Road Trip Continues...

Thursday, Jan 16th, we said a sad goodbye to family in

Salt Lake City and headed south. We decided instead of going

straight to Arizona we would do some site-seeing. 

We wanted to go to Mesa Verde in southern Colorado so

we headed in that direction and ended up seeing several

awesome areas along the way.

Tom wondered where the "hole in the rock" was and

just as he said that we went around the corner heading

towards Moab and there it was.

Around the edge of this rock is just a bunch of tourist stuff.

Not a thrill.

But then we got to Monticello and found the new temple.

It wasn't hard to find since it is about the only thing in

Monticello.

As we continued south we decided to take a detour and

go to Natural Bridges National Monument. There are

three natural bridges. You can hike down to them but

we didn't have time to hike to all three.

Bridge #1

Bridge #2

We did hike down to Bridge #3.

It wasn't too bad climbing down, but climbing up

was a different story. The altitude was a killer.

We took another detour and the road took us down this

switch-back dirt road down the face of this incredible

mesa face. You can't imagine this road unless you

were on it. Very scary!!!!

We stayed in Cortez, CO and then today went to Mesa Verde.

I really didn't know what to expect, but this place

was really fascinating. To think that the Pueblo people

built and lived in the face of these cliffs in unreal.

Another homestead….

We got to hike down to "Spruce Tree" which is one

to the three areas that they allow you to explore.

This is the opening to one of the "Kivas" which is where

they would go to get warm. They had fire inside and

there are places to sit.

Inside one of the Kivas...

There water supply was from springs that flowed

through the rocks.

We then headed for the Four Corners site.

It was a joke but as least we can say we saw it.

I'm standing in Utah and New Mexico.

The little booths behind me are all around the site where

the Indians sell their jewelry and stuff.

Finally we made it to Snowflake, AZ where we

spent the night. As we approached Snowflake, we could

see the temple up on the only hill in the area. It's a

beautiful temple and built around a golf course.

Of course Tom said he knew golf was a

celestial sport.

Tomorrow we head to Mesa to see Quinten and his family.