Weather: partial cloud but still hot
I was up at 7.30, and had a light breakfast again, purchased from the filling station across the road. After filling up with fuel in preparation for a drive further out into the wilderness, I set out for Natural Bridges National Monument.
This small park is fifty miles or so from Mexican Hat according to the map. However the map fails to take into account one rather important feature of this road, namely that part of it lacks a proper road surface.
There were plenty of warning signs on the road, but even so these were insufficient to prepare one for what was to come. The road follows a path straight for a long, high cliff face known as Cedar Mesa, and as one nears the cliff face one becomes more and more concerned as to what route the road might take short of a sudden turn away from the cliff face. The answer is simple enough: it scales the imposing rock face in a series of terrifying switchback corners, climbing 350 metres in a little over two miles. On this section there is no proper roadway, only a rough surface partially covered in loose stones. This route, known as the Moki Dugway, is an ancient trail supposedly improved in the 1950s in order to take traffic to and from nearby uranium mines. The very uneven surface reminded me of the 1953 film La Salaire de la Peur, in which two trucks laden with nitroglycerene have to cross a similarly uneven road surface. Thankfully my cargo was slightly less delicate, but even so I was not keen to take even the straight sections at more than a few mph. The views from the road were no doubt very impressive but I was concentrating too much on the driving to take much notice.
The remote park contains three of the world's largest natural bridges in the park, and three of the four largest in North America, the largest being the aforementioned Rainbow Bridge. I stopped first at the Visitor Center, which owing to its location is powered by an adjacent array of solar panels, the 50 kilowatt output of which made it the world's largest when built in 1980. There I first watched a video on the natural history of the park and of the bridges, by geological standards an exceedingly fleeting phenomenon, each having a typical lifetime of just a few thousand years.
A loop drive of some nine miles leads to each of the three bridges in the park, with numerous stopping places along the way and trails leading closer to the bridges. I took the trail down towards the bridge at the first, Sipapu, named by the Hopi Indians after the hole beside the Little Colorado River from which, according to legend, they emerged into this world. This was not a particularly easy walk, involving various ladders (one a crude wooden construction), staircases, a walk along a narrow rock ledge which provided the best site from which to photograph the bridge, and finally a descent over a steep and slippery rockface which I was not keen to try.
At the second bridge, the thicker and slightly smaller Kachina, I settled merely for a short walk out to a convenient viewpoint on the mesa above the meandering river valley of White Canyon.
The third bridge, Owachomo, is the smallest but by far the most impressive, its elegant arch spanning 55 metres yet tapering to less than three metres wide in places. It was an easy walk from the roadway down to the bridge, allowing one an excellent chance to appreciate the splendour of this natural wonder.
Not being too keen to risk the Moki Dugway for a second time that day, I opted to return the long way, even though this meant another fifty miles or more of driving. I bought a simple lunch from a filling station just south of the small town of Blanding, at the junction with the main north-south road. Even this was not immune to bad road surfaces, however: I found myself driving through a stretch of road with a poor temporary road surface several miles long, owing to road repairs.
I continued back through Mexican Hat and past Monument Valley again towards Page, stopping briefly in Mexican Hat and Kayenta to stretch my legs. The monotony of Highway 98, across the heart of the Navajo reservation, was broken slightly by an encounter with a sheep on the road, rather unkeen to move itself out of the way or indeed in any direction whatsoever.
I eventually reached Page around 5.00, and started hunting for a room for the night. Unfortunately I had completely forgotten that it was by now Saturday again, and that Page might be especially busy with weekenders coming to Lake Mead. I called at several places only to find no vacancies, and finally found myself at one of the town's three ``Best Western'' motels in a queue at reception. They had no rooms to offer themselves, but most helpfully were ringing around other places in town making enquiries. The next nearest accommodation was twenty miles away across a state border and the Colorado, and having already driven over three hundred miles that day I was not at all keen to travel any further. Fortunately the receptionist found out from Motel 6 that three rooms had just become available as a result of ``no-shows''. Being the second in a queue of three, one of these was now to be held for me, and I rushed back round to the Motel 6 I'd previously rejected as full.
I found myself in a room considerably superior to any I'd encountered over the previous few days, even if the motel itself was a little on the bland side. I took a relaxing dip in the pool, then returned to my room for a rest before dinner.
I was not keen on the idea of going far for dinner, and explored the area around the motel in the hope of finding somewhere suitable. Unfortunately all it had to offer was a burger bar and a small Chinese restaurant seemingly devoid of any custom, so I resigned myself to a trip in the car back towards the town centre. Without significant time spent exploring, the choice around there seemed only marginally better, but I eventually decided to try a largish bar/restaurant.
This proved rather crowded and I ended up sitting at a high table by the bar, watching the incredibly slow progress of some electronic quiz game on a TV screen while awaiting service. I had a main course of mesquite-grilled (allegedly, at least) ribs, acceptable but nothing at all special, and returned to the motel.
Before going to bed, I was pleased to find that one of the many TV channels on offer (much more choice than in the remote locations I'd been staying in, Page presumably being set up with a local cable network) there was a Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote cartoon. I had read that the scenery was inspired by Monument Valley and some of the regions many canyons, and was now able to verify this.