May 16, to Monument Park Chenle, AZ

Cold last night but OMG there were a lot of stars!

On the road by 9.40 am, narrowly missing a mama roadrunner with about six chicks darting across the road in front of us. We morphed from cactus to pine trees as we got into high country, 5,000 then 6,000 feet, it snows here, there was a pullout for fixing your chains.  Got as high as 6,800 and although we saw signs to watch out for the elk, we didn’t see any.  The road was pretty rough.

We travelled along the I17 north to Flagstaff, then I40 east toWinslow.....

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner, In Winslow, Arizona and Such a fine sight to see, it’s Walmart my lord……"  Thought we should top up with diesel too as we are going places today where there might not be any stations.  Surprisingly she took 33 gallons but it was way over full thanks to the slope of the forecourt.

Along I40/Route 66 not far from Flagstaff in northern AZ we come across Meteor Crater, we went here on our Harley trip in 2006 and it was amazing then, so didn't revisit again.

The actual meteor crater, pretty amazing!

Back on the road on Hwy87 for 30 miles then 264 which was supposed to be the scenic route east to join 191 north to Chinle and the Canyon de Chelly National Monument where we hoped to camp for the night.  We wondered if we would every see civilisation again as we traversed through Hopi land (arid farmland with old houses) then Apache (better road, a brand new care facility/hospital in the idle of nowhere) but also some rough dwellings with piled up rubbish and finally Navajo land.

Scenic Route

Stunning!

How did all this get here?

We pass by towns called inspiration names like Twin Arrows, then Twin Guns so we carry on the theme with twin everything for the rest of the today’s roadie.

When we got to Chinle found it was actually a small town and we easily found out way to the Cottonwood Camp ground and slotted ourselves into site 80 for the night. Minimal services here but what can you expect for $14 a night.  We have a grill and a picnic table, there are toilets but no showers.  We choose a shady site, we will need to run the generator if we need AC but it only got around 24C all of today and there is a nice breeze blowing.  A couple of women across the way stopped to talk as I was taking a photo of the wild pig tootling through the campsite.

Hope this pig doesn't end up on a camp fire anytime soon.

We also crossed back into mountain time so we lost an hour today, so when we arrived at 3.15pm it was already 4.15pm.  Once set up poured Kim and beer and me a sneaky little drink as alcohol is prohibited in the park.

Cooked out on the grill and followed up with toasting marshmallows over the still hot coals.

Sorry no blog tonight, no cell coverage and no internet.