2017 Travel out West

Yesterday, September 11, 2017 we traveled to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  It was a very scenic trip and it was not very far from the town where we are staying.  About twenty miles.  The Black Canyon was discovered by the Native Americans living in the area but of course the US took credit for the discovery when John Powell came through the area and mapped it out. The canyon has a river running through it and the city of Montrose made a tunnel through the mountain and the rocks to get water for the crops they wanted to grow.  Oh by the way that was in the 1920's.  The canyon was explored by engineers who stated that it could not be done but some General whose name I forgot said it would be done and hired several engineers to make it happen.  The canyon walls are 2400 feet in some areas and range from 2400 feet to 1700 feet in different parts of the canyon.  There is a road that you can drive down to the bottom of th...

Our next stop was Delores, Co. near Cortez, Co.  Cortez is the bigger town and has plenty of Mexican Restaurants.  We had to eat at two different ones because Cindy wanted Mexican AGAIN!  We did not do a lot here becuase we had probelms with the truck and had to get that fixed.  The fuel filter housings on the Ford F 350 are plastic and they break easy.  I was changing ours because it was time and when I tried to get the housing off it broke.  That means it would not run because the fuel could not get to the engine.  So that means a wrecker had to be called and it was carried to a shop to get the housing off and a new one installed.  Come to find out the housing was stuck because the Ford Dealer in Dallas Ga put it on too tight.  They had to use a big and I mean big pair of channel locks to get it off.  Any way we got it fixed and then we went to the Mesa Verde National Park.  This is where the Native American Pueblos...

On our last day in Monument Valley we traveled to the Valley of the Gods,  near Mexican Hat and then on to the Natural Bridges Park.  The Valley of the Gods is a 20 mile loop around the valley of some of the mountains and was pretty, but after seeing the Monument Valley it did not compare.  We traveled from here to National Bridges and that trip in itself was thrilling.  We had to climb a mountain about a 1000 feet or more and the road was gravel.  There were no side rails for protection.  Cindy did not like it one bit and let me know it constantly.  She does not like high cliffs like that without any protection of going over. Natural Bridges Park was interesting with the bridges formed out of water rushing through the rock walls.  Of course it took hundreds of years for it to form into a natural bridge.  There were three different locations you could stop at and hike or just walk to the overview and take photos.  The climbs ...

We took a tour of the Valley at Sunset that was different than the tour we made on our own.  We had a guide, Navajo Indian named Leland and he was good to give the history of the valley and the movies locations and the movies that were made at different locations.  There is a John Ford View point where several of the movies were made such as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Stagecoach were made.  He also gave us history on  the Navajo Nations and how they were used in the various movies to help their economy.