447 miles. 370 pictures. 2 spontaneous detours. 4 states. 2 Tribal Nations. 14 hours. 8 zillion rocks. 1 incredibly dirty car.

ZERO arguments.

This day has been utterly exhausting, but it has been magnificent.

There’s honestly not much more to say than the above numbers, so you get pictures. A lot of pictures. My apologies to your bandwidth.

We left Farmington, NM, this morning headed toward Four Corners Monument in the Navajo Nation. Google suggested it may be closed on Sunday, but Google also said it was closed on Saturday. I’m pretty sure the Navajo Nation is smarter than to let that money-making opportunity pass them by, right? Nobody else seemed to mention it being closed on weekends, so we chanced it.

Not only was it open, there was a line.

 

It also wasn’t the dinky little concrete slab that I recalled from my previous visit to Four Corners in 1983. Nope. It’s all fancy now. And pay-to-enter, but at least it’s cheap.

After much debate on poses and how best to put ourselves in 4 states and 2 Tribal Nations at once, I bit the bullet, hefted Earl on my back, planted my feet dead center of the marker, and raised my trusty iPhone.

There were other photos taken as well, but that one’s my favorite by far, so that’s the one you get.

We shopped the little shops around the perimeter of the monument, picked up a dream catcher and a couple of small odds and ends, and hit the road with Flagstaff in mind.

It was all going so well until we crossed into Kayenta, Arizona, when I realized we were close to Monument Valley. Earl grumbled. “Oh come on,” I said, “It’s just half an hour up the road. We go, we take a couple of pictures, boom, we’re done.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

This is becoming a pattern, but so long as she keeps enjoying it in the end, I’m good with that.

A few miles in to the drive, she was even getting into it, popping out the sunroof for the best angle for a picture of one of the first formations we saw close up.

Monument Valley ended up not being the hour detour I’d expected. It was, instead, a pay-to-enter (not nearly as cheap as Four Corners) self-guided tour around a 3 miles loop road.

A dirt loop road.

With ruts.

For three. entire. miles.

Not that I noticed the ruts because, OMG, the rocks.

Here. I’ll shut up and let you look.

 

At an overlook full of foreign-tongued tourists, I tried to get a good shot of Earl with the scenery. She gave me a half baked smile. “Pose!” I encouraged. She put a hand on her hip, her eyes darting to the side. “Wait, what’s the number one rule here? That’s not my Earl! Have some fun!” She gave me a mean face, both hands on her hips. “No, no, no. Something silly. Have fun!” Her eyes flicked again to the people who were paying her absolutely no attention. “Don’t worry about them,” I nudged, “Just do you.”

Bingo.

 

I gave her a big ol’ hug, told her I was proud of her, and let her buy a pair of dreamcatcher earrings.

Halfway through the loop road, my mother, who is tracking us via the wonders of GPS, started texting me: “GO! You need to GO! Get on the road!”

Which is why, when we decided to detour a second time to the Grand Canyon during Golden Hour, I hesitated to call and give her the head’s up that, no, I wasn’t lost.

She…didn’t fuss? Would someone please feel my mother’s head for me and make sure she’s okay?

In all honesty, I had really wrestled with stopping by the Grand Canyon tonight. We’re already booked on a tour tomorrow, but the light this evening was just so good. I couldn’t resist.

 

Before we’d diverted toward the East Entrance, I’d asked Earl, “We’re an hour away from the hotel if we go straight there. Do you want to do that? Or do you want to go by the Grand Canyon?”

“Grand Canyon.”

“That means we have 3 more hours of driving.”

“We can do 3 more hours. Let’s go.”

I am so incredibly glad that we did.

 

 

I gotta hand it to Roswell, NM. They know how to convert alien-wary kids into alien superfans in one stop. And, no, it’s not the iconic International UFO Museum.

It’s McDonald’s.

Shaped like a UFO, the enormous PlayPlace room carries on the theme, complete with a creepier than usual astronaut Ronald McDonald.

I took close-up pictures of Ronald, but I immediately deleted them and signed up for copious therapy when I get back home to dispel my reemerging-never-present-before fear of clowns.

Ahem.

Anyway, McDonald’s: Win. Earl went from alien “would you please stop whistling the X-Files theme, Mom?” hater to alien “Hey, you wanna play another round of X-Files QuizUp?” fangirl.

Sorta.

(Though I must admit, those things creep me out almost as much as astronaut Ronald.)

I had warned Earl about the aliens with their hovering UFO at the museum. We’d even watched a YouTube video of the whole exhibit firing up with steam coming from the underside of the UFO and creepy lights dancing around the aliens. While that kept her from up and running out of the building, it didn’t keep her from walking around the entire museum with her fingers in her ears.

At least her hands weren’t over her eyes, I guess?

She was actually very cool with the whole thing, even looking closely at the creepy alien replicas scattered here and there. Like this guy, who she later wondered why he was chilling in a tanning bed.

I don’t know, Earl. Maybe to catch some gamma rays?

Oh, hush. It’s early and I’m kicking myself for missed photo opportunities. Laugh at my cheesy jokes, dangit!

Look. Another picture of my kid with an alien, sans petrified look on her face:

Proof that I was there, too:

After the museum, we wandered in and out of a few of Roswell’s dozens of alien-themed shops. We picked up souvenirs and postcards, then went in search of a mailbox.

