R and J in the USA

Arizonans knows something that most of the rest of us don’t know. And that is this – Arizona is ever so much more than one big, hot, scorpion-infested, rattlesnaking, cactus-filled, sea of suffocating temperatures and hot, dry, skin-burning sunny desert. Don’t worry, Arizona – your secret is safe with us! We won’t tell everyone that the Sonoran Desert is the most biodiverse, wet desert in the world. We won’t mention that there are tropical monsoons in the summer that bring wet tropical air and intense thunderstorms through the state. We certainly won’t mention the cool mountain streams and stunning swimming holes to be found within the world’s largest continiguous ponderosa pine forest. We won’t mention the lakes, grasslands or woodlands and we certainly won’t mention that scorpions and rattlesnakes, while prevalent, are not going to jump out and bite you everywhere you turn. Oh, and there are basically no mosquitoes. We wouldn’t mention these things that Arizonans are quite happy that the rest of the world doesn’t know. They are quite happy to keep the secret of Arizona safe with them and keep the rest of the world too intimidated by its many harsh and scary realities to decide to come move here. And we are happy to help them keep the secret. We won’t lay on too heavy how much we loved every minute of our time here, enjoying all the different landscapes. We won’t mention how many times our jaws dropped in awe at the stunning features that are so commonplace that only the biggest and grandest of them get names and signs and park designations, leaving the features and phenomenon on the landscape that are simply beautiful to be simply non-descript scenery – scenery that, if any one of these roadside features were in our home state of New York, they would be go-to spots for people to admire from miles around. No, in Arizona, it is only the features that are so spellbinding that all you can do is gasp, wordless and slack-jawed that get such designations. We won’t mention the year-round warm, sunny weather, nor the access to endless opportunities for natural beauty and recreation even from Arizona’s biggest urban centers. We won’t mention the relatively low cost of living, diverse cultural scene, thriving economy and job opportunities in Arizona’s largest city.  And we certainly won’t mention the peacefulness to be found driving, hiking, walking or breathing the crisp clean air to be found throughout the state. We’ll let all that stay Arizona’s little secret. Especially because, it’s true, Arizona is filled with scary creatures like scorpions, rattle-snakes, javelinas and even Gila monsters. It is so filled with them that we didn’t see a single one in our 6.5 days driving through it all. We did see elk, bighorn sheep, all manner of birds and we certainly heard coyotes and even a few teeny little desert lizards scurrying about across a path. And, it is also true, Arizona has desert and lots of it. It’s all true. Arizona has dust storms and the summer heat can reach as high as an unbearable 120 degrees. And, if you are not too excited about living in the suburbs of a city so filled with pavement that it has 6 lanes roads, not just as highways, but as the normal thoroughfare through block after block of strip malls, where you can drive a handful of miles and pass 4 separate Walgreens, then you won’t be too excited to live in the greater Phoenix area. And, if you are looking for a kind of green, lush biodiversity that eliminates the memories of different shades of browns and reds, you are not going to find it here in Arizona. All of that is very real and we are very happy to keep Arizona’s secret about the purity of the air, the beautiful landscapes to be found nearly everywhere, the endless opportunities for recreating and the peace that abounds. But we will not hide that Arizona is definitely a place worth visiting at least once, especially since there are many residents of Arizona, like the largest native population in the country, the Navajo Nation whose reservation spans a massive section of the northeastern part of Arizona, extending into southern Utah and northwestern New Mexico, that survive on the bounty that tourists bring into the state. So, definitely come, the Arizonans will be happy to welcome you – especially if you plan to eventually go back home and leave the secret splendors of Arizona for them to enjoy.

