Day 20 - Salt Lake City, Utah

Hudson 1949 Super 6

There is not much to say about Price but we did meet Fred at our motel and he was driving from Minnesota to New Mexico in his Hudson. It just happens to be one of Paul's favourite classic cars.

Salt Lake City is building a new transport system to link the city to the airport and this has created a number of transport problems and this combined with the county fair meant it was a bit chaotic driving around the city. In contrast to this choas the heart of Salt Lake City is Temple Square the world headquartes of the Mormon Church. The area is well maintained and serene and the gardens beautiful. We were able go into the Mormon Tabernacle where the choir were practising. There are a number of buildings located within the 35 acres and these include; the Assembly Hall, Family History Library, Conference Centre (seats 21,000), office buildings and the Salt Lake Temple. It was well worth a visit.

Day 19 - Grand Junction, Colorado & Price, Utah

We had a good day looking around Grand Junction and then drove through the Colorado National Monument. The National monument is 23 miles of twisting roads through scenery created by millions of years of erosion to create rocks that are spires, domes and valleys. With the distant ranges it created a spectaclar drive and as the Americans say it was awsome. The late afternoon sun enhanced already rich colours and the colours were glorious.

It is a great place for mountain bikers as are so many of the places we have visited over the last week. We left Grand Junction late and as we crossed over the state line to Utah drove into a massive storm. It was difficult drive as it was so black so decided to stay in Price Utah. 

Day 18 - Durango, Colorado, Grand Junction, Colorado

From Maureen's perspective she has found the driving (on the "wrong-side") great. One of the reasons for this is that the Americans are very courteous and forgiving drivers/A good example of this, is that at cross roads (four- way stops) the rule is, first in first out and even if there are four cars at the intersection it works well. We are not so sure that it would work so well anywhere else especially in the UK!. Also as the roads are wider than we are used to and the traffic density quite low, it makes driving stress free.

We had to leaveour cabin early in order t be able to catch up on our schedule. We drove some 2 hours
 to Durango which is set among the San Juan Mountains. This is just the place
 if you like outdoor activities especially canoeing and cycling in the summer and of course  skiing in the winter. It is also the headquarters of the Durango and Silverton tourist train operation. This remaining portion of the D&RGW narrow gauge system is very popular and transports many tourists through some spectacular inaccessible scenery to and from Silverton. These steam trains run most of the year

The turn-back point for the railroad is Silverton, a town that has retained  the look of its past-times, when it was a Zinc and Ccopper mining town and Wyatt Earp dealt cards here.  It really is like steppeing back in time when the train arrives right in the middle of the main street!

From Silverton we drove north along the "Million-Dollar Highway" through yet more spectacular Colorado scenenry to Grand Junction. Not expecting too much from this railroad town, we arrived to discover the  Thurday  farmers market which is held in Main Street from 4:00 pm - 8: pm. It had a great atmosphere and there was wonderful produce on offer, the local peaches are particularly succulent and tasty! This is set against a background of the spectacular  Colorado National Monument area (which we are looking forward to driving through tomorrow).

Day 17 - Taos, New Mexico & Chama, New Mexico

We had to leave Santa Fe and like so many places we have visited there is not enough time to visit all the museums and galleries. We could spend a week here as there is so much to do, the weather is lovely and the food delicious. We do have a  schedule and have to move o,n so drove up to Taos  and drove through another amazing vista. Taos is also arty like Santa Fe and has attracted many artists to live here.

We spent most of our time visiting the Taos Pueblo which has been continuously inhabited for nearly

Day 16 - Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is our stop-offmost eagerly anticipated by Maureen. It is an art-lovers paradise. To orientate ourselves and gather some information we joined a walking tour of the town centre's historic district. Apparently we were amongst this summers' biggest tour group of 17!

Santa Fe is culturally and historically interesting
with the inter mingling of  the Pueblo Indians and the Spanish.
It is such a visually stunning town architecturally with the different influences.

We did a morning walking tour and Maureen visited a ew galleries and Paul looked around for suitable photography opportunities. These are some photos from our walking tour.

