Day 3

Slept in ‘til about 8-ish. Packed up and grabbed some breakfast at Starbucks, finally hitting the road by 9:30. We left Flagstaff, heading North toward the Grand Canyon. The drive was long, but gorgeous. It was chilly, but not as bad as we thought it would be. It was pretty windy, though – otherwise it would have been pretty nice. We stopped at a couple of scenic stops along the way, including the Little Colorado River Gorge – VERY cool, especially because it feels like you get a lot closer to the gorge than you do at the Grand Canyon. It was beautiful, and SO worth the stop.

From the Grand Canyon, we headed East toward the Four Corners (where Arizona, Utah, Colorado & New Mexico meet). That was an interesting experience because we spent hours driving there, which was a little out of the way from where we really needed to go, and when we got there, the sign read that the monument closes at 5pm. It was 4:54. As we drove in, the Native American couple that apparently runs the place was driving out. As they passed, they informed us that they were closing. We could not persuade them to let us go and just take a picture, so we drove forward to turn around and drove straight up to the monument. Well, we were too close to just turn around, so we pulled a “Chinese Firedrill” – scrambled from the car and VERY quickly took turns taking a picture of each other on the Four Corners. Then we dove back in the car and tore out of there. The couple was waiting at the gate to lock up, so we handed her the $6 that we were supposed to pay to go in, and we took off. Mission accomplished.

From there we headed East into New Mexico and then North into Colorado. Our plan was to make it to Colorado Springs, but because of our leisurely pace it just didn’t look like we could make it there before 1am. On top of that, we’re driving through the mountains of Colorado, in the dark, with the occasional ice patch, and random ELK standing alongside the road. When we finally found civilization in the town of Pagosa Springs, we made the decision to call it a night and find the nearest Best Western (pet friendly) so we could crash for the night. I feel better about traveling icy roads in daylight, and we’ll be able to actually SEE the mountains through which we’re driving. So, after a 12 hour day, we’re crashing and preparing for an early morning. Big plans for tomorrow! More pictures here...