We came into Arizona aware of its many famous dangerous things that can kill you, or at least, give a painful story to tell. We left unscarred by any such encounters.  We did not, however, leave Arizona fully unscathed. By the time we would cross it’s eastern border on our way to New Mexico, our brand new shocks and tires were far from brand new, a part of our bike rack made of plastic and steel was pointing in the wrong direction and we were short one solar panel. Each of these has a story worth telling and an insurance call worth making, both of which we will do. Despite being a little worse for the wear, we loved our Arizona adventures from start to finish. We began our journey into Arizona driving from Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California 3 hours east towards Glendale where we would meet up with Julie’s friend Tobi and her husband Christian for dinner at a place they chose just so Julie could enjoy cheesy bread for the first time in a decade or so. Picazzo’s is a mostly gluten-free restaurant that had an entire menu filled with dairy free options (and vegan options for those that don’t go in for meat). Julie nearly lost her mind devouring said cheesy bread and then eating her first EVER chicken Parmesan – a dish she had long secretly coveted. For those that don’t know it, Julie was allergic to chicken for most of her life. Actually, we don’t know how long of her life she was allergic to it – only that she was definitely allergic as a kid and it took her until she was approximately 43 to realize that she should probably just take an updated allergy test and see if she had grown out of it. After over 3 decades of not eating chicken (despite it being one of her favorite foods, especially the wing variety), Julie was given the news that she was no longer allergic to eating fowl of any kind. All of a sudden, chicken wings, duck eggs and turkey for Thanksgiving were all back on the menu. And Julie went temporarily insane, treating chicken wings like oxygen for the first few months, inhaling them at any chance she got, and making a video of each “first”. The first time she ate a chicken wing is captured on video, as is the first time she ate buffalo chicken wings. Then, of course, the first time she ate barbecue chicken wings and, most certainly the first time she ate turkey for Thanksgiving, all recorded for posterity. But, somewhere along through the decades, Julie also figured out that she was allergic to dairy and couldn’t eat gluten because of how it inflames the thyroid condition she has. So, even once chicken came back on the menu, chicken parmesan was still way off it, so she had never had it in her 45 years on the planet. No parmesan, and no gluten-filled bread coating – so no chicken parmesan. Well, on our first night in Phoenix, that was all about to change. When Julie took her first ever bite of chicken parmesan, there was joy – much joy. It was worth the wait. And, incidentally, Julie recommends to anyone being allergic to one of your favorite foods for a good 30 years. There is no sauce more delicious than relief from three decades of deprivation. 

Christian and Tobi were not just good restaurant pickers, they were also fantastic and generous hosts. Being RVers themselves (real RVers, with a 60 foot 5th wheel trailer with slide-outs, a veritable apartment on wheels!), they deeply understood our needs and welcomed us to do all of the disposing and refilling we could want. They gave us a great spot to park for the night, a hot shower in the morning and we left replenished from the various dumpings and refillings that they allowed us to do. That includes filling up the tank of the joy of connecting with good friends.

We scrambled to leave Tobi and Christian’s house in time to get to our 8AM race in Peoria. We got there in time to get our race bibs, get ready to run and promptly find out that it is the half marathon that starts at 8AM and our race would not start until 9. In most life situations, finding out that you scrambled to get somewhere on time and found out you arrived an hour early would be an inconvenience when you realized you had plenty of extra time to stay at home, getting things done or lounging in bed. This is one of the best parts of van life. There is no wasted time. We have our house with us, wherever we go! That hour would not be squandered. Since we both fell asleep late and woke up early, Ryan took the extra time to catch a few more minutes of shut eye, getting right back into bed, since our bed was right there with us in the parking lot. And Julie had left California feeling unsatisfied to not have finished the California song before crossing over into Arizona and realizing it might be two days before she had time to get to it – something she really prefers not to do. All of a sudden she had one hour right here at the beginning of our time in Arizona to finish it up. When 9AM finally rolled around, we had a little bit more rest under our belts and Julie had a finished California song and was elated to be able to put her full focus on Arizona.

We hopped into the queue for the Run, Run Rudolph 5K and Julie was happy to have the appropriate holiday festive gear to don thanks to our Santa Paws 5K the day before that supplied all of its runner with a full 5 piece Santa Claus suit. We had a great run that you can read about in our 5K section. While Julie was running, she was enjoying all the fun internal components of race management, one of her favorite parts of the endeavor – the constant balancing act of choices one makes over the course of a 5K to maintain energy, strength and manage pace decisions – especially in context of doing 50 5Ks in the span of 10 months. While she was running, she started to imagine that internal dance like a scene from the Inside Out movies. When the run was over, Julie rushed back to the van to pour out her own little version of Inside Out – the 5K version in a separate blog post that you can read in our Arizona section. 

