when you realise only 25,000 people live here now. Where did this large population go and why?
Mesa Verde, as we read in the park newspaper, was voted the best National Park in America last year. Fair play I suppose but at the end of the day I was a bit ruined out and almost glad that some of the huge site was inaccessible due to snow.


We descend from the snowy heights of the park back down to the relatively warm plains of Colorado towards distant mountains. After a few hours these mountains are all around us as we ascend back into snow and narrow mountain passes. We have entered yet another world that couldn't be more different than the one before.

The big dip

One of the big ones. One of the most commonly pictured and referred to sights in America. It is the Grand Canyon.
A couple of hours north of Flagstaff is the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, the North Rim is not accessible in Winter. We pass a couple of view points along the way that have Indian stalls set up hawking jewellery. This is indeed Indian land and it almost has a South American quality to it, run down shacks selling rubbish near amazing scenery. The Grand Canyon National Park does not allow such sales so at least you're spared any hassles here like you possibly would be at other major world sights.
We arrive into the park and walk to the first view point of many throughout the day. To be honest it wasn't that impressive at first glance. Many people have said they were awestruck and the like but I felt a bit 'blah' about it. There's a watchtower built next to the lookout and we climb it in hope of a better view and it is slightly. It all seems a bit unreal. Luckily along the scenic rim drive the many lookout points get better and better to become spectacular views over differing parts of the vast canyon.


It's a wide canyon for sure and the river that caused most of the carving, the Colorado, seems but a thin brown line at the canyon's floor. It's a bit messy at points meaning that getting a good photo is difficult in that the whole thing is just too vast and has too much things going on for the camera to capture.
You can see the lines of rock in distinct colours along the canyon's face and pillars not yet eroded fully by wind and time. Some parts of the canyon have eroded faster than others creating many 'islands' of rock that seem to jut out from the ground. It seems strange that the top layer of land is completely flat all the way across the canyon. Yet the floor seems to just drop away at given points uncovering layers of rock beneath that are all in a perfect line also.
The whole place seems like someone has put a huge photograph in front of you. Walking into the canyon would probably give a more real perspective to this huge place.


Snow lies around the start of most trails into the canyon itself and it's a long hike, not that we're going to attempt it in these conditions. Besides it's a much longer hike back up than down and camping in these cold temperatures didn't appeal. People are doing it though and you can see the donkey trains carrying the baggage down below, from the cliff edge they look like ants.
We stop at a variety of lookout points with a variety of idiots from around the world, one guy climbing over a wall next to me slips on ice and staggers towards the edge of the canyon. I felt a cold chill pass over me at what I thought I might see next but the guy regained his balance in time. At another lookout a group of American Pensioners are feeding a crow cheesy wotsit-type crisps and gasping with delight, the bird has probably since fallen to the floor of the canyon from gastrointestinal disease. After a few hours I've seen enough.


We do stick around for the sunset and although it is decent enough I've yet to see any sunset in the world to rival that of the stunning sights over the Lake District.
We try and stop overnight in the park but the lodgings are just too expensive and we get a much cheaper deal just on the edge of the park in a small town.
The next morning we head back into the park for some breakfast over looking the canyon. It is an awesome sight, of that there is no doubt, but I'm not wholly sure it ranks up there on a world scale of amazing sights.


I've started to think that the Colorado River may have carved this huge canyon but it was the American hype machine that made it.
Thankfully the great American hype can't ruin everything and we head North over the border of Arizona into some of the strangest and most stunning landscapes I've ever seen. All this in a state I know only a couple of things about, and one of them is that it was set up and run by Mormons. Hello Utah!

Dam, red rocks and flags

Just 20 miles out of the bright neon and over the top nature of Vegas is Red Rock Canyon. It is, as it says, red. You can see it from quite a way off and it's certainly striking. Considering how close it is to Vegas it's actually a fairly quiet place and a great escape from the madness. A 13 mile scenic drive takes you around with the option of a few walking trails.

We were tired from Vegas and had already walked miles from casino to casino so weren't up to any more.
Still the landscape looks tremendous with it's visible layers of bright red rock and bizarre formations.


Even though it's the end of February it's warm enough to decide to camp. That evening we camp on the national park with a red rock backdrop and a clear sky, with a slight glow to one side.
Once that sun goes you soon remember it's still February. It's difficult to remember that we're still in the desert with Vegas being so close. It's an awful nights sleep as the hard gravel floor is a bit of a comedown to a king size motel bed.
In the morning we have breakfast in the baking sun under clear blue skies and everything is good.
On the way out of the park a few cyclists dot the scenic road, some of only very few we've seen in America so far. Probably due to American roads being not conducive to cycling and even national parks seem to have little or no provisions for cyclists of any type.
Only a few days in Nevada and already we're over the border and into Arizona. Crossing the border itself is the Hoover Dam.
We have to pass through a car checkpoint to drive across it and as we do so do many others in a long line of traffic that seemed to appear out of nowhere in the desert. The place is packed. We park up and walk back across to have a nosey.
To be honest, although the dam is a great engineering achievement, it felt a bit like making a tourist attraction out of a power station. A bit dull.
Lake Mead, which has been created by the dam, is a large blue mass that looks much better than the large grey concrete mass of the dam. I'd heard that the dam produces all of the power for Vegas and even some for California but the truth is only 7% of Vegas' power is generated from the dam. But as we've seen on the Strip that's still a hell of a lot of power.
Onwards we go onto the famous Route 66 into Flagstaff, so named due to a tree made into a flag pole by a group from Boston on a scouting mission celebrating the centennial year of America.


There's not a great deal to Flagstaff, it's a decent enough looking place in which we manage to walk the main streets in less than 20 minutes, and that includes buying some guitar strings.
A nearby University make the town a bit more lively than it otherwise would be. Downtown is fairly dead but many evenings the handful of bars hosts live music and a small theatre draws in some of the best bands in the world. I wonder quite how they manage it but it seems Flagstaff is a town that is placed well enough to be near enough to other major locations. A hub of sorts with the added bonus of a student populous.
It's certainly a transport hub, as well as a freight train thoroughfare, around 100 trains pass through town every day, partly splitting a main road in the process.
For some reason, as we've learned in a lot of towns in America, the train drivers will sound their horns at all times of day and night, great.
We need a break from crap fast food and spend 4 times as much to eat at another great Mexican place. We didn't come here for the food or music though. There's a certain world famous canyon up the road that we can not miss.