Slowdown in Flagstaff.

A relatively easy day Saturday, walked to a local art & craft festival, did some shopping at Walgreens Drugstore - more like a huge supermarket/department store
then relaxed beside the pool as we are currently experiencing temperatures between 100 and 107 F.
Why am I talking in miles and degrees Fahrenheit? Simply because that's how everything is expressed here in the USA and it saves me converting, ok.
Sunday morning we headed off quite early for the 200 mile drive to Monument Valley. For the most part the scenery en route was typically desert - very barren, dry and rugged outcrops in places. Kayenta is the small gateway town into Monument Valley, with homes and buildings being constructed very simply, in fact almmost slum like. The population is largely Native American - Navajo. We continued on about 20 miles through Kayenta to the Visitor's Centre which is almost on the border of Utah. Monument Valley is a place of great natural and cultural significance. Incredible sandstone spires solemnly rise to towering heights of 400 to 1,000 feet above the valley floor.Spectacular colours reflect off the surrounding mesas and buttes to highlight its beauty. We learned that this was 25 million years in the making, erosion from the early Rocky Mountains deposited many layers of sediment in this previously vast lowland basin. Volcanic pressure from below the earth's surface later upl!
ifted horizontal strata as much as 3 miles above sea level. Continued water and wind erosion eventually sculptured the majestic wonder of Monument Valley as@seen today. We had lunch in the visitors centre cafe with a window seat and the ultimate million dollar view from the rim of the valley. We then went on a self drive 17 mile loop drive through the valley where we looked up in awe at these magnificent towering sandstone
columns. From this you may gather that we were most impressed with our trip here. Definately worth the day and the 8 hours plus and the 400 or so miles. We returned to Flagstaff via the Navajo National monument and saw how the ancient people lived more than 900 years ago in beautifully preserved Anasazi ruins of cliff dwellings known as Betatakin and Kiet Seel.
Monday morning checked out from Flagstaff and drove to Las Vegas via the Grand Canyon - South rim. Even though we have visited Grand Canyon in the past, the sheer magnitude of this natural "7th wonder of the world" blew us away again and has to be experienced to be believed. We could have stayed here for days taking in the ever changing vista as the sun rose in the sky. We were extremely fortunate to see two Californian Condors nesting on a rock ledge quite closeby. The Californian Condor is almost extinct and a number of pairs have been placed in the Grand Canyon and appear to be surviving ok and in fact are now breeding. Those placed here have small GPS transmitters attached and a reference number painted on the leather pouch which contains the tracking gear. The pair we saw had the numbers 42 and 43. We took heaps of photos again, however as we still had about 240 miles to Las Vegas we dragged ourselves away 2pm. Our route took us via the Hoover Dam where extensive recons!
truction is taking place and the subsequent traffic delays. It took us over an hour at snails pace to wend our way the last mile or so to cross over the dam wall and up out of the valley. Arrived Vegas around 7pm and found our way (a feat in itself) to our pre-booked accomodation at Circus Circus Hotel/Casino. Las Vegas is currently the fastest growing city in the United States - we certainly saw this as we approached the city - freeways, flyovers and traffic confusion everywhere. We return our hire car to Avis tomorrow, walking would appear to be the sanest way of getting around for the next 3 days.
By the way - it's America's Birthday tomorrow, July 4th. God only knows how this insane town will react.
Kevin & Gail.
www.alaska-2006.blogspot.com

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