I'm sorry to keep posting about our trip but, lastly, I just wanted to re-cap our route. Obviously you can do just about anything in the Southwest and it's going to be beautiful but just in case you want ideas I thought I would share our route.
We started in Las Vegas, then spent our first night in Peach Springs, we thought the nostalgic Route 66 would be fun, but it wasn't... it was okay... but not spectacular. I think that the town of Williams gives you a nice point reference on Route 66 (and you can stay on HWY 40) and then you don't have to waste the hours on rolling highway. Not to mention the fact that Route 66 follows the Train so wherever you go, expect the honking of trains all through the night... nice the first few times, then it gets a bit much!
For the second night it was straight up to Grand Canyon, stunning and great to arrive in the morning, get yourself situated and stay for a couple of days, we stayed in both Grand Canyon Village and Desert View, both were great places to stay. From there we went onto Monument Valley and that was the best drive, desolate and majestic with the monuments. We spent a night at the Monument Valley Navajo Indian Reservation there and it was one of our best nights! We had a meteor shower and a night out in the desert! Just a note about traveling at this time of year (August) in the desert, you can expect to hear NO english, I don't think we saw any Americans! (it was French and Italian all the way!)
Then it was straight to Santa Fe, we stopped by Valley of the Gods and the Four Corners (a bit silly, but our son purchased and very cool sling-shot that came in handy for the trip). We stayed three nights in Santa Fe, because we loved it! and then it was time to start back. We went through Albuquerque, which was not great but we didn't have any information on where to stay etc.. so we should have done more homework. But it's a long drive all the way to Sedona (our next destination), it took just about all day.
We really wanted to swim and play in a river so we found that at Slippery Rock - super fun swimming on slippery rocks! Sliding down the river on natural rocks.. it was a bunch of fun for the whole family! We stayed in Sedona for two nights and relaxed and ate good food and went back to slippery rock twice! Also Red Rock was fun... lots to do in Sedona!
And then back to Las Vegas... I'm not sure if I should tell you what happened in Vegas?....? (ha!)
