Day Seventeen - A Monumental Experience
// August 13th - Monument Valley, Arizona & Utah // Distance today: 676 km // Total: 1104 km //
By now I’ve
been up for 19 hours already. I got up at 1.30 am, got into my car and started
driving. I went on. And on. And on.
And on.
It felt like forever until I reached the gate of the park, until
I reached the first town, and just driving in the middle of the night with
nothing but a straight road for 180 miles made me think this was a bad idea. The fact that I
had to drive very concentrated, especially in the National Park itself, made it
even harder. I think pretty much every single animal that’s living in this park
crossed the street in front of me. Loads of deer, a few stags, a hog even a mountain lion. I felt like I was on a safari.
So many animals, but at this time of the day there were barely any people around. In all those hours I probably didn't pass more than 20 other cars.
I could still see the milky way when I parked for a moment,
and not only when I got out of my tent into the car I saw two shooting stars
already, but also did some lighten my path for a brief moment while driving.
Since
I had to take a few breaks (and walk around, being cautious that neither a wild animal nor an axe murder was around) due to the lack of sleep, I was only about 30 miles away
when the sky started turning from pitch black to a soft, very dark blue, which
turned into a lighter one, and then the faded rainbow colors of the breaking
dawn.
Okay, open Spotify now and put on "Appalachian Morning" by Paul Halley. I actually played this while driving, since it was our road trip song ever since we went to Yellowstone National Park.
I started seeing shapes, the mountains left and right of the street, still grey-ish in color. The typical vegetation, mainly just bushes, around. Here and there some cows next to the street. Then I went over a little hill, and saw the first butte (butte not butt, stop giggling people), just a black silhouette in front of the sky, that now showed a color gradient from a dark blue turning into a bright orange at the horizon.
A few miles later I saw it. Monument Valley, with maybe a dozen of buttes and mesas, and a beautiful daybreak with orange-pink clouds.
It was incredible. I forgot all the hours that I spent in the car, forgot that I barely slept and just gazed at the beauty nature created right in front of me.
Even though the valley was still a bit in the distance, maybe a mile or two as the crow flies, I could not have wished for a better spot, when the run rose up right over the "U" that connected two of the buttes. It was worth every single minute of driving.
After the sunrise I followed the road for a few more miles, but when there was nothing to see anymore except for a rock that was apparently shaped like a Mexican hat (not so exciting), I turned around. And took a bunch of pictures in the middle of the road, because it was still only 7 am, and there were just no other cars. Arizona (and Utah, because that's where I was around that time) apparently love sleeping in.
The fatigue was so present now. But I still didn't want to miss to actually get into Monument Valley, so entering the Navajo Tribal Park. Since it's run by the tribe my annual pass for National Parks didn't cover this, but the entrance fee was worth it nonetheless. I drove the 17 mile-loop, circling around this beautiful landscape that looked like it was right out of a western movie, and stopped at almost every pull-out, because the setting changed so much around every corner, just stunning.
When I finished the loop I was so weary that I took the next parking spot to nap for 30 minutes. A strong coffee ensured that I got home safe, and for the rest of the day I just relaxed in the hammock.
Seeing the sunrise over Monument Valley is probably one of the most beautiful sceneries that I've ever experienced. No matter how far the detour is, if you ever get the chance to visit this part of Arizona and Utah - do it.
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