On the Road with Van Go

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9/25-6

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11/23 Painted Desert/ Petrified Forest/ Montezuma's Castle

We had an originally reserved campsite in New Mexico, that due to their state shutdown found ourselves pulling a long haul from Texas to Arizona instead. We have been to Painted Desert and Petrified Forest before, but after a full day in the car we treated ourselves to a much more thorough exploration. As always, this geologic fantasia amazes: We wandered through the ruins and visited the petroglyphs. Some of the natives were a little too friendly! Violet earned her Bark Ranger badge! No matter how many times you may have seen it, the landscape remains otherworldly and completely enchanting. After a couple of hours on the south end we made it to the primary petrified wood sites. Ancient logs transformed over time into jewels. We've visited petrified wood sites in California and Texas, but have never seen anything like these elsewhere: W...

11/26 White Sands National Park/ Guadalupe Mountains National Park

The last time we visited this magical place it was a National Monument; this is our first opportunity to revisit since it was granted Park status. This is the only sign that we found that has its new name on it! There's been kind of a lot going on ever since it happened and clearly they have had no opportunity to update the rest of their signage. We love this unique and spectacular environment! It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world, and the park protects about 40% of it. The park is completely surrounded by the White Sands National Missile Range - no testing was in progress on this visit, but we did have to wait outside the perimeter once for the signal. As it is an active missile test site, access to the park is cut off whenever they are testing. This was Violet's first visit; unfortunately, we did not bring our sled! It's always stunning here, but next time we...

11/24 Grand Canyon National Park/ Tuzigoot National Monument

What can you possibly say about the Grand Canyon? It is a magnificent spectacle. You are certain that each viewpoint must be the absolute best but then you arrive at the next one and another extraordinary vista presents itself. We had planned to visit here last Thanksgiving, but were shut out by a winter storm - while the temperature at Desert View did drop down into the 20s during the night, it was a gorgeous, sunny day. We left Dead Horse Ranch State Park at 4 to get to the rim for sunrise. We were thrilled to see the faint pink and blue dawn glow around the canyon edge disappear as the sun rose and started painting the walls inside the canyon. The park is closed past Desert View, so we went out to that viewpoint and slowly worked our way back to Grand Canyon Village. Our early start was not only rewarded with spectacular views but we also saw elk browsing just beyond the park entrance. The route back to our campsite took us right past Tuzigoot National M...

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