Canyons and whatnot

Hello, dear reader. Here’s what we’ve been up to for the last little while:

• Our last missive left off in Utah; from there we headed into Colorado. The spreadsheet originally had us heading southeast for Ouray and the ‘Million Dollar Highway’, but a faulty water heater in the caravan necessitated a switcheroo for the nearest Jayco service centre further north in Montrose, CO to get ourselves fixed up.

• Not a bad swap all round: losing one of the most spectacular, but cliff-edge-scary scenic drives in the USA, but gaining our hot water back, plus a detour to a National Park that we wouldn’t have otherwise got to, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Bleak in winter

• The Black Canyon is one of the newest and least well known Parks in the system. It’s a dramatic, dark, craggy canyon: pretty high up, and gets a lot of bad weather in winter – and apparently also on the cusp of summer, if you visit in an unseasonal cold snap. We got snowed on again: a repeat of Bryce, where the kids stay in the car with the heater on, while parents take it in turns to run to scenic overlooks.

• The drive from Montrose south to Cortez took us via the ski town of Telluride, then over the Lizard Head Pass at 10,000ft, with picture book snowy scenes (but not enough shoulder-plowing to allow a picture book snowy photo stop - soz).

Getting on the property ladder

• Cortez is the base for exploring Mesa Verde National Park, the only NP dedicated solely to 'preserving the works of man’, fact fans. Mesa Verde is home to a bunch of pueblo archaeological sites from AD 700-1300, most notably some spectacular cliff dwellings: whole villages built in the canyon walls. We had a good look around the park on our first day, and had booked a ranger-led tour for the following day to go into one of the villages (via some climbing up and down ladders). Unfortunately, the weather turned on us again, and the morning of the tour saw heavy snow and 0 degrees, which scuppered that.

Half a foot per state

• We drove through the snow into the Navajo Nation, towards the Four Corners Monument, where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona join: a brief but fun tourist stop. Tourism is a major part of the Navajo economy, and sites like Four Corners draw a decent crowd paying entry fees, and shopping for arts and crafts at the roadside stalls. The parks are very underdeveloped compared to those in the federal system: we were one of many vehicles on a wet day at Four Corners who nearly got stuck in the boggy clay carpark.

Take that you no-good cattle-rustlin' varmint

• On the way to Monument Valley we stopped for lunch at Bluff Fort, UT, a historical pioneer village with an army of enthusiastic senior volunteers, and a cracking dress-up section. Mo got to be a pioneer woman and a gunslinger, and decided the latter was more her style.

• Monument Valley is an amazing sight. If you’ve ever watched a Western, you’ve seen Monument Valley, but the scale is what gets you in person: the endless flat horizon, punctuated seemingly at random by stunning mesas, buttes, and spires. It’s all Navajo land, and the park itself is a 16-mile loop of rugged off-road that takes a couple of hours: even in a truck, it’s a fairly rough ride, and many people opt for a guided tour instead in an army-style vehicle. We saw a few people in sedans who were probably going to head home via Dan’s Discount Suspension Repair.

Jandals not recommended

• Arizona is in the Mountain timezone, but doesn’t observe Daylight Saving, so it’s an hour behind Utah and Colorado - apart from the Navajo Nation, which does follow Daylight Saving. The time on your phone gets pretty confused as you drive across the north of Arizona, cutting in and out of Navajo land.

• A few years back, Horseshoe Bend near Page, AZ was a hidden gem, a relatively unknown short hike offering a gorgeous view of the Colorado River. Then Instagram happened, and now it’s an absolute zoo. Quite a few people have fallen off the cliff in search of the perfect selfie, with a fatality as recently as a few months ago, so there’s now a fence across a small part of the drop, although most people seem to prefer to perch on an unfenced part of the cliff edge for that dream shot. If you want to risk life and limb for the ‘gram, be my Darwinian guest, but to the parents holding small children perilously close to a sheer drop, have a word to yourself. You’ll be pleased to know, dear reader, that we didn’t jeopardise our progeny or wildly successful travel blog empire by straying outside the fences.