We had originally been planning to hit the Heard Museum and the state capitol that day. When the run was over, we were pretty tired after 4 days of fairly intensive physical activity, plenty of driving and a night of not much sleep. We also realized that somehow Julie’s otherwise meticulous itinerary planning had missed checking the capitol’s hours (a mistake that she thought she would never repeat after the Connecticut statehouse Saturday visit debacle) and the Arizona capitol wasn’t open on Sundays. We rearranged our Sunday and Monday plans and all of a sudden had a much more relaxed day in front of us. After a necessary acai bowl stop, we made the 2 hour drive south to Saguaro National Park where we learned two very important things. One – how to correctly pronounce the word Saguaro (sounds a bit like Sawaro with an ever so slight g sound before the w sound). Two – saguaros are gorgeous, and seeing a landscape filled with them is fairly spell-binding. 

We were a bit too wiped to make active use of our time when we arrived, despite getting there in the mid afternoon. It is rare on our trip to have time in the afternoon to simply be able to relax in the van. We are usually either driving or doing an activity. And there were plenty of activities to do there. The Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum was right there, just a 5 minute drive from our campsite and we were surrounded by enticing hiking opportunities. Julie’s tank was firmly on E and Ryan was more than happy to enjoy relaxing in the van with the beautiful scenery and crisp desert air all around us. We loved watching the sunset behind the saguaros and felt the nighttime desert come alive as we heard loud coyote yips that couldn’t have been more than 10 feet away from the van. At one point, we were quite sure a woodpecker though our van was a tree and was ready to give it a few good whacks to find out before opting for more pliable pecking material. We fell asleep in a peaceful desert calm after watching the first half of our Arizona themed movie – Raising Arizona. 

In the morning, we had more that we wanted to do than we had time for, classic 50 States Tour. We couldn’t stand to leave without hiking, so we used what little time we had before we needed to leave to get back to Phoenix in time for a capitol visit to do a short 30 minutes of hiking into the beginning of a hiking path. Julie whimpered a bit as we passed by the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, complete with wildlife exhibits, leaving it unvisited by us. We had already decided that state capitols were non-negotiables and Julie had already gotten to enjoy lots of desert education at the visitor’s center that she had eaten up, including a video about the native view of the desert which she had found deeply enlightening. 

So we carried on northward. Again, because of time, we had to forgo our visit to Tucson that we had thought we might have time for, if even just a drive through. 

We arrived in Phoenix in time to take in the most elaborate and extensive memorial park we’ve seen on this trip. The statehouse complex boasted one after another beautiful memorial, some that we had seen before in other places, like the beautiful Gold Star Family Memorial, and others that we had never seen any memorials to like one to the Merchant Seamen, or an ornate Desert Storm memorial or one, specifically, for the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. 

Eventually, we made our way to the state capitol which was a very different scene than any other state. There was no one capitol building that housed the governor’s office and legislative chambers and Supreme Court, or some combination of them. The original state capitol bulding which, at one point, housed all three government branches, was now a museum. It was buttressed by two separate buildings, each facing each other across the square between them – one for the House of Representatives and a separate one for the Senate. We roamed through the museum learning about some of the history of the state of Arizona, enough that would have to suffice as we wouldn’t have time to make it over to the Heard Museum before it closed. 

After our stately explorations, it was time to start heading north. Our next stop on the itinerary would be Montezuma National Monument. We were looking forward to learning about Native American history and seeing more cliff dwellings. Our spot for the night would be some dispersed camping. We headed down a remote and beautiful paved forest road while the sun went down. By the time we made it to the turn off, it was completely dark. Just as we turned, we saw a sign pointing in the other direction with a little image of someone swimming. Julie’s eyes lit up. Were we near a swimming hole? That question percolated overnight. For now, we had to face 1 mile of an incredibly rocky bumpy road deep into the middle of the forest land where our gps was directing us to the dispersed camping spot we had selected. We saw other vans parked at various pullouts along the road. We drove 5mph, making 1 mile seem a lot longer than it usually does. We passed many pullouts that we were quite confident our van would have trouble getting to as the rocky ridges between the road and the pullout definitely looked more suited for a 4WD vehicle. We finally arrived at the one we selected and were relieved to see that it had a nice drivable entrance. There was one small schoolie parked in the back area already, but there was clearly room for one more and a separate fire ring there, so we were confident we were occupying an empty site. To say it was peaceful out there is an understatement. 

