Navigating another day

Brett and I got up at 5:45 a.m. to see morning twilight in Monument Valley. It was beautiful and we stayed longer in Monument Valley than we had planned. I had a hard time leaving the view.

On our itinerary for today was a trip to Mesa Verde National Park. I visited Mesa Verde as a child and remember being deeply impressed by the place. It is quite a drive up to to the mesa. Brett and I had hoped to go on a ranger guided tour of Cliff Palace but we didn't arrive early enough. So we took a self-guided tour of Spruce Tree House. I remember why I was so amazed by Mesa Verde as a child. The Native American Puebloans made these cliffs their home for more than 700 years. The whole area is an archaeological dream.

We are now staying in a motel right next to Great Sand Dunes National Park. We arrived after dark and in a rainstorm so we have no sense of the geographical layout around us. We are eager to get up tomorrow and explore the area.

I was thinking today about how road trips have changed. I studied Google maps before I left home. I plotted our trip that way and figured out mileage for each day. Bryan loaned me his GPS for the trip. For example, the hotel we stayed in last night gave latitude and longitude data for it's address on the website. That only helps if you have a GPS.

But the day before we left I told Bryan I felt like I needed a road atlas. I want the big picture. I want to know where Great Sand Dunes is in comparison to Mesa Verde. Plus, I couldn't get the GPS to work until we were almost to Monument Valley. Google maps didn't tell me that the exit we wanted in Flagstaff was closed due to construction. But since I had a road atlas I could navigate us a different way.

Bryan said that when he went to the bookstore to get me the road atlas he had to ask a sales associate where to find one. The young man seemed confused about why anyone would still need one of those archaic items. Sometimes I find the voice of the GPS comforting as she tells me to turn left in 1.4 miles but most of the time I would rather see it on paper.