Month: February 2010

After Mesa Verde, we drove to Durango to sleep in a hotel. The next day we drove a long way to Colorado Springs, about an hour away from Denver.

An hour away from Durango, we stopped at Pagosa Springs and spent a wonderful morning in the hot spring’s 23 hot tubs. Morgane loved it and said she would remember it forever. We all loved it. Some of the tubs had little waterfalls. They all had different temperatures. There was a pond and we had to walk over a bridge to get to one hot tub and there were little goldfish swimming everywhere.

We drove through a mountain pass that took us up to around 11,000 feet.

After that, we looked at our route and opted to drive in the south and avoid some of the higher passes. For awhile, it was all mountains, all around us.

We saw deer that looked mostly white. I thought they were antelope, but we saw another and it was a deer with a whiter belly.

The towns we drove through had either a cowboy wild west look to them or a New Mexican – Spanish feel.

Even if the road made me a bit nervous, this is one of the best places we’ve visited. Mesa Verde is a park high up on a plateau where there are entire villages built underneath cliffs. They were built from 1200 to 1300 AD and then abandoned. It seems that the residents had to move further south.

Winter turned out to be a good time – we still go to tour one of the cliff dwellings and we saw many others from the lookouts. There were almost no other tourists there so we had a great tour and got to take lots of pictures. We also got to climb down into a Kiva, an underground ceremonial space. Kivas are circle-shaped and have an entrance plus a ventilation chute.

Our tour guide, Linda, was amazing and let us stay and take lots of pictures. She also swore Morgane in as a junior ranger.

Afterwards we had just enough time to drive the 6 mile mesa drive and see other dwellings from various lookouts and the sun temple.

I didn’t love the drive down either, but it was worth it!

We decided not to go from Zion to Bryce Canyon because of the snowy conditions. Instead, we drove south into Arizona and headed for the four corners. This is a remote area and the only spot where four states touch. At the monument you can put one hand in Arizona, one in Utah, one foot in New Mexico and the other in Colorado.

We had good weather for driving as we passed Lake Powell and the big dam, so we decided to continue on. Unfortunately it started snowing so it was a long drive to the next town. Our tires are working really well though.

We ended up sleeping in Kayenta. The entire north-east of Arizona is a Navajo Indian reservation and we found it strange that our GPS didn’t pick up any of the hotels in town.

We were glad to find that there were hotels, but the Hampton was full so we stayed at the Best Western which wasn’t as nice. We had some food from a cafe next door and the bread was something new for us – fry bread, I think it’s called.

In the morning, a lot of the snow was melting and we drove off to the four corners. We decided not to stop at Monument Valley despite Ghis’s interest – a lot of western movies were filmed there. We’d kind of seen enough red rock for awhile.

We drove past horses and not much else until we finally arrived at the four corners monument. And… it was closed. How can a monument be closed? Oh well. The guide book had described it as a big nothing anyway. So onto Colorado and to Mesa Verde we went.

It was a bit cold when we visited Zion, but we were able to drive all the way through the park whereas in the summer, only the shuttle is available.

The cliffs are so amazingly high, my eyes got tired of looking.

We saw some wild turkeys across the river and then some deer when we stopped to do the river walk. Morgane found a nice rock to climb up and slide down. The hike was flat, but we were pretty tired by the time we got back to the van.

The drive out of the park via the east entrance was exhilarating. First we started to climb and then we drove through the tunnel that was built in the 30s. There are not lights inside the tunnel, but there are holes in the walls that act like windows, letting light in.

There was a lot of snow as we drove past the petrified sand dunes and out of the park. We decided it would be better to head south to the four corners area than to visit Bryce Canyon with so much snow around.

We left Nevada and crossed through a corner of Arizona before reaching Utah. The road led us through a mountain range that they literally blasted through. In Utah, there were lots of beautiful mountains and still some Joshua trees.

In St. George we saw some snow-capped peaks and when we arrived at the Majestic Inn near Zion National Park, we were surrounded by peaks.

On our friend Scott’s advice, we stopped at the Valley of Fire State Park. It was pretty special – mountains of red rock, but with little caves hollowed out here and there.

The best part though was the petroglyphs. We had to climb 84 stairs and then we had a close view of these drawings that are around 4000 years old. The sad thing is that some people have actually scratched their own names over top in spots. Can’t they find their own rock to write on? That is tourism at its lowest.

We were having fun photographing the petroglyphs when some people came up and told us there was something above our heads. It turned out to be a Peregrine Falcon who’d been sitting there all along.

We woke up in the morning feeling hungover which wasn’t fair since we only had one drink the night before. Ghis’s back was hurting and both our throats were sore – maybe the dry air?

Ghis went for a drive in the morning to visit Andre Agassi’s school and Morgane and I went to take a peek at a few more hotels along the strip.

We started at The Luxor which is like Egypt, then went to Excalibur, the castle, and New York with its statue of liberty and all. We finished with the MGM hotel.

We all decided we’d had enough of Las Vegas and could move on, even if we hadn’t eaten at a buffet or gambled any money. The only thing we’ll really miss is our hotel bathtub which was big and amazing.

These are some of the things we saw on the way to Las Vegas. First we said goodbye to the green hills and hello to the desert again. We’ve driven between California and Arizona so many times!

Morgane surprised us by knowing that Las Vegas is in Nevada. Her geography has really improved. But every time we change states, she asks if we’re still in the same country.

We saw casinos as soon as we crossed the border into Nevada. Then we kept our eyes open for the famous strip. It was easy to spot. Finding the entrance to the hotel was a bit harder.

Luckily, our Las Vegas friends that we met at Buses by the Bridge agreed to meet us for dinner. We went to the Venetian to meet them. The hotel even had little gondolas that you could ride around a little lake.

Our biggest problem was finding our way around. There are no signs in Vegas to tell you where you are. Casinos are the only places that you can’t miss.

We finally made it to dinner and had a great time! Then we all went outside and watched the volcano erupt at The Mirage. Scott and his wife make and sell promotional items, particularly pins. Their company is called Pinsville and they gave us a bunch of Vegas souvenir pins including their Melvis Pinsley pin which has moveable hips.

We watched the fountains at the Bellagio dance to music and loved it so much that we stayed to watch it a second time. It’s really beautiful. Morgane actually complained that we were keeping her up too late, so we finally got her back to the hotel. But not before we walked past a couple of pole dancers (dressed, thank goodness) in the casino. How to explain that?

It’s our last day in San Diego and we started it off by going to the dog beach with Carrie and Lisa and, of course, their dogs.

The sun came out a bit and Morgane adored splashing around with the dogs. She also loved throwing tennis balls.

Even at low tide, there is not much beach. There used to be, but it washed away in the last storm. Maybe they’ll bring some more sand here.

We drove around Coronado Island, just next to downtown San Diego. It’s quite peaceful, but also touristy. We finally stopped at the Silver Strand State Park and, even though it was chilly, we walked on the beach.

Right away, Morgane and I began finding sand dollars. We found more and more until our pockets were full. We brought them home as souvenirs and I am going to try to whiten them some more.