We woke up to a beautiful expanse and enjoyed a lovely morning amidst it. The schoolie clearly wasn’t interested in having neighbors and had gone further down the road to find an unoccupied spot and we weren’t complaining. Julie did her morning exercise with quite a view.

We had already decided to luxuriate in a full morning, with plans not to leave our spot until 1PM, knowing we’d have plenty of time to hit Montezuma National Monument and then Sedona before possibly heading to, or at least towards, the Grand Canyon that night. 

That is until Julie decided to do some research on that swimming sign she had seen. We didn’t necessarily need to swim there, but Julie would need to swim before we left Arizona. She looked up swimming holes in Arizona and her eyes went wide when she read about a spot called “The Crack” and saw it described as one of the most sought after watering holes in all of Arizona. She opened up a map, searching for where that was located in comparison to where we were located. She let out an audible sound of glee when Julie put the pieces together and realized that, without planning it, we had parked ourselves a mile away from the trailhead that led to “The Crack”! That was what that swimming sign was for. Julie was giddy with excitement and preparing to tell Ryan that she was ready to call an interary audible…one that would mean hiking 3.8 miles to get to that watering hole…and of course, then 3.8 miles back. We typically don’t do hikes on this trip over 5 miles. Mostly for time, but also for preserving our energy. Since we are doing something physical most every day and driving hours everyday, we get tired quicker than we might otherwise. The only time we didn’t do that is when our Alaska Hiking guide refused to tell us the length of the hike he was taking us on and essentially tricked us into doing a 10 mile hike. It was gorgeous, we loved it and we are so glad we did it. We are not sure we approve of his tactics, but he was right, if he had told us it was 10 miles, we never would have done it and we did love the hike. That also happened to be the first time Julie’s calf issues resurfaced since we had also done a 5K that morning and power-hiked the entire 10 miles and we were exhausted by the end of the day. Luckily, we had a 7 day cruise afterwards to recover during. Other than that, though, we try not to overdo it. But, once Julie saw the words, “most sought after watering hole” and “swimming hole in a slot canyon”, all bets were off. Ryan could tell where the winds were blowing and he wasn’t too hard-pressed to give into the idea of spending the afternoon hiking these beautiful red rock, tree covered forests and canyons. We geared up and set out on the hike and it was absolutely stunning. We knew we’d have to keep up a pretty solid pace to make it back out before sunset. We hit the trail and loved every second of it.

When we arrived at the swimming hole, it was every bit as beautiful as we had hoped. It was also mid-December and, even in Arizona, spring fed water in the mountains is cold. Julie had not brought a wetsuit and would find she had no competition for water time. Every other Arizonan pines for the waters of The Crack when temperatures are punishing. Not us. Ryan opted to stand on the overlooking rock outpost, taking pictures of Julie from up above. The further Julie went into the water, the shorter she realized this swim would be. It was painfully cold and took her a good ten minutes to get all the way in, and less than 60 seconds later to make her way back out. But, still, she got her head under the water and did actual swimming strokes, so it counts. She swam in Arizona and how glorious it was. After Julie changed into warm clothes, we hoofed it back to arrive back at the van exactly when we’d hoped to by 4:30.

We hopped in the van hopeful that maybe we would still be able to make it to Montezuma National Monument in time. It was only 15 minutes away. We could easily make it by 4:45! While driving, we double checked the visitor center’s hours. Some often close at 4PM or 4:30. Not Montezuma National Monument. Nope. They close at 4:45. Who closes at 4:45?! Well, Montezuma National Monument. We arrived there at 4:46 and not only does the visitor’s center close then, the whole park does. We made our way only as close as a closed gate and had to turn around. Though we would have loved to see it, we had no regrets and felt great about our trade off to hike the cliff sides in the Coconino Forest.

