gorges, dams and the rest of the journey....

Back to the road trip!  I'll wrap up our last week of travels in one final post...New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington...and home. 

Taos, New Mexico is a comfortable, tourist town at the base of the Sangre de Christo Mountains...rather laid back and artsy. 

In winter...it's all about skiing.  In summer...Taos is a tourist destination.  We spent one night...and carried on our way. 

A few miles west of Taos, we came to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge...

...which sits some 650 feet above the Rio Grande river below...one of the highest bridges in the US.  We parked and walked onto the bridge...and wondered for a moment if we were in Mexico or New Mexico as we passed by all the vendors waiting for free-spending tourists.

We drove through desert...just as I would have expected in new Mexico. What I didn't expect...was the tall rock formation that suddenly loomed in the distance. 

My first thought was 'Haystack Rock at Canon Beach'...but as we got nearer I realized this was much bigger than the famous Oregon coast rock. It is in fact called Shiprock...and is the most prominent landmark in northern New Mexico.

We saw it coming in the distance...an evening storm that soon enveloped us.  And so ended our visit to New Mexico.  The morning dawned bright and clear...and we travelled through a wee stretch of Arizona.  Though we knew nothing about Glen Canyon Dam...it looked quite impressive and so we stopped.

The Glen Canyon Dam is located on the Colorado River...upstream from Grand Canyon.  The dam caused the flooding of Glen Canyon...and created a large reservoir which is called Lake Powell.  It is quite  lovely lake in the desert and a popular tourist attraction.

We checked out of Arizona and into Utah right after leaving Glen Canyon.  I've already taken you to a few of my favorite spots in Utah...so I'll leave you with one last image.

That would be Bryce Canyon...of course!

From Utah...we passed through northeast Oregon...

...though it looked rather like Saskatchewan to me.  From there...we were on the home stretch...and our summer road trip 2010 was about to end.

Thanks for joining me on the road!  Until next time...I'll be back to blogging close to home.