October Surprise- El Morro National Monument & Canyon De Chelly National Monument 10/1 - 10/3/10

This trip started a little differently as the actual destination was only supposed to be El Morro NM. The plan was to spend the day at the Albuquerque Balloon Festival on Saturday morning and afternoon, then making the relatively quick drive to El Morro.

In short - The Balloon Festival S-U-C-K-E-D. What a total disappointment. We should have known when the hotel front desk clerk laughed at us when we asked for a 7:00a.m. wake up call and said "That Late??" Moral of story - If you want to actually be able to see the balloons close up, wake up at 4am and get to the launch site at 5:00 am. Yeah - not happening EVER. We headed over at 8am and were not allowed to park anywhere, and I mean ANYWHERE. There were guards posted all around the perimeter and if the car slowed down, we were immediately accosted. I suppose if you have seen one hot air balloon, you have seen them all - even 150 of them at once. We lasted 15 minutes, and we high-tailed it out of there, which worked to our advantage.

The rumours were that we were in for thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we headed out to Grants, NM ASAP. We were able to right our past wrongs and get the stamp for the NW New Mexico Visitor Center, which we missed on our first visit to El Malpais NM. Also - the National Convention of Stampers (read - crazy people obsessed like us) added a new picture stamp to El Malpais.

After a beautiful drive, we came upon the entrance and the enchanting view of the sandstone bluff itself. We were met inside the small, older visitor center by a very kind NPS ranger who gave us the very valuable points map for the Inscription Trail and headed onto the trail. Our fat asses were sucking wind at the top of the trail (which was a grueling 50 feet, I think....but a HARD 50 feet at that)

The trail brought us to the water pond that travelers used over the centuries while traversing the region. What was expected was a lovely, crystal clear pond. What we actually got was a New York City Puddle, complete with the bugs, smell and I think even a piece of feces floating on the surface. The idea of drinking it was as appetizing as a Panda Express lunch.

The Inscription Trail was easily interpreted with the provided map. There were literally hundreds of carvings, names and phrases visible along the short (and thankfully, now flat) trail.

The sky was what Matt likes to call "achingly blue". Just an absolutely perfect morning.......As we exited, Brooke played an evil trick......she turned left back onto the highway.

Now the plan was to head back to Albuquerque, but since Matt doesn't know left from right, or north from south, or his head from his (ahem......so sorry. Back to the blog), the turn was taking us directly to Gallup, being a gateway to Canyon De Chelly. This is no hop-skip-and-a-jump to be sure, but doable. And in the Cale's world....."Doable" means breaking every speed limit known to man to make it to the next NPS site.

Along the way - we FINALLY found our first Continental Divide Trail stamp. This one has eluded us for a while, but my evil trick paid off just for this baby.

Now to the state of Arizona and back to the Navajo Nation. This area of the country is as lovely as any we have been to, however it has one major drawback that kills us every time we visit. The amount of stray and wandering dogs on the road is staggering. Each town has a dozen that you need to swerve to avoid hitting, and trotting through the streets. The irony of this situation is that these animals are the sweetest, most docile creatures you could ever imagine. Brooke has made it a goal in life to go to the reservation and bring one of these sweet babies home.

Chinle, AZ was our final destination and we pulled in just as the ominous clouds followed our car. We had only a few moments of sunshine left and needed to make the most of it.

Well - Looky here......Someone else screwed up a stamp. This was a moment of pure glory for Brooke, as the blame winds had temporarily shifted.

Wow.....what an amazingly beautiful place. In the middle of nowhere, comes an oasis of beauty that knocked our socks off. The drive throughout the park is okay, but relatively unmaintained (watch the potholes......oh yeah, and the dogs), but each stop on the tour was breathtaking.

And then there was this little pumpkin pie......Nicknamed "Shay" by us, he was sleeping under a cactus at one of the viewpoints. I made a quick whistle, and he sprung to life. Forgetting the view, Brooke swallowed hard when I had to say goodbye.....This is TOUGH as you have this rotten feeling he will meet his demise on the side of a road somewhere and I just wanted to scoop him into the car with us.

We left Canyon De Chelly very impressed (with the canyon and with ourselves for making it out there on an unplanned journey).

FINAL RATINGS -

El Morro National Monument - 7/10
Canyon de Chelly Monument - 8/10