Vacation around Four Corners

The weekend after Deuces Wild was the Four Corners XTERRA in Farmington, NM. Liane had told me about this race and said since Show Low was half way to Farmington, they were going to hang out in the Four Corners area and then head to the race. Sounded like a perfect plan to me!


Before the Deuces Wild race, Zac and I tooled around on Fool Hollow Lake in our new inflatable kayak. This would be our second voyage on our Advanced Elements Advanced Frame Convertible kayak. We learned that when it is properly inflated, it is a lot more fun. The first trip we didn't have the boat quite inflated all the way. The instruction book is full of warnings like "Warning! Do not over-inflate kayak! Kayak may explode and we will not replace an exploded kayak!" So we didn't fill it all the way, which led to taking on a lot of water. This time we put a lot more air in, and it worked much better.

Zac inflating our craft.

Fully inflated. It did not explode.

View from the lake.

Checking out the swim course.

Zac docking the boat.

The Monday after the Deuces Wild XTERRA we slept in, then broke camp and headed to Canyon De Chelly. This was our first visit to the canyon. We drove the south fork, stopping at all of the overlooks to take a ton of pictures. There were lots of signs like "700 ft sheer drop. Control children and pets." The reason was, there was no guardrail on the edge, so you could wander around the slickrock along the edge of the canyon. We hiked the White House Canyon trail, as that's the only trail leading to the bottom of the canyon that you don't need an Indian guide for. After our little hike, we went to find a camp spot for the night. We decided on the free campground at Cottonwood Campground, which is right by the entrance to the drive to Canyon De Chelly. It was a pretty nice campground, with 100 camp spots, restrooms with flush toilets and running water, and an RV tank dump area. Much nicer than some of the pay campgrounds we've stayed at.

Canyon De Chelly

Spider Rock.

It's a long way down!

Not too bad for a free campground.

The next day we headed to Monument Valley, as we had never been there before and it was quite famous. We were rather underwhelmed. Basically it's a couple of red buttes sticking up out of the desert floor. When you've been to Sedona a ton, you're used to that type of thing. We had considered biking the 17 mile loop around the buttes, but there was too much traffic. The campground was also destroyed. We decided to leave Monument Valley and head to Utah. We drove through Bluff, and ended up in Blanding, UT. We found a nice campground at the Blue Mountain RV park. Our fresh water tank was out of water, so we had to stay somewhere with hookups. This place had nice spots with really nice restrooms and showers. Zac and I parked the RV, then got on our bikes and headed to the Dinosaur Museum, which is quite large. We wandered around the museum for quite a few hours, bought some things at the gift shop. I got a cool book called "The Guilded Dinosaur" which was about the rise of paleontology in American science, and 2 small dinosaur figures carved out of stone.

Token Monument Valley pics.



Zac relaxing at the RV campground in Blanding, UT.

The view from Zac's chair.

Dino Museum! Rarr!

Strange sights in Blanding.

The next day we drove to Natural Bridges National Monument, and this was our first visit to this monument. We stopped by the visitor's center and saw the displays, and paid the entrance fee. We stopped at the campground that is in the monument and reserved a spot for $10. There are only 13 camp spots in the park, and it's dry camping. We chose a great spot with a fantastic view and no neighbors. After that we drove to the trailhead of Sipapu bridge. We donned our camelbaks and packed a lunch. We also took our windbreakers, as it was overcast and slightly windy. We hiked the trail down to Sipapu bridge, then continued on along the canyon floor to Katchina bridge. We stopped about 2.5 miles in to our hike to have our lunch and put on our windbreakers. After a few hours we reached Katchina bridge, then took the trail back to the parking lot where we started. Overall it was 5.1 miles, and took us 3 hours. We got back to our campground just in time, as it started raining. It rained all night, and the next morning we woke up to snow! Snow in June! I got a few pics of the snow as we headed on to Farmington.

Sipapu Bridge.




Zac the photo guy.

In the green stuff under Sipapu.

The canyon between bridges.

Snow in Utah in June!

We had been out of cellphone range at Bridges, so once I got service I checked my messages and one from Liane said they were planning to arrive in Farmington around noon. I decided to give them a call once we hit Shiprock, as cell service was much less spotty there. Turns out they had just gotten on the road in Shiprock. They drove a bit slower, and we connected up on the road with them in a few minutes. We caravaned on to Farmington and hit Pizza Hut for lunch as we were all starving. It was still breezy and cool, so for our pre-ride of the mountain bike course we took some warm clothes. We warmed up pretty quickly on the ride. The ride was about 17 miles on singletrack and took us a few hours with following the map and the Xterra flags. Afterwards we went directly to Chili's for lunch, then checked in to the Courtyard Marriott. There really wasn't any good camping in Farmington, and after 7 days, Zac and I were a bit tired of being in the RV and didn't mind a hotel room.


The next day we had a late breakfast at Denny's, then decided to scope out the lake where the swim was going to be held. We noticed the beaches had a lot of broken glass, but the race folks had raked the beach where our 50 yd beach run would be and it was pretty clean. The day before we had parked next to a frisbee golf course, so we stopped by Big 5 and bought frisbees and hit the course. Granted, this was the first time golfing for me, Zac, Liane and Nate. The first 9 went pretty well, as they were around 150 ft. Those took us about 30 min. The next 9 were further apart (some were 425 ft to the basket!) with lots of trees in between. That took us an hour and a half. Basically just look under a tree and that's where the frisbee is. I perfected a move I named the "vertical huck" where you throw the frisbee over a tree like a Chinese throwing star. Hey, it got it out of the tree. After awhile, everyone had used the vertical huck move.

Nate impressing Liane with his skills.

Stretch for the shot!

Nate with the one legged follow-through.

Hey look! It's in the air!

Getting out from behind the trees.

Not for long. Back behind another tree.

Liane makes her shot and has a thought.

Just pitch it over a cliff.

Liane with the style.

We got done with the golf game just in time to attend the XTERRA pre-race meeting, then hit "the only Italian restaurant in Farmington," as it was advertised. Then it was off to bed for an early morning at the races.