Travels with Condo

We're back! 

It was quite a learning experience, a Four Corners spring adventure. 

As we crossed the San Juan River at Mexican Hat, there were several groups of rafters floating under the bridge, enjoying the sunny afternoon.

We got to The View Hotel, checked in, dropped Condo (the 17' Casita travel trailer) and headed into Monument Valley Tribal Park. By then it was cloudy and the wind was starting to whip the sand around. The Japanese tour group shown in the second picture was traveling in open, multi-seat jitneys, some of them wearing face masks to keep the dust out and parkas to keep the cold out.

I got a kick out of the traditional hogan with a string of solar walk-lights around the perimeter!

We did see signs of spring ... blossoms on fruit trees in Bluff, Utah, fields and pastures greening up, red leaves on a bush among the boulders in the tribal park and a little black caterpillar crawling on a narrow-leaf yucca.

We did catch a short spell of evening sunshine, which made for a little more drama in the pictures. We were a couple of days shy of the day when the sunset shadow of the west mitten is supposed to cover the east mitten; it wasn't very dramatic.

The brief shaft of sunlight on the buttes the next morning was dramatic ... before it began to snow so hard we couldn't see anything more than a hundred yards away! The hotel does have a stunning view from the dining room, as well as from practically all the rooms. The rooms were VERY nice (biggest, fluffiest bath towels I've ever had in a hotel) and the food in the restaurant was good and moderately priced (the most expensive item on the breakfast menu was a burrito with Spam!). A young German woman next to us was flabbergasted when she ordered the Herb Yazhe burger (named after an old friend who was supt. of Canyon de Chelly NM before he retired and became the #2 in Navajo Tribal Parks) and received a plate heaped with two hamburger patties and vegies between two pieces of fry bread! Service ranged from ho-hum in a couple of instances to generally quite good.

We went west to Goulding's and on west around the mesa to Oljato, which I had never visited before ... it was one of the trading posts John and Louisa Wade Wetherill operated. The post isn't open now and appears in a bit of disrepair; an aircraft runway ends next to the trading post at the right.

The cold and snow made us rethink our plan to spend our first night in Condo dry-camping at Valley of the Gods, so we checked into the Goulding's Good Sam RV park and took advantage of the full hook-ups. There were enough things for us to learn and get used to that it was a good idea. It also gave us time to explore a little more, both in and around Goulding's. We enjoyed a cozy supper, some cards and some reading before turning in for one of the best nights' sleep I've had ... the mattress is as good as I thought it would be!

And, in the morning, it was 23 degrees with a cold wind blowing down the canyon ... musta been zero with the wind chill factor! Hoses froze, etc. We did get a picture of the main Goulding's complex before we headed back. Then Tom discovered that he had not adequately secured the hitch on the ball! We got it properly hooked up after dragging the tongue a few yards, but it was sure cold and distressing for a few minutes.

Things warmed up, we had good Navajo tacos at the Twin Rocks cafe in Bluff and there were several burros calling to Sandy as we came up through McElmo Canyon. Tired, though, by the time we got home. All's well that ends well ... we saw some beautiful country!!! tv