What is the shortest way from New York City to Tijuana? Well, aside from flying, it still probably isn’t via Canada. But that is way we went.
We made it to the East Coast and New York City was in our sights!
They let two Kiwis loose in the Nation’s Capital. I guess someone wasn’t paying attention:
There comes a time in two perfectly reasonable people’s lives when they decide that driving cross-country to New York is a sensible thing to do. “Now wait a minute” I hear you exclaim “Aren’t you driving to Argentina? That is quite a lot further away from Alaska than New York and therefore a slightly madder thing to do!” I’ll grant you that the plan of driving to Argentina does sound a little crazy, but ultimately it comes down to a question of timeframes.
Closed campgrounds, closed roads, closed parks, closed mountains, closed shops. Seriously Colorado! What is open?
Having spent far too long faffing about in Utah and Nevada our time in Colorado was short. (That was about the only thing that was short in Colorado—everything else appeared to be of record-breaking height.) After visiting Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah side, we had been considering driving to Echo Park on the Colorado side of the park—but we were told that the road was closed. No surprise there, that had happened a lot lately.
Our initial plan to take a detour south through Escalante—Grand Staircase National Monument was foiled—by torrential rain washing out Cottonwood Road. We formulated ‘Plan B’ when a couple we spoke to in Kodachrome Basin State Park motivated us to pay a visit to Capitol Reef National Monument. A quick look at a map showed an enticing looking road heading south through there, so we decided that would be the best route to take.
After the surreal landscapes of Utah, it seemed like an obvious choice to take a detour through Monument Valley. It turned out to be one of the most memorable drives of our journey so far.
Still not convinced that the landscapes of Utah would be more at home on another planet? Take a look at the slot canyons of Grand Staircase—Escalante National Monument.
After spending some time driving aimlessly around Utah, we reached the conclusion that it is quite possibly another planet.