Day 12 - Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

All -

Each day is like opening up a new page. I woke up to snow on the ground this morning. Sweet.

I had big ambitions for the day. Too big, even before the snow on the road. I was thinking I was going to cover about 185 miles and three parks. I made about 120 miles and two parks.

Monument Valley was AWESOME. It was like having my own four-wheeling snow park! There is a 17-mile dirt loop that wraps in and around all these massive crimson sandstone towers. Some of these towers are 1200 feet and it is like the earth just crumbled around them leaving table tops spotted around the landscape. I speed in among the giants like a game of Grand Turismo.

Along the way a stray dog started to follow me. I must have been five miles from anywhere so I wondered how that dog got out there. I didn't want to feed it and I certainly was not going to give it a ride so the best I could hope for was to not run over it. The dog started running along side the car so I figured I had to accelerate to lose it. I swear that dog kept up at 25 MPH. Soon he was fading in my rearview mirror so I pulled off for another view.

Sure enough, as I turned back to get in my car, there was that dang dog again. He kept showing up like shoes in George Bush's face. So I sped off again.

Anyway, I spent a few hours playing cat and mouse with a rabid dog and marveling at the monuments. This was the landscape that John Ford and John Wayne shot a few westerns in and I got totally lost in it. Again, awesome.

Four Corners is about 100 miles away from Monument Valley. All that is there is a marker on the ground. I felt compelled to go so I can say I did it so, I did it. I stood in four states at the same time. It only cost me three dollars. Of a more interesting note, my trip mileage passed 1,500 miles just before I go to Four Corners.

So I was not going to make it to Mesa Verde so I had about an hour to waste. And the opportunity was presented as the Ute Mountain Casino sprang up in front of my dashboard.

What a depressing, smoke-filled place that was. Here I found all the Indians who were supposed to be selling me stuff on the road today. Everybody was smoking and playing nickel slots. No one looked happy. One old man in a Cowboy hat had a cigarette burn on the back of his jacket up around the shoulder blades. How do you do that? I quickly burned ten dollars myself at the dollar slots and ran towards the door. I could still smell the smoke ten miles down the road.

So tomorrow's plan is adjusting. I'll see Mesa Verde in the morning. I suspect that may be like Monument Valley. I'll be in Durango in the afternoon. By Tuesday or Wednesday I expect to be skiing somewhere. At this pace, I don't think I will see California until 2009.

Hank