We had 802 miles to travel before getting home around 9:00 p.m., so we were on the road by 5:30, well before the sun made an appearance.
An hour later, we were yet to see the sunrise, but this was even better, a large flock of sheep ambling down the road. This is the kind of traffic jam we can enjoy.
Out of Baggs, Wyoming, and into Colorado on State Road 13. Yay, the sun has returned.
I will never accept the name of this chain of gas stations outside my reading of it as a 15-year-old, juvenile, dirty-minded idiot.
From Craig, Colorado, where we came and went, we continued south a while to Meeker, picking up State Road 64 west towards Rangely, Colorado.
Oh, do we really have time for these kinds of detours? Yeah, but what if we never pass through this area again? Will we regret not having stopped at the Waving Hands site? Okay, but just this one time.
From Rangely, we were driving straight south on the 138 until reaching Loma, where caught the dreaded Interstate 70 over to Cisco, Utah. Making tracks now.
The Desert Southwest comes back into view, approaching Dewey, Utah, on the 128 with a great drive along the Colorado River.
Near the junction where Moab, Utah, connects the Colorado River to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. No time to fool around as it’s getting close to 2:00 p.m., except we are hungry and need to stretch our legs, so why not head over to Eddie McStiff’s for some hot lunch? Great, they are closed for Labor Day, so we went to the Mondo Cafe even though they don’t feature Eddie’s signature miso dressing.
Hole N” The Rock south of Moab is a place we’ve wanted to visit, but we never had time, so why not stop on this day when we only have 800 miles to cover?
Albert Christensen, who built this hole-in-the-rock abode, had a beloved donkey named Harry. While Albert and his wife are gone, Harry, the Donkey is still present in their living room as a stuffed sight to behold. It seems that Mr. Christensen was an amateur taxidermist who should have considered taking his skills to Hollywood to work in special effects for horror films.
We are near Mexican Hat, Utah, on our way toward Monument Valley. Those layers out there are one of Caroline’s all-time favorite roadside views.
There are things more important than showing you one more photo of Monument Valley that we’ve all seen before, but this menu at the Mitchell Butte Dinner on the road leading into Monument Valley will prove to be a real rarity. For Caroline and I, one of the treats of driving up this stretch of road was the vendors hawking Navajo arts and food items, but some years after this visit, in trying to modernize people’s experience here, the vendors were pushed out and their shacks removed.
In our book of southwest delicacies, the roast mutton and grilled chilies on fry bread is a treat we cannot pass up. Maybe we should have eaten a lighter lunch up in Moab so we could have shared three or four of these nearly burned, tough old muttons that require a commitment to eat. Rarely do we leave without a heavy-duty workout of the jaw muscles.
Almost exactly 72 hours after we left on Friday, we are reentering Arizona, having paid visits to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. Almost home.
We are approaching the edge of the Navajo Reservation as we leave Tuba City and turn south towards Flagstaff.
What a glorious sunset to send us off with. Oh, wait, what’s going on up ahead? An hour after we left Flagstaff and just a bit south of Camp Verde, with only 90 miles left out of 2700 driven so far we hit a traffic jam. This is no ordinary jam either, as we are barely moving. Thirty minutes after we first stopped we reset the odometer to better monitor our progress. Time check 8:20 p.m. By 9:10 p.m., we traveled a total of 1.7 miles. 9:50 p.m., and we are 5.1 miles down Highway 17. It’s not until 10:25 p.m., two hours and 7 miles after things came to a crawl that this clears up, and we are finally on our way home in earnest with an hour to go before we arrive.