Rumbling through the USA: Durango to torrey

Today was one were there where choices to be made. Ken had suggested a short but exhilarating ride over the Moki Dugway. Another was a visit to the "four corners" a spot where four states intersect. The cliched photo opportunity is you stand on all fours, a part of you in each state, thus you are in four states at once. We decided this didn't interest us as much as other things and flagged it.

The estimated total was 300 miles for the day.

We had been considering visiting the Indian ruins at Mesa Verde and the Moki Dugway. Both where not possible due to distance.

We where still dilly dalleying in the morning but in the end did a different ride to everyone else and visited the Indian Village sites.

The visit was in the Mesa Verde National Park and we paid for two tours. $12.00 in total.

The first tour was at the Cliff Palace Site. The dwellings where constructed under a giant cliff high in the rock face. The ranger gave an interesting talk about the people, methods of construction and ultimate fate.

Art work inside dwelling

The second tour was at the Balcony House site. Again an informative tour by a Park Ranger. This site was a little different, mostly because you got to clamber up ladders and squeeze through crevices to see it.

Winnie the Pooh looking for his honey jar

Drought caused the occupiers to leave and the ruins where left unmolested until the white fellas came along. Now they are a world heritage site.

The road in and out added another 40 plus miles but was great as it climbed up high above the surrounding countryside and gave great views. The sweeping corners didn't hurt either.

We had a lunch stop at Cortez and debated going over the Moki Dugway anyway, but (wisely) decided as it was nearly 1pm we had better push on. We still had 300 miles to go and through Desert.

A bit of GPS fiddling, a couple of wrong turns and off we set.

About 70 to 100 miles of desert greeted us. The temperature soared to 110 degrees plus. The road was mostly straight and landscape plain, but not as featureless as photos depict.

Keeping your fluids up became vitally important. We underestimated this prior to our first stop and felt a bit frayed around the edges. Oops. We had been told. Thereafter we made regular stops to drink.

Eventually we hit the 95. It started off as somewhat more interesting then the previous stretch, became great within a short space of time, then went onto be mind blowingly magnificent. 100 miles or so of fantastic riding through beautifully rugged country. You have to imagine this going on all around you with depth and scale. The camera can't capture it without panoramic view.

Queenstown? Pffft! Lakes Hayes? Give me a break! Mackenzie Basin? Ba hum bug. Anything else we had experienced? This had scale not previously encountered.

We stopped at Hanksville for a burger at tea time. Hank wasn't there but he might have been on the jukebox.

We covered the last 50 miles to our destination expecting the scenery had been left behind us. Not a jot. It went on for mile after mile. It turned out to be part of Capitol Reef National Park.