Road Trip - Day 10 - Chinle to Nephi
5:27 a.m. 48 degrees. Dark and chilly.
We left early today for two reasons - we have a long drive ahead of us and Tom wants to get to Monument Valley when the sun gets up.
It was dark and cold when we left but I’m wearing shorts because it is going to get hot later. At first it is too dark to write. Also must add that the notebook is still damp from yesterday.
We took the short cut up to 160 and it was certainly much quicker. I reckon we saved nearly 100 miles. There was quite a bit of traffic around but surprisingly a lot of vehicles were school buses. I guess the kids have to set out early because everything is so far away. At one point we drove through water on the road. Obviously from the deluge yesterday.
At 6:30 we stopped at Kayenta for breakfast before turning down 163, which is the road through Monument Valley. It was all Tom hoped it would be and the scenery was pretty amazing. Hundreds of mesas rising out of the ground with lots of space between them. In silhouette they were stunning. You have to be careful of the wild horses roaming free though and there were quite a few dogs around as well.
We go through a small town called Mexican Hat, so called after a rock formation just to the north of the town. We are back in Utah and out of Navajo land.
The next part of the journey between Mexican Hat up to Moab was uneventful. I may have dozed off a little while Tom kept driving.
Arches National Park is just north of Moab and here, were were told yesterday by some folks
on the canyon trip, we had to visit. We showed our pass again, this time the fee is just $10, and entered the park. You have to drive some way before you see the first arch but there are some fascinating rock formations along the way, the Three Gossips to name just one.
We drive on to the Balanced Rock and take the short trail round it. All the trails are marked with cairns of stones and some of them are cute. Back to the car and we take a right turn towards the Windows Section and we saw our first arches. Big problem though, no where to park. Here it is a Monday and out of season and the place is crowded. Decided enough was enough so we drove to the Visitors Center for a restroom stop and to eat our sandwiches before exiting the park and hitting the road again.
We travel north then turn left on I70 and head west. For over a hundred miles we traveled this freeway and there were no services at all. Lots of mountains though. At Salina we left I70 and took Highway 50 to I15. We plan to find somewhere to stay in Nephi tonight.
On the last leg of the journey traveling north on I15 we could see snow falling up in the mountains to our right. It was a surreal sight. Mind you, it’s cold outside. The temperature has dropped to 52 degrees. I probably will not be wearing shorts again on this trip.
At 4 p,m,. after driving nearly 500 miles today, we check into the Best Western in Nephi. In the evening we go into downtown Nephi and eat at the Salt Creek Steakhouse. It was a large place but we were the only customers. We had salad from the help yourself salad bar to start with. They had one strange dish call ‘frog eyes’ which consisted of pudding rice, mandarin oranges and marshmallows. Sounds strange but it tasted quite good. Tom had a rib eye steak and I had a fillet mignon.
October 03 2007 12:24 pm | Further Afield
