The Great Southwestern Tour days 9-11

[Kirk]

Left Magdalena, NM (N29) and headed to Farmington, NM. KFMN is a little mainstream an airport for my tastes, control tower, paved etc. But the FBO was good and we needed a central location with a decent rental car to tour the 4 corners area a bit.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=N29-KFMN

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper - copyright © Karl L. Swartz

On this leg we really started to get into the classic southwestern scenery, the last portion of the flight being over the Bisti/De Na Zen Wilderness area.




Took a 3 hour hike in the Bisti and played amongst the hoodoos.


Fulfilled a long time desire and visited Mesa Verde to see the cliff dwellings. If we ever go back, I'll look into splurging for a room at the lodge there. It's a pretty long drive just getting back into Mesa Verde National Monument. Staying at the lodge or camping maximizes your time.


Loading up to head to UT25 in Monument Valley

[Rezrider]

Nice!
You should have let me know when you came past Gallup and we could have had lunch.
Next time then.

[Kirk]

You are so right Rez, I forgot about your message. Missed an opportunity.

Sorry about that. We were close to getting down to Gallup etc but time started running out.

Kirk

[crbnunit]

I drove up to Boulder and spent a few weeks rock climbing with a buddy and then kind of did a tour of Colorado on the way home. Drove and visited all over the state. I went to Mesa Verde thinking "OK, this is probably going to be kind of lame". I was very wrong. It is an amazing place. I'd love to be free to explore the ruins on my own. Id really love to camp in some of the less accessable ruins! I want to hit Canyon DeChelly sometime.

The Navajo National Monument in AZ has some pretty cool ruins as well.

[Kirk]

We really wanted to get to Canyon De Chelley. My wife had been there years ago and she set the itinerary so I could see Mesa Verde as a teaser. She says Canyon De Chelley is far more impressive.

Unfortunately we did not make CDC except to fly over and what we saw from the air was amazing.