Hi again! I know it’s silly to write two posts in one day about the same trip, but it feels better to have two shorter posts rather than one long one! I’m thinking of you, Dear Reader!

Anyway, on with the rest of the journaling of Road Trip USA!

Day 3 – Santa Fe and a whole lotta driving

After a delicious night of heavy sleep, we got up and did our morning run (gotta keep the streak going, right???). We ran a mile through the streets of Santa Fe, which, by the way, are at 7,000 feet elevation, so it was a mighty slow run (fine by me!). We had planned the run in such a way that we’d end up at breakfast, which was at Cafe Pasqual, a super cute place with typical food. I accidentally ordered cafe negro instead of black coffee, which then triggered our server into switching to Spanish as well. It was fun to chit chat with him in Spanish; felt like home!

Amanda had huevos rancheros, and I had avocado toast, despite the fact that officially I am not a millennial. Everything was riquisimo (I can’t figure out how to get the tilde on this keyboard), and we thoroughly enjoyed the morning.

From breakfast we headed back to the hotel and did some repacking to make our bags more organized (yay!) and then checked out. We left our stuff in the car and did more exploring of Santa Fe (exploring is code for shopping). Even though it was a Monday, there were tons of street vendors selling their wares. One section of it reminded me a lot of Antigua, Guatemala, where the vendors were set up in a long hallway covered by a roof with lots of arches (I don’t know what to call it). We just bought a couple of small things but had a nice time perusing the shops.

On the way out of town, we stopped at a place called New York Deli for some road trip sandwiches. Then we made an extremely important stop at Sephora Inside JC Penny (yes, it’s actually called Sephora Inside JC Penny; I’m not just describing its location). Once we got what we needed at Sephora, we again hit the road, starting what was our longest day of driving of the trip (seven hours).

The drive was pretty typical; we had a roadside picnic, took a bajillion pics of scenery that don’t look nearly as beautiful as in real life, listened to an audio book (I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, which is excellent thus far), chatted, and so on. We arrived in Page, Arizona, at around 11pm, which actually ended up being 10pm, because Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings, so we gained an extra hour.

We checked into our room (or should I say suite!), skipped dinner due to our late picnic lunch, and passed out due to exhaustion and our need to wake up early for the next day’s adventures.

Day 4 – Page, Arizona

Tuesday was another day for grab-n-go breakfast, since we needed to be at our scheduled tour at 7:45am. So, we grabbed and went, and then headed down the road to Horsehoe Bend Slot Canyon Tours. We had booked a combo tour of a slot canyon and Horseshoe Bend, both of which are right outside Antelope Canyon. Our tour guide Chance is Navajo, and he told us about how the land belongs to his family. It was upsetting when he told us about people who graffiti up the walls and leave things like soiled underwear and women’s products. It’s irritating that he even has to ask us not to do those things. Sometimes humanity really baffles me.

Chance also had pretty amazing knowledge of every type of phone/camera there is, and he gave us some tips and tricks for how to get great photos inside the slot canyon. Then he gave us an hour of free time to explore the canyon on our own and take however many photos as we wanted. The best part about our tour was that they cap the tours at 15 people, so it was easy to find quiet spaces to take pics without feeling crowded or rushed. And take pictures we did!! If you follow me and/or Amanda on Insta, you probably already know this.

The slot canyon was pretty amazing, and, like the gypsum field in New Mexico, has been there for millions of years. Chance said that sometimes, if it flash floods, it could be filled with water all the way to the top! So crazy. He also said that it takes about 10,000 years for every inch of erosion, so no, he has not seen any physical changes to the canyon in his lifetime (he’s not that old, he informed us). It’s pretty amazing that all the canyon needed for its formation was wind, water, and time.

After the slot canyon, we headed back down the dirt road (I forgot to mention that we rode down a 6-mile dirt road to get to the canyon) and to Horseshoe Bend. Horseshoe bend is a crazy beautiful horseshoe-shaped (duh) hunk of rock that has been carved out by the Colorado River over millions of years. Chance took us to a private lookout point (thank goodness because the public one was insanely crowded) and gave us more free time to run around like a bunch of millennials taking a billion selfies and artsy photos. Sometimes it was a little dizzying to be so high, but we really did get some great pics.

After our tour (which, by the way, I highly recommend), we got our run in (the streak continues!). We ran from the tour company parking lot, down the road, around a hotel parking lot, and back. It wasn’t glorious, but it was done! Then we ate some well-deserved Big John’s Texas BBQ and once again got into Stevie and headed toward Bryce Canyon.

This drive was pretty quick (around three hours, with stops) and also beautiful. Once again, we took a ton of pics that just don’t do it justice. We finally arrived in Tropic, Utah, where we are staying in an adorable little cabin for two nights. It’s really nice to have two nights here, since every other place so far has only been for one, and we’ve been keeping a pretty fast pace. This explains why I have time to write these posts, because I am in the laundromat waiting for my clothes to dry. Down time is a good thing.

We had dinner at a pizza place called The Pizza Place (also, the coffee shop is called The Coffee Shop), and then pretty much passed out, again from exhaustion. We slept over eight hours before today, when we had our next adventure at Bryce!

But that, Dear Reader, is for the next post!