Day 31: A tale of two Angels: Monument Valley, UT to Bloomfield, NM

Our neighbour last night from from the rental armada. Mrs Milddogs pointed out the picture of the mesa from Monument Valley on the side of the motorhome. We found it funny.

It was a good night sleep despite the wind. Yup, we’ve got big wind again. Slow drag out of bed as we weren’t in a rush. Morning walk was windy and dusty. You could barely see the mesas and buttes through the sand blowing in the air. We were really glad we did the tour yesterday. Our Navaho Taco would have been very sandy today.

Morning walk in sand storm like conditions

We pulled out after the rental armada left and after an uneventful tank dumping. Funny story (or not). I had put the drain cap (the secondary seal) on slightly askew. It may have been possible for whatever small leak we have in the primary valves to allow small amounts of stuff to hit the ground. So, I’ll check that better next time. By small amounts I mean we occasionally have about 100 millilitres of fluid at dump time. That’s usually 3-4 days. Let’s discuss better things.

Have you ever noticed life is like a box of chocolates? Well, stop number one of the day was at the Forrest Gump Point. The place Forrest stopped running. Like many careful people, we pulled over and grabbed some photos. We really have to work on having proper zoom levels 🙁 The van wanted in on the action but I shot it looking the wrong way. Sorry van! There are no stopping signs at the actual spot but slightly down the road where you can see traffic coming they lower the speed limit to 35mph and have pullouts. It was fun and quick cause you have to dodge cars. Wish I had kept my beard 🙂

Next planned sight was Mexican Hat. Our friend described the drive into the town of Mexican Hat as going down a steep hill and turning right just before you hit the side of the cliff. Yup, it was just like that. When going down those big hills I aways remember the way Dendog taught me to brake modulate. Brake, cool, brake, cool. Brake on the flats. Dragging the brakes is bad. More life lessons from Dendog.

The Mexican Hat rock formation was pretty cool. Smaller than I imagined. It is part of the Valley of the Gods which you mostly drive through. There is a valley of the gods dirt road but it was not for us due to roughness and water.

Next stop was the four corners. We had too. It’s not super exciting and frankly it’s a bit trashy, particularly compared to Monument Valley. But hey, we stood in the center of 4 states at once.

We had an opportunity to get the van into another state. Colorado! Here’s your sign.

Now the funny (we hope) story. We had booked a campground in Bloomfield, NM. When we got there it did not appear like the pictures we had looked at. Hmmm. Oh well, we checked in and got spot #3. Owner was very nice. We hooked up. Mrs Milddogs cooked up some lovely pork stuffed wontons. I ran across the 6 lane highway 40 feet from our campsite to get some beer (Coors Light, of course) from the gas station. Beer at the corner store: memories of Quebec!

Post dinner we discussed options and found the spot we thought we were booking. So, we packed up in about 5 minutes to go and investigate the other spot which is on government land. Fresh in my mind was that wrong decision we made in Texas to move on to the Highway rest area rather than stay at the beautiful vista. This was our campsite.

This is where we moved to. Worst case we can backtrack the 20 minutes to our real campsite. The views are a 40 foot walk from our van. Now the challenge. The wind. It’s bad again. We nosed into the wind hoping for a better night than we had way back in Matagorda, TX. But, our site at the RV park was also inundated with wind that cam ripping down the highway.

Note that Angel Peak RV Park did not misrepresent anything, we just confused the two.

There is another couple here in a Winnebago Revel and we passed a bunch of other vans at pullouts along the way. My morning walk here should be much nicer than it would have been 🙂

Another day of beautiful sights and fun stops. Another day of wind, but mostly at our back this time!

Tomorrow we are heading through Albuquerque and may stay there. We probably will push a bit further east as we have a nice place in Amarillo, TX the day after and would be good to have a shorter drive to that spot.

Did I mention the wind yet? Mrs Milddogs said it’s like sleeping on a boat and feeling the waves.

Oh, that same friend mentioned above also suggested I make the images clickable so you can see me and Mrs Milddogs with more bigness! Click away!

Boom Shakalaka!