Billboards and canyons... or, the Really Good Part

6/3/2018

Morning in Santa Rosa was brisk and a bit chilly, a welcome change from the oppressive Texas heat and humidity.  Jane and I wasted no time hitting the road – to be quite frank, I’m still very suspicious about how well behaved she has been. I like to think that maybe she’s just as eager to get out into the stunning New Mexico scenery as I am. Where Texas is all huge scrubby endless plains that crush you with their monotony, New Mexico is rife with diverse scenery. A lot of people might complain that a lot of the scenery is, well, gigantic billboards. And they’d be partially right.

 

It is concerning to me that this is a selling point worthy of an entire billboard.

Yes, all of these billboards are for the same place...

But a lot of New Mexico is visually stunning. Rolling grassy plains, soft orange and purple and white striped hills, imposing slab-sided red cliffs, and lava flows all find their place under a brilliant blue sky peppered with far-off storm clouds.

Or, you know, really-close-by storm clouds.

There's a tornado in there somewhere

I got an emergency tornado warning on my phone at the exact moment that my left arm – which was hung out the window, of course – was abruptly painfully pelted with hail. Fortunately, the storm was far enough away that we were able to just skirt it without any silly business. It’s not like a little hail has ever bothered Jane. It does hinder my ability to hang my arm out the window, though, so I try to avoid it.

The storm passed and we carried on, mostly entertaining ourselves with the state safety signs.

Please resume being unsafe.

Soon we found ourselves in Albuquerque. Say what you will about this town and its reputation, it is truly beautiful and really actually nicely laid out. After the cramped confines of Austin I can appreciate the wide boulevards and huge amounts of space. And, most importantly, I can appreciate the wealth of green chile available everywhere.

I stopped at Frontier on the advice of a friend and got myself a Frontier Burrito – a standard New Mexico-style huge beef burrito smothered in green chili. Fifteen minutes later, I very much regretted that decision as I contemplated the huge amount of food that I had just eaten. I really don’t know how these people stay conscious after consuming these things – I’m a big eater, and I still badly needed a nap afterwards. But alas, a nap was not an option as I had another afternoon drive ahead of me. So I moaned and groaned and then got on with it.

Somewhere west of Gallup, we hit “the really good part”. Every road trip, there is a time when I suddenly realize that everything is just perfect. I’ll be sitting there nestled in my comfy vinyl seat, Jane’s motor humming along industriously, the wind whipping through my hair and the radio playing a great song, when I’ll round a corner and stumble upon some incredible view. And in that moment, the whole world will spread out in front of me, and the call of that stretch of deliciously fresh black asphalt will heighten, drawing us on towards adventure. And in that moment, it always occurs to me that there is nothing in this world that I would rather be doing.

Oh, yes.

The Four Corners region of the United States is second to very few in scenic views. For this trip though, I had one specific scenic destination in mind: Canyon de Chelly. Some may recall that I actually visited this place a couple years back. At the time I had to cut my stay short, so I missed some of the spectacular overlooks that the canyon is known for. So this time, I figured I’d make a quick stop to finish my tour of the park.

Jane and I arrived in late afternoon and headed up the South Rim scenic drive for some breathtaking views. It wasn’t pure laziness that had us arriving late – the canyon is best seen later in the afternoon when the low sun highlights the staggering huge red cliffs that form the walls of the canyon.

I made my way to the White House Ruins hike, one of the few unguided hikes available for the park. A quick march down 700 feet of elevation via switchbacks got me to the canyon floor, where cottonwoods and grasses line trickling creeks in the shade of the towering canyon walls.

Mega cross bedding! whoaaaa mannnn

A strange erosive contact with a... channel fill? Probably?

White House Ruins is a complex of dwellings built at two different elevations: one set on the canyon floor, and one set up in a notch about 20 feet up the cliff. There seems to be some difference in opinion in why it was built this way – maybe an older generation built the first dwellings up in the notch during a time when the canyon floor was higher up, and then a later generation built the lower complex sometime later when the canyon floor had lowered. Or maybe half of a tribe really liked climbing up to bed, and the other half didn’t. Or maybe they had a bad scavenger problem, so the food storage was placed up in the notch where they would go undisturbed. The possible explanations are endless and fun to think about!

After hiking back up – I’m a bit more out of shape than I thought I was – Jane and I headed on to the Spider Rock overlook. More incredible views! And no, I don’t know why it’s called Spider Rock.

 

What an awesome pinnacle! It's 830 feet tall.

From there, the shadows were getting long so we wrapped it up with a few more overlook stops. Photos really cannot do this place justice. The sheer magnitude of it is lost in a photo, much like that of the Grand Canyon. But I try to fit in as much as I can, and show it as best I can.

 

Birds for scale in the center of the photo.

A little farm and a little house in a huge world.

A perfect moment.

I’m glad to finally be back out in the part of the country that is full of awesome hikes, spectacular roads, and incredible scenery! Tomorrow I’ll be heading somewhere brand new and I can’t wait.

Until then… Kelly signing out.