We just spent about 12 hours in the car seeing some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. But there just isn’t much to say about it.

I did take a ton of pics. So did Sarah. And you’ll get to see them all.

We started in Richfield, UT at the Nights Inn… or possibly Knights Inn. You’ll see. Not a bad place. We then wandered our way to Utah Route 24, taking it south through Bicknell to Capitol Reef National Park.

That was pretty beautiful and really set the tone for the rest of the day.

Route 24 continued to Hanksville where we picked up Utah 95, part of the Trail of the Ancients.

That weirdly led to Glen Canyon - but just the northern bit. I went to Glen Canyon in 2004 and hated it quite a bit. You can read about that here.

This time was a bit more fun.

We stopped a few overlooks and saw the northern tip of the lake that should not be.

Moving on, we spent a bunch more time that we thought we would at Natural Bridges National Park. We saw two of the three natural bridges (though it’s hard to take pictures of them) and were thrilled to death with the cliff dwellings. They were pretty cool.

Still in Utah, we hung a right on US Route 191 through Bluff. Bluff isn’t much of a town, but Fort Bluff was amazing. It was a Mormon settlement that is amazingly well preserved, open to the public and FREE. We spent quite a while there reading the plaques and seeing the old cabins. Whoever is keeping this place up and running should be given a metal of honor.

Our path today was sort of zig-zagging our way across sourthern Utah, so we headed a bit west on US 163 to Mexican Hat, so named because of the Mexican Hat Rock that it’s a very high table rock that resembles a Mexican Hat.

This was our introduction to Monument Valley. Amazing. Just amazing. Hard to really put into words, please see our pictures.

We finally crossed into Arizona and drove to Kayanta, through Monument Valley. In Kayanta, we headed east on a road that didn’t really have a whole lot going for it.

But it was the road to Four Corners, where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado meet. You have to go into New Mexico for a tiny bit to get into it, but once there, you can visit all four states at once! And it was only $3 to get in. Not bad considering I was expecting it to be three or four times that.

Cortez, Colorado, our home for the night, wasn’t far away. It was late and we were tired. Cortez is hosting a rodeo, so finding a room wasn’t easy, but we did it at the Tomakawk Motel. Nice little place. Cortez is actually a cool little town.

And this was a short little post. Tomorrow is Albuquerque and the day after that, Roswell! Sit tight!

Here are my pics.
Here are Sarah’s.

Car miles today: 464
Car miles total: 864