2015 USA Road Trip Day 10: Monument Valley UT to Flagstaff AZ
It snowed all night. At 10am I decided I'd try and get going.
After half an hour trying to shovel the car out, with three other people helping from time to time, the car moved about 20 yards and got stuck again. The snow was hammering down hard and I couldn't see where the road was to get out. Some people were telling me that I should have had a 4x4 and then I could have made it out, but a Ford Mustang would come straight off the road. One helpful guest also told me I was going to die if I drove out today! It was a big decision but I decided to go back to my room and stay another night - but I was worried that if more snow came, that extra night would be 2 or 3 days or more ...
Around lunchtime the snow started slow down and then stop and I got to see the famous buttes!
I watched Terminator 3 on TV, fell asleep (which I think is what happened when I saw it at the cinema too) and then woke up about 4pm. Saw that the snow had still stopped, the car park was clearing, my car had been moved and there was a fighting chance I could get out! I loaded the car up and drove out around 4.30pm, deciding to head straight to Flagstaff, a journey of 173 miles.
An unexpected bonus is that my car, which had been filthy since day 1 when I drove through the salt-laden streets of Atlantic City, was now sparkling clean thanks to three tons of snow that was sitting on it overnight.
After 2 miles of driving through snow tracks, I crossed the border back into Arizona and the roads had been ploughed - suddenly I found myself and the few other cars around were back up to 60mph.
I hit a bit more snow at Kayenta but after that the roads were good and the snow subsided - but the sun set, and the sky seemed to get very dark very quickly with hardly any twilight, so for the last hour I had a harrowing drive in the dark until I managed to get to Flagstaff. The idea of me going there in the first place was to visit the Lowell Observatory and do some nighttime stargazing - but with 90% cloud cover, I decided I'd just have a look around in the morning instead. At least I got out of Monument Valley before i was trapped!
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Last updated 25 February 2015 16:48
I think I'm meant to do an "About" here but I think you'd be more interested in seeing a random seagull.