Blue Mountain, Blanding UT
To get from Page AZ to Blanding UT we essentially repeated a portion of our last year’s trip. We drove right past Upper Antelope Canyon, then made our way to Kayenta AZ. I was looking for the Navajo Police Station, like in that show “Dark Winds”, if you can watch it, but I think it was staged for the show.
Then we went through Monument Valley, just spectacular as we’ve seen before. There was a bit of traffic jam, some free range cattle got onto the road. As we neared Forest Gump Point, we saw plenty of cars and people jumping into the road to get that iconic picture.
The road continues through Mexican Hat over the San Juan River. It’s a little tight, but Tom had no problem navigating us through it. We went through Bluff UT, passing the campground were we stayed last year.
Blanding is a small town, the campground is just south of it. We had a nice site with some trees and pretty flowers on the edge. Once we setup, we went to town for quick lunch. I’ve been fighting sinus congestion since our last day in Page, and now it was full-blown. I spend the next day medicating, hydrating and resting. It took another day for me to be even able to have energy to do anything. So we decided to take a ride to Natural Bridges National Monument . We drove past the main road to Bears Ears National Monument , we could see the iconic silhouette of two buttes forming the ears. The area is expansive with huge buttes, canyons and many indigenous artifacts, hogans and petroglyphs. Let’s hope it is preserved.
Natural Bridges is a small park, it contains three largest natural bridges in the world. It is worth a visit as natural bridges will eventually break down and fall. There are short hikes to the overlooks, though you can also hike down into the canyon for a better look. Since it was super hot, again, we opted to just take the views in from the overlooks.
We wanted to grab lunch in town but we found out that everything, and I mean everything, including the supermarket, were closed. Lunch at home then and then packing for our next stop in Durango CO.
