Wow these roads are straight. There also undeniably beautiful. The landscape has turned so epic over the last few states. After Texas's barren, flat roads we've come into 'New Mexico' and instantly hit these views of huge mountain ranges with massive ups and downs which lead off into the horizon. It really is a stunning country...
We're on our way to Monument valley at the moment, it's safe to say it's a pretty long way so we'll be sleeping somewhere at some point. But there's plenty of cool stuff to do along the way, so it should be fine.
First up is Roswell (told you it was 'cool' stuff), this town is way to hung up on the supposed crash landing. Aliens adorn every lamppost, there drawn on every billboard and open space. Even the local attorneys advertisement was some pun on abduction with an accompanying illustration.
It's awesome in a tacky way, i mean i just wanted a photo with some absurdly cheesy alien model or something equally so.
We pulled into the visitors center to see if anything was there, and i found my little alien friend to pose with. But then "excuse me, hello, how can i help you". Aww crap the help lady had her claws in us now, i only wanted a quick photo and now here we where getting a run down of the local galleries and sightseeing possibilities!
She did give us a more interesting route to take to monument valley though, but i do use the word 'interesting' loosely. Also as we where leaving she did say "do you want your picture taking with the alien?" "Hell yeah i do!"
The interesting road led us to Capitan. The land where Billy the Kid was born, or where he shot alot of people, we don't actually know as the museum was $5 admission and we're too cheap for that. We did check out the grave yard of "Smokey the bear" national treasure, fire fighting extraordinaire. He was (actually he still is) the mascot for forest-fire prevention in the US, and was buried here in his own park.
But the real star (as the crazy woman said herself) was the scenery itself, it just got more impressive and more vast the further we seemed to go.
We crashed out at some motel for the night. I think it was Fort Stockton but i'm sure Will will comment and correct me on that. It was a complete dive if i remember right. The sort of place people get shot, like no country for old men. But it was only for a quick sleep then the following day we headed off again with hopes of getting as close to Monument valley as possible, somewhere in Colorado seemed logical enough as we wanted to come through '4 corners' (the only place in the America where 4 states join at one point) before still arriving early enough to explore monument valley for the day.
We ended up in Durangoo, a skiing resort in Colorado. It really was amazing to look out the window knowing your going to be spending the day in the desert, while outside all you look at is this landscape of snow. Sure enough though the 30 minute drive to Utah/Arizona and it disappears entirely leaving you with nothing but red rock and a whole lot of nothingness.
4 corners was actually shut when we got there (not sure how that's actually manageable, but hey it was) so we went straight on to Monument valley.
Will and me actually met while working on a game based in monument valley called MotorStorm. So the place, despite neither of us actually visiting it, felt relatively familiar. I'd been put in charge of the drive, which to be honest i would of fought to the death to of done anyway. It's not often you get the chance to rag a rental car around off-road in that sort of scenery....
It became a massive highlight for me almost instantly, i'd happily go back and do it all again tomorrow. The sunset was gorgeous and the place just seems to get more amazing around each corner. Will videotaped almost the entire loop while we messed around taking wrong routes and getting attacked (kind of) by overly friendly dogs. I'll try and do something and stick it on Vimeo with the footage when i get back, but for now just check out the pictures and imagine it a thousand times bigger and better than it could ever look on paper.
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