Our next stop was Sedona. We had both been there before and knew it to be a magical and beautiful place well worth another visit. In our original itinerary, we would have been hiking in Sedona, something we had both done before and knew was more than worth experiencing again. But, thanks to our itinerary audible, we rolled into Sedona well after dark and past the window for hiking. We decided to go out for dinner, loving the views of the silhouhettes of rock formations that we saw from the heated porch we dined on. We enjoyed everything about the dinner, except the bill. 

Ryan’s head cold that he got sometime during his Thanksgiving trip was still lingering and we had decided, just to be safe, since it had now been a good 10 days, it might be worth swinging by an urgent care to find out if he needed antibiotics, so we decided to head towards Flagstaff for the night to make some progress towards the Grand Canyon but still be able to be near a town that would have an urgent care. We figured that we would get into Flagstaff by 8AM the next morning to hit the urgent care right when it opened and then get to the Grand Canyon as early as possible to grab as long a day there as we could.

Life had other plans for us. 

Before we got to Sedona, Julie had said to Ryan, “I wonder what kind of weird stuff is going to happen to us in Sedona.” Julie had heard the stories about the “energy vortexes” in Sedona long ago and, whether you believe in that or not, she had always had strange things happen whenever Sedona came into the picture, so she was a full believer in the potency of the Sedona vibe. The only other time she had been there had been a fairly life changing experience – one of those life experiences that you are glad for the lessons you get out of it, but didn’t necessarily enjoy going through it to get them. That’s a story for another day, but Julie definitely remembered the strange way Sedona had worked its magic on her many years prior. Then, for those of you that know the thrill ride on the road to destiny that is Julie and Ryan’s path to happily ever after, you will recall that, before getting engaged, Ryan broke up with Julie, oh about 4 or so times before realizing she was the love of his life. One of those times was direclty after he took a trip to Sedona. Before Sedona, we had been happily dating, then Sedona, then we were on a romantic trip to NYC together, sobbing in tears as we said goodbye. Friggin’ Sedona. Anyways, Julie knew Sedona had some kind of powerful ju-ju and she was wondering what kind of adventure it would send us on this time. Knowing that she had long learned the painful lessons she had faced the first time and knowing that there was nothing under the sun that could ever threaten our bond at this point, Julie wondered what Sedona would think of this time. She figured Sedona to simply be a magnifier of whatever you have got going on inside and so as we passed through the town unscathed and only delighted by our delicious, but expensive dinner, our insides so happy and at peace now, that was all there was to be magnified. But Sedona knows your weak spots. It knows your vulnerabilities and it knows what matters to you most and will make you fight for it. So, Sedona was still prepared to have the last laugh and give us something to fight for. This time, it was our mobility.

We found a great pull off to park that night somewhere between Sedona and Flagstaff in some more forest service area, not too far from the main road. The prime spot at the top of the pull off was already occupied. But, if you follow yet another rocky dirt road down a short driveway, there was a big circular spot with a fire ring and a decent place to park. 

We woke up early and got ourselves ready to leave to head straight to Flagstaff to get an early start on our day. 

At the top of the driveway that led to our little spot, there was an SUV parked RIGHT in the middle of the road, leaving just enough room on either side of them to feel like you could ALMOST sneak around them, but you just couldn’t. 

It was still dark out and we didn’t want to wake up the other van parked not too far from there. But we also didn’t like being trapped in a wide open forest like caged vanimals (sorry, it had to be done). We honked the horn. Nothing. No movement. Julie offered to go knock on the windows. Proving that chivalry is alive and well, Ryan would have none of it. Eventually, Ryan got close enough to the car to knock on it and shine a flashlight in. We each had seen plenty of movies and tv shows that start this way and were just using a combination of crossing our fingers and listening to our gut to keep us safe. Ryan had seen this car parked here at night when he had come outside to see a man about horse. We figured, if the person in this car was playing some kind of crazy version of “the most dangerous game”, fishing for dumb tourists, they would probably have already struck at us. So, we took the risk to knock and peek inside. Ryan came back to the van. There had been no one in there. It was empty. Well, shit.

