DAY #8 – SUNDAY – JULY 9, 2023
DURANGO,
CA – PAGE, AZ
323 – MILES / 2,486 – TOTAL MILES
This begins the second week of being on the road and basically marks the halfway
point in this adventure. After riding the train down from Silverton, Colorado
we Spent the night at the Hampton Inn in Durango, Colorado. The Hotel was very clean,
and the employees were nice and helpful and if I ever get back this way I will
consider staying here again.
While
this is going to be a moderately long day mileage-wise as we will cover only
about 350 miles. It does have the potential to be a long daytime wise, as we
have several stops scheduled. For that reason, were told to be on the bus at
7:30 a.m.
Because
our habitually late groups reverted to being late. This is getting a little old
not only to me but to some of the others as it is the same two couples every
time.
After
turning off Highway 160 it was another 20-miles down the scenic drive to the
Visitors Center. This 20-mile drive took us almost 40-minutes. But we finally
arrived at the Visitors Center and were free to explore the National Park on
our own for the next hour.
The Mesa Verde National Monument
has some of the most notable and best-preserved cliff dwelling in the United
States. Sometime during the late 1190s,
after primarily living on the mesa tops for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo
people began moving into pueblos they built into natural cliff alcoves.
The structures ranged in size from
one-room granaries to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the
mesa tops, they lived in cliff dwellings, repairing, remodeling, and
constructing new rooms for nearly a century. In the mid-1200s, the population
began migrating to the south, into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By the
end of the 1200s, most everyone had migrated away.
Dwellings. While I was at the Viewing Area one of the Rangers was making a very interesting presentation about what life was like for the people living here those many centuries ago.
Most people think that cliff dwellings
were single family homes, when I fact the dwelling that I was looking at was more
like a small village. Inside the rooms of the Cliff Dwelling there were indeed
living areas in addition to storage areas for food, water and the staples
needed for everyday life.
Water was on thing that was in
short supply and the people who lived here had to carry water from nearby
sources. Some to these sources would dry up during the summer months and they
had to roam farther and farther from their dwellings. It is thought that the
lack of water may have been one of the reasons that the residents began to move
to the south.
There are several of these cliff dwellings
that are built into the mesa. The one that we got to see was called the Spruce
Tree House. One of the disadvantages of
being on a bus is that we didn’t have the opportunity to take the complete
driving tour and see the other dwellings.
This was a very interesting stop
that was made even more interesting by being able to listen to the Rangers Presentation.
I visited the gift shop and got me some souvenirs and a couple of drinks from
the concession area. Like most of the
food and beverage vendors at National Park the prices are really inflated. A
small cup of coffee and a small cold drink cost me over $6.00. In fairness to the National Park Service, the
vendors are private contractors and can set their own prices within the limits
of their contracts.
Our habitually late couples struck again,
and we were 15-minutes late pulling out of the Mesa Verde National Monument. The
20-mile drive back to Highway 160 took us about an hour. We stopped at Wal-Mart
and a Denny’s in Cortez Colorado. Several in our group including our habitually
late couples chose to walk up to the nearby Denny’s for lunch.
Our tour guide Michelle needed to
stock up on bottled water at Wal-Mart. This Wal-Mart also had Subway and the
rest of us figured it would be quicker just to grab something from Subway. Again,
we were about 20-minutes late leaving Cortez.
About an hour and 50-miles later we
arrived at the Four Corners Monument. I have been here before, back in 2018
during my three-week adventure around Arizona.
The actual monument is a compass rose that is
surrounded by open air vendors booths where you can purchase native artwork.
The only facilities are pit toilets and porta johns that reek in the heat.
I was last here in late October and there weren’t very
many people there and there was no problem getting photos and selfies at the
monument. This time it was a little more crowded and there was a line of people
Waiting to get pictures.
Around the monument are raised platforms where people
can stand and get photos of the monument and the people from above. Michelle was
kind enough to stand on one of the platforms and take photos of everyone in our
group.
During our time at the Four Corner’s, we had no
problems figuring out that we were no longer in the cool Colorado Mountains but
in the hot desert of the Southwest. When we left Durango, it was 67 degrees and
82 degrees at Mesa Verde. Here at the 4-corners it was 96 degrees and pushing
toward 100. Today in Phoenix it was going to be close to 110 degrees.
