The Great American Road Trip - Day 5 - Monument Valley


Monday was a long day of intense, white knuckle driving on our 6 hours journey to Monument Valley in southern Utah. The roads in northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona were covered in slush and ice. For the most part, it was a beautiful clear day, with temperatures ranging from 15-27º and thankfully we missed another huge storm. But, with all the crap on the road, the windshield kept getting dirty and the wiper fluid froze up (or we ran out) and this was our view for about 50 miles on I-40 (I could still see the two big rigs in front of us):




When we finally made it to Monument Valley, it was really beautiful, but I on took 9 photos with my real camera. Here are two of them:






Instead, I was having too much fun driving the back roads and enjoying the scenery. At first, I felt a little bad about renting a Hummer since they aren't very environmentally friendly. But with the weather and road conditions we've experienced, I wouldn't have wanted any other vehicle. The thing got better gas milage than we expected and it handled the snowy, icy roads with ease. Not once did the car slip or slide (unless I wanted it to) and it actually handles pretty well.




I was having a blast driving that thing around the snowy, muddy roads inside of Monument Valley and Jess got a great shot of my "trick driving":



Notice the little black object in the bottom right hand side of the image above... that is my Canon G7 point and shoot which bravely shot this video (it's only 15 seconds long. I drove the first two passes and Jess drove the last one as I handheld the camera):





Be sure to check back tomorrow to see the last day of our trip as we make our way home via Route 66.

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Posted: Tue - January 23, 2007 at 08:40 AM          

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