As usual, we had hit the road without much of a plan. People we had spoken to had suggested several great places near to Loreto which sounded like fantastic next destinations. However, hindered by our near complete lack of maps, Agua Verde was simply the place on that list that we accidentally stumbled upon next.
After all the driving around we’d been doing in the USA, followed by some off-road adventuring around the mountainous back roads of Baja. It was time to slow down and enjoy the beach again. There is very little to report about our time in San Felipe.
After a week relaxing on the beach south of Rosarito, recovering from zipping all over the USA like mad people, it was time to get moving again. We just didn’t move very far.
We were finally relaxing on the beach on the coast south of Rosarito in Baja. We had nowhere to drive, no visas due to expire, no interstates to contend with, no schedule, no maps and no plan. We decided it was a good opportunity to go and watch some other people who were in a rush.
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 spending some time driving aimlessly around Utah, we reached the conclusion that it is quite possibly another planet.
A lot of the time on this trip Emma is the chief Navigator. But sometimes Emma takes a nap and lets Javier, our Spanish-speaking, slightly scatterbrained GPS take charge of the navigational guidance.
The truth is out there… although it isn’t as interesting as we’d hoped. After spending time at Burning Man and in Las Vegas we felt we had probably come as close as possible to encountering alien life forms. But that wasn’t going to stop us trying our luck on the Extraterrestrial Highway.
At one point the explanation on the Burning Man website read that: “Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular colour looks like to someone who is blind.”. We think this pretty much sums it up, but we are still going to try.