I can’t decide if I’m offended or confused that the mailbox outside of the Roswell Visitor’s Center is technically a droid and not an alien, but he’s totally cool nonetheless.

We left Roswell only an hour or so past when I’d hoped to leave, but we still squeezed in enough time to have a very late lunch and a quick stroll through Santa Fe. I didn’t take pictures, because there was too much cool stuff to see and we were under the crunch of a parking meter in a very packed part of town, but the feeling in the air was electric and elated. A shop owner later explained the crowd: “It’s Pride!” Wow, Santa Fe! What a weekend for Pride!

Back on the road again, I kept telling Earl to put down the Word Search and look around her at the ever changing and incredibly beautiful scenery. Despite the threatening storms and the sheets of rain, it was amazing. I love this part of the country with its colors and layers and jagged edges. I always forget how different the mountains are here than back home.

I took a picture of precisely one. I was, after all, driving.

So Day 6 was a day of firsts: Earl decided aliens aren’t horrible, we saw our first glimpses of the super cool geology of the Southwest, and Earl had to make a pitstop on the side of a long, interminable stretch of highway.

Yep. It’s officially a road trip.

I am not a spelunker.

At all.

So why I insisted we trek down into Carlsbad Caverns via the Natural Entrance rather than taking the nice, easy, convenient, air conditioned elevator is beyond me. But I did.

The Natural Entrance is a marvel. The paved, dimly lit, handrailed path descends some 70 stories from ground level down to The Big Room. It’s about a mile and a half down a mostly steep grade (there are handrails for a reason) that takes somewhere around an hour and a half to traverse as it winds over and under and around enormous rocks and cave formations, through high-ceilinged rooms and skinny little passages.

It’s rated as a moderate to strenuous hike, although that wholly depends on fitness level. While I did sweat like a horse, it was more an impact game than a cardio difficulty. Walking downhill for an hour and a half wreaks no small hell on knees and not-used-nearly-enough other muscles, many of which I continued to discover throughout the day. Earl, however, commented later on that she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

That’s what being 9 will get you, folks.

Despite the physical workout, the journey would be a marvelously peaceful one if everyone followed one of the Golden Rules of the Natural Entrance Hike: SPEAK SOFTLY. Hey, family of 3,872 kids and 2 adults in front of us, I’m talking to you!!!

They were loud. And squealy. And I kept having visions of some kid screeching at just the right frequency to open up some million-year-old fissure and cause a rock the size of a Holiday Inn to come crashing down on our heads.

While I paid our $10 admission in the Visitor’s Center (where the elevator is), Earl slipped across the lobby to the Ranger Info Station and got the skinny on the requirements to become a Junior Ranger of Carlsbad Caverns. I love the Junior Ranger program at our National Parks. It keeps kids involved in the parks and what’s going on around them when, really, they’d usually be complaining about the heat or their feet hurting or the lack of wi-fi or cell signal or “but why is it so DARK in here?” (shouted kid 2,431).

Once we were in the Twilight Zone, where natural light filters out and we’d be in complete darkness were it not for Thomas Edison, Earl started asking if we were through the Natural Entrance yet and would I sign that requirement off in her book.

“We’re through the opening, but we’re not done with the entrance until we get to the Big Room.”

“Oh.”

Four minutes later around a bend: “Is this the Big Room yet? Can you sign my book?”

“Not yet. You’ll know when we get to the Big Room. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen and SO much bigger than this.”

Six minutes later as I’m clinging to the rail to keep from either face planting or grabbing parent #2 who is letting kid #143 sing at the top of her lungs and throttling him: “Can you sign it yet?”

“When we stop walking down hill.”

Ten minutes later: “Can we stop so I can mark what I’ve seen from the Scavenger Hunt so far? I’ll forget if we don’t stop! What if I forget I’ve seen a drapery?”

I wasn’t a total tyrant. I didn’t make her wait the entire mile and a half before we stopped. It only took 45 minutes to find a bench in an area where a) some of the 8,354 (they were multiplying, I swear!) kids had plunked themselves and b) I didn’t fear that if I sat down, I would lose the will to continue, just lay down and give up seeing daylight ever again.

We finished the decent and took a brief time out in the Rest Area, a gift shop and snack bar tucked back behind the elevators (why did we not take the elevators?) in the cavern. While I guzzled water, Earl worked diligently on her workbook. Then it was off for our walk around The Big Room.

There are two options: The Short Loop or The Long Loop. We had already walked nearly 2 miles at that point, so I cajoled Earl into The Long Loop. “Oh come on,” I poked. “Do it for me?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Okay. I’ll do it for YOU.”

Another mile and a half later, she was glad she’d agreed to it. I was, too. It was fun. And much quieter than the descent. I have no clue where 10,324 kids can vanish in an instant, but they did. Maybe it was our first proof that we were in the general vicinity of Roswell.

After 3.5 hours in the caverns, we made a super brilliant, genius, FANTABURRIFIC decision.

We took the elevator back up to the Visitor’s Center.

Earl had finished the requisite seven activities in her book, so we stopped in with the Rangers and she was sworn in as an official Junior Ranger for Carlsbad Caverns.

We stopped briefly on the way out of dodge for me to mourn the loss of my favorite former attraction, The Million Dollar Museum. Then Earl supplemented those memories with some great ones of my child riding small but surprisingly aggressive animals.

It was a 4-Advil night for me. Earl passed out while I was in the shower.

I am so not a spelunker.