The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show

I'm not going to lie, growing up - every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. I was up and ready for the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show.   Now a days, kids are spoiled; twenty four hour cartoon networks??  When we were growing up, we only got a few hours a week, and everyone knows that Bugs, Daffy, the Road Runner, and clever Wile E. Coyote were, hands down, the best. 

Why am I bringing up all of this, you ask??  Driving from Moab to Monument Valley and then to the Grand Canyon, Runcie and I joked about how we imagined we were driving through a set from the Road Runner and Coyote scenes.   At any given moment, we expected to round the curve and see a bulls eye on the road with an anvil falling rapidly towards it.   

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Jokingly I say all this, yet I hardly want to diminish the beauty we took in today...   Leaving Moab mid-morning, we chose to take our time driving to the Grand Canyon today.  Fascinating, the geography moves from the red earthed mesas in Moab, to greener and softer lands in southern-mid Utah.   As we got closer to the Grand Canyon and Arizona, we saw a shift back to the extreme bluffs and buttes that lurched over us.

Rolling through Utah, we saw the signs for Mexican Hat, Utah.   As we came into the town, we quickly learned why it is called Mexican Hat. 

Stopping about 150 miles before the Grand Canyon, we pulled off the highway and were awed by the beauty of Monument Valley.   Deep in the territory of the Navajo Nation, we were able to experience some of their culture by visiting the Welcome Center and artisan dealers camped by the main road.   Traveling part of the the main loop, we saw some of the featured bluffs:  3 Sisters, The Elephant, and Mittens.   See if you can figure out which is which...  

We quickly learned in Monument Valley, the gravel roads were a little too much for us and although the loop was 17 miles it would easily take us over an hour to travel 17 miles.   We made the unanimous decision to turn around and head to the Grand Canyon.  

Little did we know what beauty waited for us.   Until you see the Grand Canyon in person, it's hard to explain its beauty...  I'll leave you with the sunset images we enjoyed...