I prepared breakfast in our room this morning, none was included here. After checking out it was a two minute drive to the north rim of the canyon drive. This rim has fewer overlooks but they are just as spectacular as the other side. The first stop was for a little over an hour. It's mor Ethan just an overlook like they have at the Grand Canyon, here you can walk out a long way, clambering up and down the rocks. At one point on our wander we could look right do...

Our main aim today was to get as close as we could to Monument Valley so we can spend close to all of tomorrow there. Today started out across flat, featureless prairies. Not too far out of town we passed a massive cattle yard which was very on the nose. I realised too late I'd not put the Cadillac ranch in the GPS so I guess we'll have to come back some time to check that out. We crossed into New Mexico and the flat land slowly became more rolling, first scrub...

We set off early trying to beat the heat. First stop Old Tucson Studios, $20ea entry. It's been used to shoot movies, mostly westerns since the 50's. We had a good look around, did a tour with an old guy dressed as a cowboy who at one time was in few movies there and watched a shoot out. The little house on the prairie (yuk) and the High Chaparral was also filmed there. Many of the sets from that are still there. From there we went to the Sonora desert museum, r...

We woke early after a solid nights sleep. A nice cool morning greeted us as we headed to the 6am breakfast, back to our room to pack and we were off again. We had the roads pretty much to ourselves, few others were stirring before 8am. We passed a lot of agriculture, most fields looked recently cropped but some were still planted, cotton and soy bean were predominant. The cheapest gas we saw advertised was $1.99/ gal or about 70c/lt At some points we were just...

Another sunny blue sky day in South West California. We were up early and took our time, breakfast then some comp time before setting off about 9am with only a vague idea of the direction we wanted to go in. Setting the GPS for Yuma avoiding highways, main roads etc Along winding roads we steadily dropped down from the leafy heights of Julian to a more desert like terrain with long stretches of straight roads. The trees gave way to salt bush and cactus with high...