So much for getting an early start. We called the police and waited an hour for their arrival while we ran scenarios of how we would respond just in case we found ourselves in a situation where we had to face crazy head on. Neither of us was particularly alarmed or scared, more just annoyed that this Montero Sport was deciding the fate of our morning. Both of our guts were telling us that all was well and it turned out to be so. The adventure was only just beginning though. You can read more about how we got out of that little spot in our People Along the Way section.

Once released from our spacious prison in the beautiful Arizona forest, we made our way to Flagstaff, arriving much later than planned at 9:30, still with plenty of daylight ahead of us. When we arrived at the urgent care and saw it right next to a laundromat and a Walmart, Julie’s eyes lit up. While Ryan took care of business (and found out he was likely in no need of antibiotics, just needed to wait it out), Julie set out to clean our bedding which she had been craving to do for more than a few days. She also had been wanting to make some organizational upgrades to solve a few daily life problems. She had some ideas of how to make better use of our closet space and had an idea of how to solve our shoe problem and paper and receipt storage issues. Not to mention, there were many mildly broken items that had been asking for super glue. 

We don’t know how it happened exactly, but we apparently spent 4 hours there taking care of van organization and laundry and grocery shopping. We didn’t leave until 1:30. 

We finally got to the Grand Canyon just before 3:30, with a couple of hours before sunset for Julie to have her brain explode.

Julie was nervous heading into the Grand Canyon. Not because it is notoriously one of the most underestimated dangerous spots where more people die or go missing than any other nationaö park (Julie had just read a book by a National Park Ranger that made it abundantly clear just how dangerous the park can be) because she knew we wouldn’t be doing anything that would bring us anywhere close to being exposed to the canyon’s dangers. When we arrived, we did find out a road had been closed because there was a search and rescue currently under way. Even though these would be perfectly good reasons to be nervous heading into Grand Canyon National Park, Julie was nervous because she wasn’t quite sure she’d be able to handle what she expected to be indescribable awe and beauty. There is only so much a person can take and we’d already been faced with a lot of it. Spectacle is wonderful – but we’d been taking in spectacle like water from a firehose for 6 months straight (no complaints!) and Julie wasn’t sure she could withstand the level of awe she expected. Even more, she was intimidated if she would be able to be fully present to it and actually take it in. She had already faced a lot of limits in her ability “to even” in the “I Can’t Even” state of Utah, located just miles away to our north. Would she be able to even, was the question on her mind.

Well, Julie was up to the challenge and she met the splendor of the first site of the Grand Canyon with the appropriate level of awe, humility and revelry. It was pretty frickin’ awesome. The Grand Canyon is a place so shocking to the eyes, it catches you by surprise every time you look at it. And it’s easy to forget it is there because it is not something your eyes are trained to expect and, as soon as you look away from it, you are just looking at a bunch of extremely familiar sites – walking paths, buildings, trees, open sky and beautiful sunsets. And then, as you are walking along the path looking straight ahead, even just for a moment, it is long enough to foeget, and rhen you may happen to tilt the angle of your neck a few more degrees to the side where the canyon comes into view once again and BOOM – your brain explodes all over again. There is no better word to describe it than “grand”. It is truly an awesome sight to behold. If you want to go deeper into the wild rantings and ravings that we can produce about the splendor that is the Grand Canyon, especially in response to a couple of myths that might attempt to minimize it, you can read a separate post in the Arizona Section.

We settled into our campsite for the night at the Mather Campground after walking the rim and taking in a few geology lessons about how thiy most grand of canyons came to be over the course of a couple billion years, give or take a few hundred million.

We now had a decision to make that had always been on the table. Would we stay a full day in the Grand Canyon and luxuriate in a longer hike, go for a run and/or a bikeride and just enjoy more open time, or would we trade that spaciousness for the opportunity to see more – in this case – northeastern Arizona. Our itinerary had us leaving the Grand Canyon at 10am the next morning to go to Navajo National Monument, then Monument Valley, then Four Corners National Monument and then Canyon de Chelly for the night and then heading to Petrified Forest for our last night in Arizona. Thanks to our little adventure getting out of our spot south of Flagstaff that shortened our Grand Canyon day, we decided to split the difference. We’d stay in the Grand Canyon until 1:30, giving us a little time for a hike and time to hang out a bit and luxuriate and we’d say goodbye to our Four Corners visit. 

