“. . . fuck it, it was something to do . . .” – Mike Posner
Another thing to do is visit four NPS sites in a single day. I started my day by doing laundry. Apparently I drew the short straw since Molly started hers with yoga and the girls went for an early morning swim. It’s one of the necessities of being gone for 46 days though, and at least I was able to enjoy Starbucks coffee while waiting for the machines to do their work.
After returning to the room and packing up we headed North toward Walnut Canyon National Monument. My apologies in advance for the distinct possibility that my memories of the day may run together a bit. I’ve really enjoyed the visitors centers on this trip; more so than in previous years. They’ve contained a huge amount of artifacts excavated from their respective monuments. After a good amount of browsing and junior ranger work we headed down the Islands Trail. We walked first 150 or so feet and then around an island of rock in the center of the canyon. This pillar was ringed with the rebuilt remains of cliff dwellings. There were also views across the canyon to a second ring of dwellings on the facing canyon wall.
I’ve tried to include my thoughts on each of the sites we visit since Molly is continuously encouraging the girls to write about their emotions. I think for me the best way to do that has been to distill my experience into a main takeaway. For Walnut Canyon the main realization I came to was how Mesa Verde was not as unique as I had thought it was. When I mentioned this to Molly she pointed out that there were no cliff dwellings in Illinois, so it was unique. So perhaps the most articulate thing to say is that cliff dwellings are unique to this region, but not to Mesa Verde.
The next stop was Sunset Crater Volcano. Although it was our second cinder cone volcano of the trip, perhaps the most striking thing was how different the area surrounding the dormant volcanos are. Sunset Crater Volcano erupted much more recently and so has a lava flow area that hasn’t had nearly as much time to weather and erode as Capulin. As we hiked around the trail at the base I was struck by the otherworldly apperance of the lava rocks.
We also met an awesome ranger at Sunset Crater who took the time to encourage Ellie’s ambitions and talk about her path to becoming a ranger. I think this trip has only deepened E’s desire to work for the NPS.
Next, we drove the loop road that connects Sunset Crater to its Northern neighbor Wupatki National Monument. I feel bad saying this, but at this point I was feeling a little NPS burnout. Additionally, Wupatki is a pueblo and I was also feeling a bit of pueblo burnout. It was also over 100 degrees by this point. In the words of Mike Posner, well, see the opening quote.
The final drive of the day was to the Grand Canyon where we are now sitting in the Yavapai Tavern. We’ve enjoyed a couple Grand Canyon IPAs as well as both pizza and tacos. We got in a few rounds of Exploding Kittens and got our blog posts written. We’ll soon be heading off to our camp site. Fingers crossed for no thunderstorms and at least an adequate night’s sleep.
