Hey y’all! Coming to ya from Gallup, NM at the moment. I originally thought my route back would go through the southern part of Colorado, but it can get way too cold at night, so I headed south. I woke up early to trek to the Grand Canyon. I had to go to the South Entrance as I believe that is the only entrance open during the winter months. I really wanted to hit up the North Rim as I am told that is the less touristy section.
I got into the park and made my way to Mather Point
I will say— the canyon is very grand. There were more people there than I was comfortable with so I headed to the Desert View, which barely had anyone there and I liked that spot much more.
I also saw some amazing geodes on the way back to my car!
As I headed out, I kept looking through the woods to see if I could see any deer, elk, bears, eagles, mountain lions—anything. And I stumbled upon about 30 elk and got about 15 feet away from them!
Below, there are about 8 elk in this photo alone!
After the Grand Canyon stop, I headed to Meteor Crater National Landmark. I went down a secluded road and at every mile marker, there were signed saying I was getting closer and closer the the crater. Finally, there was a sign with “Meteor” and arrows and so I parked my car and ran up this huge hillside.
Once I got to the top, my thoughts were, this is definitely not a crater. I then saw a sign that said “no trespassing” and realized I was on someone’s private land 😅. I ran to my car and once I sat in my car, it felt like I had 20 little cuts around my ankles…come to find out I had about 20 little thorns around my ankles that I had to carefully pluck out. Here are pics of what I thought the meteor crater was:
As you can see, it’s severely disappointing and NOT a crater.
After I got all the thorns out, I went up the road some more, only to find this (the actual entrance to the Meteor Crater) 😑
I took my wounded ankles and slightly deflated spirit to the next point of interest: The Painted Desert. I think I loved this spot the most today for some reason. I think it’s because it was off the beaten path, was unexpected beauty and wasn’t touristy.
After soaking in the beauty of the Painted Desert, I headed out to find dinner and a place to crash. As I was driving, I saw the most amazing sun set.
I wish I could have grabbed more shots of this sun set, but I was limited with where I could pull over on Route 40. How I would describe the sun set and the scenery would be this: the sun set dusted all of the wild grass fields and wildflowers alongside the highway in gold. The portion of sky to my right was baby blue with wisps of white and dark blue clouds and the portion of sky to my left had hues of lilac, magenta and sherbet oranges. It was stunning.
I’m off to Albuquerque, NM tomorrow most likely. Let me know if you have any must dos/sees in Albuquerque (or the northern parts of New Mexico!)
today's memoir 