Grand Canyon Road Trip

I love to travel, and so does my girlfriend Shannon. So, we planned out a trip to get away from the routine of work and to have some fun.

Carlsbad Caverns (New Mexico) -
Shannon loves bats, and I'd never been to a real cave, so we went to Carlsbad Caverns.

We didn't have time to walk the trail into the cave, so we took the elevator... 700 feet down!

The caverns are magnificent, and the few photos that we took don't show all that much. This image is of one monstrous stalagmite at least 40 feet high.

At twilight, we watched the bats leave for the night. A sea of tiny bats came spiraling out of the cave, swirling upward until they spilled out over the hillside.

Several hundred thousand bats live there for at least part of the year. At night they hunt down the bugs that otherwise get plastered across car windshields.

Acoma Pueblo (New Mexico)

The Acoma Pueblo sits atop a mesa.

One of the towns of the Acoma tribe is located on top of a mesa (for defense). Today they get back at the White Man by charging money for admission, and for photos, and then they tempt you into buying their beautiful pottery and jewelry. But seriously, It's worth the time and money to visit their "Sky City." This town was built around 800 years ago on top of a mesa to help defend against rival tribes. The impressive 350 foot high cliffs protected them until the Spaniards arrived in 1540. Today, the Acoma live in several towns in the Four Corners area. Their "Sky City" is touted as the "Oldest Continuously Inhabited City in the United States." Some of their people live there year round, without electricity or phone service. They bake their bread in mound-like adobe ovens and they worship in a church built centuries ago by the Spanish. If you arrive after a rain, you may even see some desert shrimp swimming around in pools of water atop the mesa.


One picturesque house with a beautiful view out across the plain.


Another of many picturesque houses atop the mesa.
They don't have running water, and they use propane for fuel.


The church tower.


One of the adobe ovens that tribe members use to cook their bread.


A sampling of Acoma pottery.
Painted Desert (Arizona) -
Erosion has uncovered layers of gorgeous hues in the Painted Desert. The layers stretch out to the horizon - It's a beautiful sight to see. The photos just don't do it justice.
Petrified Forest (Arizona) -
Just south of the Painted Desert is the Petrified Forest. Long ago, when the area was a marshy plain, floods deposited trees and sediment. As the trees were buried, they were transformed to stone by dissolved minerals in the groundwater. Exposed by erosion now, tens of thousands of blocks of petrified wood lie scattered across the landscape.


The colors are more subdued in the Petrified Forest than they are in the Painted Desert, though the scenery is still breathtaking.


Blocks of petrified wood are strewn across the landscape.
Visitors are prohibited from taking or damaging petrified wood on park grounds.

Meteor Crater (Arizona)

This panorama of the Meteor Crater is a sad attempt to show the scale of the site. Note the people on the walkway on the left.

Wow! Big hole in the ground! Tens of thousands of years ago, a meteorite thundered from the sky and exploded when it hit the ground. The hole blasted from the rock is now called Meteor Crater. It is a sight that has to be seen to be appreciated. On TV you see a hole that's kind of pretty (or maybe even impressive, depending how big your TV is). But when you walk up to the edge of the mile-wide crater and see how the ground drops out beneath you, it really makes you stop and think about the destructive power that cosmic collisions unleash.

Grand Canyon (Arizona)

A panoramic view from one of the lookouts on the South Rim.

Wow! Very big hole in the ground! Now this is worth driving thousands of miles through searing heat without air conditioning for (please pardon my run-on sentence). The canyon is magnificent. The wildlife is amazing (at least for a city-dweller like me). We saw mule deer, ravens, vultures, even a coyote. And at night, the sky was so clear, it seemed as if I was in space... Physically, I mean. I wasn't really out there... I have never seen so many stars in my life. The Milky Way was brilliant. It was amazing. Well worth camping out.


The east end of the Grand Canyon at sunset.


The Grand Canyon under rainy skies.


The Grand Canyon at sunset.


The east end of the Grand Canyon.


Me on the South Rim.


Shannon at the South Rim.

Four Corners (UT, CO, AZ, NM) -
A little tourist trap in the mountains. All kinds of native jewelry, pottery, and other tourist goodies like t-shirts there.


Shannon at the Four Corners.


Four corners...
Ship Rock (New Mexico) -
Ship Rock is the exposed core of an ancient volcano. It juts out of the ground like a tremendous sailing ship, and is visible from many miles away.

Ship Rock in the distance. An eroded volcanic intrusion (dike) juts from the ground, running off to the left in this photo.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison (Colorado) -
Nestled away in the Rockies, this gorge cuts through ancient metamorphic rock. The walls of the canyon drop hundreds of feet straight down from the rim to the river. It made my palms tingle (I don't like heights that much).
Colorado -

My car at its highest elevation. This ain't Mt. Washington...


Shannon with her Aunt Yoko and Uncle Ken.

US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. -
Oh well. The planetarium was closed when we were there.

The Chapel at the Air Force Academy.



The B-52 is a very impressive plane...
Kansas -
We found a big katydid and a toad at a rest stop. There wasn't anything else of interest there except for a couple of bright yellow fields of sunflowers.

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Updated: 4 February 1997