Couch potato

8/9/2016

I’ve gotten into the part of my trip where I turn into a lazy bum. This tends to happen to me a couple of days after a particularly intense week, especially when I’m on the road. All I want to do is hang out, eat hash browns, and look at my car. Some of you may remember that after my Knott’s trip last year, I spent a couple of days sitting out in the desert at Joshua Tree before moving on with my life. The year prior, I spent a few days sitting out in Yosemite. I think it must just be a one-two hit of road isolation with sudden prolonged social interaction that just totally overloads my system. So I turn into a couch potato afterwards until everything balances back out.

Thing is, usually I don’t have a couch handy to sit on. But today, I did! There was a dog on it but he was happy to share.

I spent the entire morning hanging out on my friends’ couch (well, eventually I moved over to the table for a better working surface, but that’s beside the point), working on blog stuff, going through pictures, and having a nice long chat. It was wonderful. I took my time packing Jane up, made sure all fluids were good, and eventually departed long past my due at noon. My friends were nice enough to let me hang around that long – and, even better, they sent me on my way with fresh smoked mozzarella, some homemade beef lunch meat, and pepperonis! Heavenly.

Jane and I made our way through Utah and the Four Corners region towards Canyon de Chelly National Monument. This part of the United States remains – and will always remain – my favorite place to drive. The views are spectacular with wide open plains and those scattered red rocks that the Southwest is so famous for. Mesas and buttes and hills are sculpted with interesting erosional features and the depositional patterns that they show off are magnificent. Even non-geologists are impressed by them (I assume). So here’s a few shots that I captured from the road:

This is the north side of the Grand Canyon! Quite a few miles away in this picture, but still amazing that you can see it from US 89.

Hmm, something about this one seems familiar...

Eventually we got down to Canyon de Chelly National Monument and its accompanying town, Chinle, which is located in the Navajo Nation. And can I just say that despite its beauty, I kind of hate traveling in this part of Arizona? No, not for any reasons you’re probably thinking. No, the reason that I hate traveling in this part of Arizona is, of course, ridiculous: it’s the time zones. You see, Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time. But the Navajo Nation does. So when you’re traveling out here during Daylight Savings Time, you are constantly in and out of two different time zones and you never have any idea what time it is. In fact, my phone gave up trying to figure it out and reverted to showing Texas time, which was less than useful. 

Of course, when you’re on a road trip you really don’t need to know what time it is that much. Though I do like knowing what time I’m going to arrive at a place so I know if I will be able to find dinner or not. And I very much dislike having to ask people what time it is like I’m some kind of time traveler or something. I’m sure they’re used to it though.

Once I hit Chinle I went straight to dinner to get some Navajo tacos - one of the most famous dishes of the Navajo (at least to the rest of the non-Navajo people in the area). Basically, a Navajo taco consists of a giant plate-sized piece of frybread with beef chili, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and salsa layered on top. It’s a mess to try and eat and impossible to finish due to the gigantic portion size. In short, it’s perfect. I almost got all the way through mine and then retired for the night in a food coma.

While lazing about, Geoffrey, a friend of mine from Belgium, let me know that he was in the area! He is kind of like my European counterpart – has a blue 1966 Mustang fastback, drives it all around Europe, has all kinds of great adventures in it. So of course I wanted to meet him (and he wanted to meet me)! He was on a tour of Route 66 and was that night staying in Holbrook, AZ. There was some confusion about what time it was – remember the whole time zones thing? – but we decided that we should meet up somewhere along the Mother Road for lunch and a meet n’ greet.  I had a horseback guided tour of the canyon scheduled for the morning, so we set a meetup time of 2PM at Galaxy Diner in Flagstaff, AZ. Kind of a step back in my progress towards Texas, but that’s okay because Flagstaff is great and Route 66 is great and I really don’t mind driving back and forth on that road. Expect a fun post for tomorrow!