We managed to grab 45 minutes on the Bright Angel Trail, hiking about .75 miles down the trail and making great time heading back up it, getting to see a cliff side bighorn sheep and an adorable newlywed couple along the way before we hopped in the car to Navajo National Monument before sunset.

We learned more about the Navajo life and history at Navajo National Monument and got to see more cliff dwellings. It was beautiful, peaceful and stunning. 

We hopped in the car and made the 55 minute drive up north to stay the night at the Tipi Village in Monument Valley. Now, to be clear, we left Arizona to do so. Monument Valley straddles the Arizona/Utah border and all the places we found to stay on the Arizona side were closed for the season, so we had to cross the state line to grab our place to stay for the night in Utah. It was great. There were tipis for rent and very clean bathrooms with wonderful hot showers and a killer morning view.

We knew that to get into Monument Valley, we’d need to book a tour. Julie did some quick research and found a great outfit and they had an 8AM tour available. We booked it at 7AM. They gave us a call and asked if we could start at 8:30 since it was such last minute notice. 

What to say about Monument Valley other than, if you have a bucket list, you might want to put it on it. It’s hard to find the words to say how beautiful and wonderful it is. We’ve used a lot of celebratory words throughout the trip and on this blog, every one of them, in our opinion, has been well-deserved. Monument Valley was so special, it seems like we should find new ones to use to describe it. We’ll just have to let the pictures do the talking. 

Our tour guide, Helen was just fantastic. When we get a chance to make the time, you’ll be able to read about her and another wonderful woman we met during the tour, Effie, in our People Along the Way section. Until we get to writing that up, we can report that we got to learn about Helen’s experience growing up as a Navajo, attending the government run boarding school, including the fond and not so fond memories, her role in memorializing the Forrest Gump hill just a few miles away (where Forrest decided to stop running and go home) and how folks on the reservation make their livings. We learned from Effie about the plants in the landscape and got a teeny glimpse into all that her mother had taught her about spinning wool and weaving until her mother passed away at 103.

Between the natural and cultural experience, Monument Valley quickly made it onto our shortlist of trip highlights (the long list is very very long at this point).

After our tour was done and we spent real money at their gift store on the gorgeous handmade Navajo jewelry, we swung by Forrest Gump hill where we stopped to look at more Navajo crafts at a booth by the road. This is when Ryan noticed something strange. While Julie was chatting and shopping, Ryan went to investigate and climbed up to the top of the van.

When he returned to Julie, he said, “Babe, one of our solar panels is missing.”

”What?!” Julie replied in shock. 

We both laughed a little at how ridiculous it seemed. Julie climbed up top to see for herself and, sure enough, there was an empty plug sticking up from under solar panel one and an empty space where solar panel two used to be. Two of the plates to hold it in place where still in the deck, and two of them were gone. 

We both scratched our heads and began running through scenarios trying to solve this mystery. Julie had just taken a bunch of van photos at the Tipi Village that morning and so we went to inspect the pictures to see if someone had taken them while we were off on our Monument Valley tour. Nope. They had been missing that morning as well! We then looked for the last van pictures we had taken before that, which had been from 2 mornings prior in the Flagstaff trap debacle. In those pictures, we had 2 solar panels. Sometime between then and now, someone had either had the cajones to climb up top and remove one or, much worse, one of them had flown off while we were driving. We hoped they had been stolen rather than imagining what chaos we might have caused from a solar panel flying off the top of the van while driving. We figured we absolutely would have heard a solar panel ripping off the roof and we figured, if that had happened, surely we would have heard honking horns or commotion behind us if someone had been hit. We are praying that is not what happened. We thought through the times that we were not in the van and where we were at those times and figured, if someone climbed up and took it in that time, that’s just impressive. And if someone managed to take one while we were in the van without us noticing, well, that person is magical and deserves a free solar panel. Luckily, our solar panels are the least abundant source of recharging our battery between the three, so our trip will be no different without it and now there is more room on the deck for lounging – not that we do that all that much, but if we did…At the end of the day, all that we really care about is that no one was hurt and we pray that that is the case. It remains the mystery of the missing solar panel. This is what insurance is for and it is just stuff. We are hoping that someone has it that needs it more than we do. We’ll just blame it on the weird Sedona magic and carry on. 

