Our final stop of the day was at Sunset Crater National Monument.
After picking out a nice spot in the nearly empty Bonita Campground, Chris set up our chairs outside and sat down. By the time I joined him (maybe 5 minutes later after mixing cocktails), he'd decided our spot was so peaceful & relaxing that we should stay a 2nd night here. Since we had a deadline for being at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, this meant we had to skip a day somewhere later, and we decided we would spend only one night at Canyon de Chelly National Monument (turned out to be a really good choice).
Anyway, we enjoyed sitting outside listening to the breeze in the pine trees, and later listening to the rain overnight.
09/27/16, Tuesday: Sunset Crater National Monument, AZ
In spite of some dark clouds, we took off on our bikes after lunch and headed toward the Visitor Center, where we watched a film about volcano, then headed out to one of the overlooks for the crater. It was a pleasant ride there and back, with just a couple of hills, and we were happy to get a little exercise.
It started raining shortly after we got back to the coach, and it rained all evening and occasionally through the night. We've had a lot of rain so far on this trip, but amazingly, it hasn't interfered with any of our activities so far.
09/28/16, Wednesday: Sunset Crater National Monument, AZ to Dinosaur Tracks, AZ
It was sunny when we left our Bonita campsite and headed to Wupatki National Monument. But as we completed our tour, some dark clouds approached. We ate our lunch there in the coach to the sounds of a fabulous thunderstorm. We were done eating and poised to leave, when the rain hit. And it rained really hard for a bit. Coming down in sheets. When it let up, we continued on our way to Tuba City with plans to stop at 'Dinosaur Tracks,’ but when we arrived, the rain started again. We waited awhile to see if it would stop, but then moved on to our camping location. We were disappointed that the rains had finally messed up our plans, but we knew it wouldn't be too far to come back tomorrow if it wasn't raining.
09/29/16, Thursday: Dinosaur Tracks, AZ to Goosenecks State Park, UT
In the morning the rain had indeed stopped, and we decided it was worth a little backtracking to go see Dinosaur Tracks. It was definitely worth the stop, and we got the 15 min. tour from a local Navajo woman.