Maureen had hoped to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe
Gallery but it was closed for a few days. However the gallery did put on free tour of the Geogia O'Keeffe Research facility which is only able to be visited by appointment. It is a beautiful house and the interior designed for the huge collection of art books collected by Georgia O'Keefe and her husband Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe materials such as easels and sketches. It is fascinating as it has a selection of the artists tools and examples sketches. The tour guide was  fascinating as she had a true insight into the artist and was witty and sharp for a very lively octogenarian.

Georgia O'Keefe Research Centre

As Santa Fe has height restictions on buildings it is not always
possible to have a view of the famous sunsets but our guide book
informed us that the La Fonda hotel had a balcony so we had a
drink and watched the sun go down.

Day 15 - Amarillo Texas and Santa Fe New Mexico

Texas Longhorn

We are now now in the big state of Texas.. It is the land of the Texas Longhorn cattle, "Cowboys and Indians" as well as oil production of course!l. However the upcoming new wealth, is in renewable energy sources, particularly large windfarms which benefit from the  strong winds prevalent in the plains states.

 We managed to get pretty close to this particular Longhorn when
 we were touring around.

A" load of Bull" and
two of the fleet of limos used to transport visitors
to and from this famous Texan restaurant.

We don't usually do "tourist-attraction hotels" but last night we were too tired to search further so we stayed at the The Big Texas Steak House Motel next to the rather kitsch Big Texan Steak House.  The meals were good and included on the  mennu (and which we didn't sample),was fried rattlesnake. The restaurant is renowned for offering a challenge to all customers to eat the 72oz steak within an hour and get it for free!. If not, you pay $72.00 + tax. I think there must be people (in the Stoke-on-Trent area maybe??) who could complete this challenge if they were to just eat the huge steak alone, but the full challenge includes eating all of the accompaniment of vegetables, salad and the big local jalapeno peppers which are served whole and seeds-in........therefore really hot!

Big Texan Steak House Motel

After our ample buffet-style western breakfast, and spending some time chatting with our lovely Native American waitress Rachael we explored the area and visited the Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Palo Duro is Spanish for "hard wood" in reference to the Juniper trees that are common throughout the canyon.

The battle of Palo Duro was the decisive battle of the Red River War known as the Buffalo War and was the final campaign against the Plains Indians; (Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne tribes) The cavalry captured and killed over 1,000 horses and burned the teepees and winter stores.The Indians staple food source...the Bison was also wiped out by the army and settlers in just 6 short years, rendering the tribes with little option but to surrender their independence. Although only four Indians were killed, the approaching winter without food and horses for scavenging,  meant certain starvation for the Indians and they reluctantly returned on foot to the reservation at Fort Still abondoning forever their traditional life. Tribes were sent to resrvations in neighbouring Oklahoma and their former homelands occupied by settlers.

Day 14 - Tulsa, Oklahoma

Oklahoma has suffered some terrible wildfires over the last couple of weeks and even as we arrive at 6:00 pm it is very hot with a strong wind. The US has  suffered some terrible weather conditions in a number of the states in recent weeks,  extreme heat, heavy rainfall and extensive flooding. Much of this has been due to tropical storm fronts hitting the eastern seaboard.

Oklahoma is one of the states that has made it's wealth from oil. Maureen visited the lovely Phillbrook Gallery, located in the wealthy suburb of Mapleridge. It was created by the Waite Phillips family. Their own oil-derived weath enabled them to build a 72-roomed house in the Renaissance style and fill it an extensive art collection. They also created the most amazing garden. After 10 years they moved away and donated their house and art collection to the city of Tulsa.

Philbrook  Art Collection - the house

As we had to continue west we have spent part of the day travelling on a section of the famous Route 66. We saw a number of historic sites including the Rock Cafe and Skyline Motel in Stroud. The Rock Cafe was replicated by Pixar for their 'Cars' movie series.

We stopped off in Sayre which is famous for it's landmark the Beckham County Courthouse on Main Street.It was featured in the film version of the 'Grapes of Wrath' . Also this small town has a large grain elevator next to the railway line that has rusted into a gorgeous orange glow.We were there when the low evening sun showed this off to its best.

Beckham County Courthouse featured in the movie 'Grapes of Wrath'

Grain elevator

Paul and our Huyundai hire car posing for the camera in Sayre, Oklahoma