In the Desert You Can't Remember Your Name...

...because its too flippin' hot to think!

Every single day in Arizona I keep saying "That was the best day ever!" But Thursday really was the best day.

Thursday we hit the road, man, headin' off t'Monument Valley (I think I'm mixing my accents there, American meets Yorkshire and has a fight over vowels... Yorkshire wins hands down for sheer volume).

We set off just after 7am local time wearing t-shirt and shorts with the car top down. Nearly froze to death. Made Hubs stop by moaning a lot about hyperthermia and how difficult it would be to ship my body home, and he put the lid on the car and tossed me a jacket... and a tourist fatality was narrowly averted.

Monument Valley, wow. I mean, wow. I mean, WOW! We drove into a town called Mexican Hat where, to Hubs immense relief, they sold beer (Kayenta, where we were staying, is within a Navajo Indian reservation so no alcohol is sold there - Hubs almost burst into tears when he found out).

We were going to drive a hundred miles or so through the valley, then stop and come back to view it all from a different angle, but we ended up carrying on to a town called Blanding.

Blanding was lovely, just how you'd imagine a typical American town. We popped into a deli to grab some goodies, then set off to find a scenic place to eat lunch, which ain't that hard in Monument Valley. Met up with a couple from Ireland at the side of the road and 'shot the breeze' with them awhile... you meet people wherever you go and share travel tips and anecdotes, I luuurve road trips.

I was trigger happy with the camera and just kept taking photos left, right and centre - everything was just so photogenic. I was feverishly snapping staggering rock formations on the left side of the road when Hubs drawled, "I'd quite like to see where I'm going if it's all the same to you." I was holding the camera and my arm right in front of his face. "Sometimes," he added, tutting, "You're just such a woman."

He still has the bruise.

On the way back we stopped at an 'historic monument' in Bluff, which was rather interesting; how Mormons first arrived and struggled to settle in the middle of nowhere. There were black and white photographs of some rather miserable people, but then if you've travelled for weeks across arid and bumpy desert I guess you'd look like that.

We turned into the Navajo Reservation in MV, primarily to get an ice cream because I was sweating my socks off and screaming for one like a stroppy toddler. There was a road leading down from the visitors area and you could see cars driving down the dusty track towards more towering formations. Hubs hummed and huffed a bit, muttering about low car clearance and rental insurance, but I forced him to go have a look - it would be an adventure I cried.

Had I been driving, I'd have given up at the first hairpin bend, got out the car and sulked until some man came to save me. Fortunately, Hubs was driving, and he did an excellent job.

"Its just like rally driving isn't it," I cried, weak with relief that I wasn't behind the wheel as we bounced along the rugged track.

"Rally driving is faster," said Hubs, navigating over a rut big enough to hide an elephant or two.

"Slow motion rally driving then."

I'm so glad we made the effort. It was the best view, the best place, exactly how we'd imagined Monument Valley to be. You could drive right next to the rock formations and marvel at the sheer immensity of it all. It was amazing, I was awestruck. I gaped up at this solid, sheer wall of towering rock and was rendered speechless. It was an incredible moment.

There were some dodgy moments across a dried up river bed and some deep ruts, but our convertible did us proud. We drove behind huge 4 x 4 monsters that were pottering along like fairy cakes. I mean, isn't that what they were built for, off road driving like this? Tsk.

It was a hell of a day. Monument Valley was astonishing with knobs on.

It was a sensory overload.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday (unless I'm on holiday, in which case it'll probably be late).

Brummie Blogs: There rest of time (unless I'm in the Arizona mountains and can't find WiFi, telephone or radio reception).