Around Gallup, New Mexico

We’re staying at a commercial RV park off I-40 in Gallup. It’s not much to see and yesterday was fairly cool and windy so we decided to try the off-road app again. We made it just over the brink of this hill on a forest road in Cibola National Forest. The road ahead was steep and muddy so Bud backed into this turn-around and we decided to survey on foot.

The road was thick, sticky mud and although we could get down this hill if we had to go up a hill like this we wouldn’t make it with our tires.

Too bad, since the land ahead was inviting.

Matey enjoyed our short walk. He freaked out a bit at the mud. We walked back through the trees because the road was so thick and slippery we didn’t think we could even walk up it. Matey was happy to get out of the mud, and was delighted to find a couple of snow patches to roll in.

So we turned back, another aborted off-road attempt, but at least we know the app works well. I was running on off-line maps because we were out of cell service, but it still gave me a bread crumb trace of our route. You can see from the red dots how far we went.

Rather than give up for the day we decided to do a paved route north of Gallup. I saw a route that went up the valley between the Defiance Plateau and the Chuska Mountains. Then it went over the mountains and back down the desert on their eastern side. This is just as we turned north into the valley at Window Rock, Arizona.

I wasn’t expecting a divided four-lane highway for Indian Route 12.

The valley turned out to be pretty spectacular.

It was hard to remember to take photos as we were driving along these beautiful red rock cliffs.

We passed miles of this red rock.

Then we came to a section with green rock. This is all Navajo Nation, what a spectacular place to live.

We stopped at a gas station. Bud talked to a local who at first thought Bud was a man he was meeting. When he found we were just sightseeing he told Bud to make a right about three miles up on a paved road. This is as we drove into the bowl surrounded by cliffs that he said was there. Sorry, I could not get a shot of this without the flare of the sun, but I still thought I should include this picture.

We stopped at a little pull-out to eat our lunch.

If you play this video with sound all you will hear is a bit of wind.

What a gorgeous spot. It was so nice of that man to share this.

Not too far north of that we crossed the mountains. This was a picnic area close to the pass. We were above 8000 feet and it was closed due to the snow.

There were trees and plenty of snow…

and another huge cliff of that grey-green rock.

Coming back down on the east side you could see a huge expanse of the desert.

You could even make out the Colorado Rockies in the distance.

I’m sure glad we decided to take that road trip!