Today we start our week long trip through Utah and Colorado with a long drive through Arizona. We stop only a couple times to stretch our legs but still see an interesting huge tarantula on a dirt side road that we explore for a few minutes.
We spend the night in Monticello before starting with our first day of exploring the area around Monticello. In fact the view from the hotel site is already very impressive with huge mountains lost into clouds like in wilderness movie.
There are some huge mountains surrounding Monticello and their summits are covered with snow, rarely visible due to clouds unfortunately.
As we can continue south on our trip we stop to take in the views of the mountains and also to see the Recapture Reservoir which is quite large and even has a few lost looking ducks.
The next area that we explore is the Cottonwood Wash area. It is an interesting area with many autumn leaves and also a few ruins both ancient and more modern.
We climb at a few ancient ruins that are perched precariously above the wash in order to explore them and enjoy the great views. And not all ruins are ancient, some are more recent from mining.
The signs of mining are not only above ground but also below ground with many mining shafts dotting the area. The most interesting one is an old uranium mine, which is closed for entry, but there are many others to explore from a safe distance.
After exploring a few side roads we return to the main road to explore the main wash and we find a beautiful area of pools, rapids and small waterfalls which is quiet now but probably it is a lot more lively in spring.
