Cruising out of third and strapped to the mountain side, reaching for the sun, it tells him something's right.

Saturday’s schedule was odd because my plan was to be at Monument Valley for sunset, 8:20, with about a 6 hour drive time from Albuquerque. Work backwards from that means a 2pm departure. I had plans for a stop in Shiprock so that takes a couple hours so ultimately wanted to be on the road at noon plus had some shopping to do. Ultimately I left the hotel around 11 and hit the lonely road with no other TTs in sight for the first time in a week. I was definitely missing all of my friends but excited for the rest of the trip.

I headed up 528 through Rio Rancho, making an unplanned trip past the Intel site in the processs, and worked my way up to 550 for most of the drive. There was a cold front coming through and I could see storms kicking up all around but 550 was seemingly threading the needle the whole way, until Shiprock.

I stopped in town around 3 for lunch and a drive break with some time to kill but the storms were starting to encircle me so I got back on the road hoping to get down to the actual Shiprock monument before things got too bad. The wind was kicking up on the drive south on 491 and it was blowing enough sand and rain that I was starting to lose sight of the monument. Once I turned onto the Navajo Rd 13 the weather cleared a bit and I got one quick picture before being pelted by rain. I figured I was here I might as well keep going and went all the way to the volcanic wall and the dirt road that leads all the way out to Shiprock. It was raining less here but there was constant thunder and frequent lightning, I could see it hitting the ground out by ghe monument about 3 miles away! I grabbed a bunch of pics, staying close to the car. I have to say this was one of the coolest places I’ve taken pictures and was so much better with a storm than if it was just a sunny day.

I really didn’t want to overstay since that storm cell was directly in my path to Arizona and I would have to traverse the width of it so I got back on the road pretty quickly. The town which I had just been through before the rain started was now saturated. The drive across New Mexico on hwy64 was a bit tense with heavy rains all the way across the state but eventually I could see the cloud breaks and clear skies towards my destination. I was running a bit early for the sunset at Monument Valley but ultimately that worked out since the sun dropped behind the clouds at 7:30 and that was the end of the show. I still had a 80 mile drive to get me to Blanding for the night too so was happy to get back on the road a bit earlier than initially planned, getting to the hotel at 8:30 instead of 9:30.

On the way north there were some great viewpoints looking south to Monument Valley so that made a change of plans for an early Sunday start to make a quick detour at sunrise before heading to Capitol Reef.