HaveKidsWillTravel

Think Road Runner and Wiley-Coyote, Dr Seuss and John Wayne, and you’ve got a fairly accurate mental picture.

Our route cut North from Vegas, through Zion national park, along the North rim of the Grand Canyon, down to Monument valley and East into the corner country – Mesa Verde, and the Great Sand Dunes.

Zion has to be one of the greatest parks in the states – sandstone cliffs to match the Granite of Yosemite, spectacular otherworldly formations, and narrow canyons carved from a few million years of running water. The big drawcard is the narrows – a hike following the watercourse of the virgin river for about 6 miles up an ever tightening slot canyon – the rushing river, seeping cliffs and hanging gardens making for a surreal contrast to the dusty desert outside the canyon.

Knee deep from the outset, there’s no staying dry, but the cool water was lovely after all the heat. Evie and Angus led the way and we followed the canyon upriver – up to my shoulders in places. After a lunchtime picnic, we turned back, and Digby – who had been happily sitting up on my shoulders on the way there – fell sound asleep, making the deep crossings bit more of a challenge on the return.

We hadn’t thought to book our campsite for the night, so by the time we got back in the late afternoon, things were booked solid – so we headed out of the park, stopping to explore and walk barefoot on some of the beautiful sandstone mesas in the cool of twilight on the way.

The North rim of the grand canyon sits on a high plateau, a forested oasis much cooler than the surrounding deserts – and its isolation making it much quieter than the mad crowds of the South rim. Next day, we were lucky enough to get a last minute spot in the park campground, a short bike ride from the spectacular old 1930s stone lodge, perched right on the edge of the canyon. As we took an evening stroll out along the rim, an orchestra struck up on the terrace at the lodge – America the beautiful indeed. While the cool was a relief after the heat of the desert, we got rain overnight, so thought better of trying to hike down into the canyon the next morning, and headed onwards.

The storms followed us across the desert, making for spectacular skies across the landscape that anywhere else in the world would be a prime drawcard in itself – the vermillion cliffs, the colorado river, the great staircase – and by the time we turned off Monument Valley, we were passing patches of flash flooding and canyons full of churning black water.

We got to Monument Valley late – fearing the dark clouds meant we’d miss sunset, and paid to camp in the most primitive of campgrounds, in the most incredible of locations – sitting up on a ridge above the famous mittens, two mirror-image buttes of red Navajo sandstone. The storm rolled in, the wind picked up, and we put up the tent down off the ridge to escape its full force. There were just a couple of RVs in the campground (that we suddenly deeply missed), and a couple of folks who had given up on the idea of spending the night in their tent and retreated to their cars for the night. Fiona cooked out in the sandstorm and finished just as the rain and lightning arrived, for us to huddle together for a gritty meal in our little tent as the storm raged outside. Things quietened down overnight, and we woke for a spectacular sunrise over the mittens.

Mesa Verde is home to the largest and best preserved native american cliff-dwellings in North America – homes to the ancestral Pueblo indians who lived in the area 700 years ago. Elaborate villages built into the underhanging sandstone cliffs, some of the structures look like they could have been lived in just yesterday. After taking in the museum, we split up to make the most of the day, with Angus and Evie and I going to see the Balcony House – a bit of an adventurous tour involving narrow crawls and 30foot high ladders to get in and out – while Fiona and Digby saw the Spruce tree terrace. Evie wrote a story of living as a little girl, growing corn and living in the cliff houses. Angus wrote and drew in his dragon diary about marauding cliff-dwelling dragons.

A long drive across Colorado, and we made it to the Great Sand Dunes – an incredible 700foot high mound of dunes piled at the edge of a desert plain against a corner of the Rocky Mountains. The storms seemed to have followed us there, and in the evening climbing across the dunes, the strong winds nearly covered our footsteps as we made them. Next morning we ventured out again – for some running up, running down and log-rolling races – until the sand got so hot you couldn’t stand it without shoes.

Just a week in the desert – and I think we’ve all got dust, sand, mud and sunlight in places it’ll never get out of.