Back on the bus we headed toward our next stop in
Monument Valley. I had hoped that we would travel up through Red Mesa and
Medicine Hat. If we had taken this route, we would have come into Monument
Valley from the North. This would have allowed us to stop at Forest Gump Point
on Highway 163.
When I was here in 2018, I was able to stop and grab a
few pictures at the Exact spot that Forest Gump Stopped running in the Popular
Movie. When we mentioned it to John and Michelle, they both said that it was
too far out of the way, so we took the more direct route down Highway 160 to
Kayenta and then traveled North on Highway 163 into Monument Valley. The drive
up from Kayenta was just as spectacular as I remember.
From the Welcome Center we could see only a small
portion of what Monument Valley has to Offer. We could see the Mittens, the
three sisters, and the Elephant. What we couldn’t see was the Camel, and John
Fords Point.
Thank Goodness, that I got to drive down into the
valley back and 2018. During that Visit I got to see the amazing formations up
close. I also got to see and stand on John Ford’s Point. The point gets its
name from the famous motion picture director John Ford who filmed several
movies here starring John Wayne including “The Searchers,” and “She wore a
Yellow Ribbon.”
During filming of the Movies, John Ford and John Wayne
stayed a Goulding’s Lodge which was located just across from the Welcome
Center. I stayed there during my 2018 visit.
We wrapped up our visit to the Welcome center and
headed back south on Highway 163, retracing our route back to Kayenta.
Back in Kayenta we stopped at Burger King. Michelle
had told us there were no restaurants anywhere close to our hotel and Burger
King would be our supper stop. I had stopped at this Burger King back in 2018.
During that visit I noticed a couple of Display cases in the seating area.
Before leaving I checked out the cases and found that
it was a display paying tribute to the Navajo Code Talkers of World War
II. During My 2018 visit I was able to
talk to one of the young ladies who worked here. Come to find out some of the
artifacts in the case belonged to her grandfather.
I really enjoyed talking to her and she seemed proud
to be able to talk about her grandfather.
It was wonderful to see such a young person talk about her relative with
such pride.
As I was getting off the bus one of our group, Miss Nancy, told me that she didn’t really want to eat at Burger King and asked if I would walk with her to the nearby Arby’s. I gladly did and we had a nice visit over supper. Miss Nancy was a retired schoolteacher from West Virginia. She had taken a couple of other bus trips and was a very nice lady.
After supper with Miss Nancy at Arby’s we walked back
to Burger King. The Code Talker display
was still there, and I enjoyed seeing it again.
Back on the Bus we headed toward our nights lodging
about 100 miles away in Page, Arizona, The 100-mile drive took up a little over
an hour and 45-minutes and the scenery was still great.
While we were driving My cell phone changed time
several times. Then it dawned on me what was happening. Arizona did not observe
Daylight Savings Time, but the Navajo Nation did. As we were driving, we passed
in and out of the Navajo Nation several time. Kenyata was on the Navajo Nation
and was observing Mountain Daylight Savings time but Page was not, so we were
on Mountain Standard Time. So technically arriving in page we are three hours
behind the East Coast and on the same time as California.
This Arizona Time situation created some confusion with our group. When Michelle Told us we need to be on at 8 a.m. in the morning. The problem was some of our clocks had updated to standard time while others hadn’t. Since the hotel and the attractions around us were operating on Standard time (3-hours behind the east coast) we would be back on the bus at 8 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. We would lose the hour again when we crossed into Utah.
One of the sites that I had on my list was Horseshoe
Bend in the Colorado River which is located just south of Page. The Parking
Area for Horseshoe Bend is about 3-miles from my hotel, once at the parking
area it’s a half mile walk out to the overlook. The walk is through loose sand
and is rated moderate to difficult.
I looked on both UBER and LYFT to see if I could get a
ride down to the parking area. But Page is a small town and neither Lyft nor
Uber operate in this area. Horseshoe Bend will have to wait.
Tomorrow we are off to Marble Canyon, The Navajo
Bridge, and the Grand Canyon. It will be another full day.
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