Almost worth falling off a cliff for

• We popped in to the south part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to see the palaeontology exhibit at Big Water visitor centre, where a previously unknown species of dinosaur, Nothronychus graffami, was discovered a few years ago. A pot-bellied mainly-vegetarian dinosaur doesn’t sound too scary (and a good description of me on a health kick), but even if those giant scythe claws were only used for digging into termite mounds, you wouldn’t want to spill this beast’s pint.

All along the watchtower

• We’ve visited the Grand Canyon before, but you could go a hundred times and still be blown away by your first glimpse: the sheer scale of it! We entered the park from the less-trafficked eastern side, and started at the Desert View Watchtower, which would be a lovely bit of architecture even if it wasn’t built next to an amazing canyon.

Mo getting her kicks on Route 66

• After Grand Canyon we headed south, and stopped for lunch in Williams, AZ, giving us a few miles on our old friend Route 66, and a proper old school diner experience.

• Cold and wet is never that much fun, and a week or so of not-great weather meant more time than usual stuck in the van, with a bit of cabin fever setting in, and everyone getting on each other’s nerves a little bit more than usual. As we’re getting further south into Arizona, we’re thankfully back to sunshine and shorts, which makes everything better

• Recent football events mean we need to find somewhere to watch the Champions’ League final next weekend. We’ll be in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico, with Roswell our best bet to find a sports bar: I quite like the fact that I’ll be watching the bizarre sight of Spurs contesting a major European final in a town best known for UFO sightings.

Lost and found – if you come across the following, please let us know:

• One of Kitty’s merino socks, turfed out of the pram in a Walmart in Oregon

• One pair of Mo’s sandals, suspected buried in the sand behind our campsite in Mojave, CA

• Mo’s baseball cap, left at a shuttle bus-stop somewhere in Grand Canyon NP

BEERWATCH: Colorado is probably the second craftiest part of the US after the Pacific Northwest, so there was plenty of good beer to have a sniff at. As a long-established beer nerd state, there’s a decent selection in most stores, and a more eclectic range of styles, with most breweries also helpfully offering a mixed dozen. I’ve been a long term fan of New Belgium, but I was a bit disappointed with most of the new stuff I tried, and I don’t like their recent rebrand. We have a fridge full of their always tasty ‘Citradelic’ , but the bronze goes to the very interesting 'The Hemperor', which adds hemp hearts to an already very dank IPA. Coloradans love their Belgian styles, and while I couldn’t find anything by Fort Collins' excellent but tiny Funkwerks at stores in Western CO, most other breweries seemed to throw something funky into their lineup too. Highly commended to Upslope Belgian Pale Ale and Great Divide ‘Colette’ farmhouse ale, but silver goes to Avery Brewing’s excellent ‘White Rascal’ Belgian white. Oskar Blues are a big name, and their 'Dale’s Pale Ale' is undeniably tasty, but the gold goes to ‘G’Knight’ Imperial Red IPA, an absolute cracker.

MOMO’S PLAYGROUND REVIEWS: Mo gave a strong grade to the Page RV Park, for an indoor pool plus a decent playground. The trailer village inside Grand Canyon National Park also gets a good review, with lots of room for velcro catch and frisbee, although the latter featured a spectacular tumble on the concrete, leaving Mo with a ‘you should see the other guy’ set of cuts and bruises on her mouth and nose. Mo is quite the badass.

BOOK REPORT: Not doing work or watching TV in the evenings means a bit more time than usual for reading (children’s bedtime permitting). Here’s the reading list so far in rough order of choiceness:

• Stephen King – Misery (old fave from home)

• John Irving – The World According to Garp

• Jeff Tweedy – Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) (on Bo’s Kobo)

• David Sedaris – Christmas on Ice (from a thrift store in Moab)

• Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give (from a book swap at the KoA)

• David Sedaris – Let’s Talk About Diabetes With Owls (thrift store)

• Hans Rosling – Factfulness