After our solar panel revelation, we headed south to the Canyon de Chelly. It was strange to come upon it after having recently been to the Grand Canyon. For a moment we had to adjust ourselves to remind ourselves how beautiful and awesome the canyon was, despite seeming small in comparison. We visited it briefly before heading to our next stop, one that we added in fairly last minute, but decided we had to do since it would only add about 35 minutes of total drive time for the night.

We had to stop in Winslow, Arizona. We had to stand on a corner there. We had heard it would be such a fine sight to see. 

It turns out, Winslow, Arizona is totally in on the fun and has completely embraced the source of their fame. There is a “Standin’ on the Corner Park” and two “Takin’ It Easy” gift shops at the same intersection. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are looking at our budget, both stores were closed, so we left with only pictures and memories to show for it, which was more than enough. It was a short stop, but we both agreed, it was more than worth it. Also, interestingly, out of all of the intersections we have ever seen between our collective 9 plus decades on this planet, this was the first intersection we had ever seen that had absolutely no corners at all. Each of the corners at the intersection of Standin’ on a Corner Park in Winslow, AZ are decidedly rounded, not a corner to be found.  We stood on it anyways, and loved every minute of it. 

We ended the day with a short 50 minute drive to our final camping spot for the night at a free campground spot at the southern entrance to Petrified Forest National Park. We pulled in at around 8PM. Julie backed the van in and decided it looked slightly more level to the left. She figured, since Ryan was the only one that had done something boneheaded to scratch up the van so far, she better even the score. When moving to the spot 10 feet to the left, she backed up and couldn’t see much in the fuzzy pixels of our backup camera. That’s when she heard the crunch and realized that crunch sound was the bikes. She stopped and pulled forward a foot and went to check it out. 

“There’s a huge rock back there!” She said to Ryan. She couldn’t see any damage to the bikes, thankfully and we went to bed. 

The next morning, we discovered two things. Ryan shouted from the back with excitement, “Hey babe! That wasn’t a rock you backed into.”

Julie came back to see. With a gleam in his eye, Ryan excitedly proclaimed, “That is a giant piece of petrified wood!”

A few things to explain here. If anyone from the National Park Service is reading, this was not a piece of petrified wood in the National Park (that would be bad). We also did no damage to the wood. The wood however did bend a piece of our steel bike rack like a twizzler. Luckily, the bike rack is still in tact and functional, successfully holding our bikes in place as we speed down highways and climb over bumpy roads. 

That brings us to our last few hours in a state we had quickly grown to love. We used the morning to luxuriate in writing, both of us having fun doing various Arizona write-ups and facing, once again, the reality of opportunity costs. For every minute one takes writing about experiencing life, that is one more minute that cannot be used to go out and experience more of it – that is, except the experience of writing itself – which is something we both love to do, so it is easily worth the trade off for us. 

That said, with a 5:30PM 5K to get to in Albuquerque and nearly 7 glorious days in Arizona we chewed up nearly all of our Petrified Forest visiting time writing about it. And we didn’t even want to stop when it was time to go because we were having so much fun doing it. 

We had just enough time to stop in the store next to the campground to buy a few presents for Julie’s nephew and go for the gorgeous 35 minute drive through the park that is part of the Painted Desert, snapping pictures like crazy, to the north entrance. Julie went in the visitor’s center, read a bit about how petrified wood comes to be the gorgeous looking thing that it is, a fascinating process, and with that, ending our time in Arizona and richer for having had the experience.

Arizona left us with a few material scrapes, lots of great adventures, expanded perspective and precious memories. And we left Arizona as we have left many states before, fully steeped in it and craving more of every place we’d been and all the ones we hadn’t managed to touch. Goodbye for now Arizona!