5-28 (Fri)
We left Durango at 8:00. After a shopping trip to Walmart we departed for Mesa Verde (Connee thanks for telling us about this) about 30 miles up the road. We were able to use our National Parks pass to get in free. The earliest tour ($3) we could get was 11:30 but we decided to do it even though we thought we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us. While we were waiting in line I interviewed one of the Rangers about how to drive up and down the mountains.

Mesa Verde

The tour was supposed to last an hour but you know how that goes. We stopped in the park for lunch because we were afraid we wouldn’t find anything along the way. It was probably 2:00 by the time we left the park. Nancy got on the phone with AAA trying to find us a place to stay for the evening. There was NOTHING up around Arches National Park. The girl found one room in Page, AZ. It was more than we usually pay but we were grateful to get it especially with this being Memorial Day weekend. We also had AAA book us a room near the North Rim of the grand Canyon for tomorrow night.
Good news, bad news . . . The good news is we have been keeping the car nice and clean - washing the windows at each gas stop etc. The bad news is between Cortez and Page we went through a MAJOR dust storm. The wind must have been blowing at least 70 mph. I kept saying, “Oh no, my car is getting dusty.” It about drove Nancy nuts. She drove through the worst part of it and she had to fight to keep the car on the road. There were times when we couldn’t see a car’s length ahead. Everyone was driving with their lights on. It was like a thick fog or heavy rainstorm back home. Similar to our rain in that we drove in and out of pockets of it. There would be no dust/sand but the wind still blowing and up the road we could see where we could enter the dust again. It probably took us an hour and a half to get through it. When we stopped to change drivers we could hardly open our doors.

We took a short cut to Page and saw many unusual rock formations along the way.

I went inside to check in. A guy was ahead of me making a reservation for $119. AAA had told us we were getting the last room. While I was hanging around the lobby they were selling rooms right and left. When I got up to the counter I asked if there was a $119 room left. There was so I told the girl I wanted to change our $143 room for a $119 room. She said she couldn’t do it because AAA had made the reservation. Before we went to dinner we stopped by the front desk and talked to her again. She agreed to drop the price to $119.

We had dinner in a FABULOUS Mexican restaurant. .