Navajo road

In Farmington NM this morning it was a brisk 16 degrees F, although breezeless and comfortable once the car's heater got going. Our first stop was Four Corners National Monument, where the borders of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet. The drive to it was beautiful, with mesas and a mixture of snow and sand visible beneath the scrub. It was less busy here than the last time I'd been through (summer '98), but we stopped for Indian frybread and coffee, both wonderfully hot to fight off the cold. Rather than pose ourselves in four states at one time, we let Smith do the work, although as you can see he had a preference for New Mexico and Arizona, and we never got him set up with one leg in each state. Perhaps he's partial now to New Mexico, or Colorado/Utah were too cold.

Most of the drive was through the Navajo Reservation, and overall it was relatively free of a lot of the roadside signs and other kinds of things that distract from the landscape. We looked at Shiprock Peak from the road, but since it's considered a sacred place you can't get much closer. Several similar peaks emerge from the landscape, but none are as big or as striking as Shiprock.

Entering Gallup we took a small diversion to Red Rock State Park. It hosts an annual gathering of 50 different tribes for the Intertribal Indian Ceremonial, and so in terms of infrastructure the park is full of buildings, corrals, amphitheaters, and stables. But on a day like today these were completely empty, and there was literally no one around and it felt like a ghost town. Eventually we found a parking area that led to the Pyramid Trail, and it was worth being persistent. The trail winds up into the eroded sandstone pinnacles and rocky ledges, and allows you to see not just the geological formations but also I-40 as it passes by. It was a very pleasant afternoon hike and break from driving. Rich was reminded of the film "Cars", and we could guess that in the research for the film that the writers and producers must have stopped here. You could think of the fictional town of Radiator Springs, the silhouettes of the emerging rocks, and the line that Rich repeated that on the highway they're "passing by but they just don't see how beautiful it is here". Smith struck a suitably pensive and contemplative pose on a rocky outcrop to consider it all, and then we hiked back down on the rocky and snowy path to our car.

We're in Gallup tonight, and then head south to Silver City via Arizona for a two-night stay at some cabins in Pinos Altos. They are predicting snow for this area tomorrow, so we'll see what the travel is like, and whether we'll actually leave any of the cold behind us.