San Juan County

As our body-clocks continued to wage war against us, we once again woke on our second day here at an hour that would make milkmen cry. Are milkmen still a thing...or are they one of those things relegated to our childhood memories? Like Thundercats - remember Thundercats? Thundercats were cool.

Having just discovered these early hours of the day actually exist, Luke is demonstrating a particular passion for breakfast and today directed us to sample a selection of Denny's 'Grand Slams', which were so damn good I forgot to take a picture until we were all done gorging.

From breakfast we drove toward Flagstaff to peruse some more geology porn; a meteor impact crater. I drove, with Luke looking up the route on Google Maps and determining I should aim to arrive half an hour ahead of its ETA; a target time I ultimately missed by a mere three minutes but is still representative of significant ignorance of the locsl speed limit laws.

The crater was, as in hindsight I should have expected, basically a big hole in the ground. It was impressive, albeit not quite as stunning as yesterday's big hole in the ground. There was a small museum to wander round, a Subway where we had lunch and a gift shop where I nearly bought a Route 66 keychain but then in a shocking twist didn't.

In honour of the bravery and sacrifice of valleys everywhere, the inter-state forces of Arizona and Utah commissioned the creation of a 'Monument Valley'. This was to be our next destination, and was a helluva long way North of where we were in a totally different state. Mark drove us there at breakneck pace and we eventually arrived around an hour before sunset.

It....was....stunning. Arriving late in the day, the 'park' was exceedingly quiet as we rumbled through on the dirt path in 4x4 mode, stopping every thirty seconds or so to take in the view and take an immense volume of pictures. I don't believe I've ever been in such awe of a landscape ; I would quite happily make this sight my screensaver, my living room wallpaper and even a replacement for that general featureless blackness I see when I close my eyes.

We had Burger King for dinner and decided to head toward our next stop, Albequeque/Albequerque/Alberquerque/that-place-I-can't-spell. Knowing we might not find a motel given the lateness, Woody begun the first driving 'shift' in knowledge that we might have to rotate and drive through the night but we didn't as we found one and it was fine.Read more