I had circled on my map a series of locations that I wanted to visit. Stefan told me about Shiprock, a mountain shaped like a ship in the middle of the desert. Luckily, Shiprock stands just off of Highway 666, which I thought was fictional. The drive towards Shiprock was amazingly picturesque, but I had no time to stop. I wanted to see the Four Corners monument as well, and perhaps camp in Monument Valley that night. I had no concrete plans for the next week or so, just a vague idea of what I wanted to see.
The area around Shiprock is phenomenal. It looms over a yellow desert, with a rocky natural wall like a spine leading straight up to it. I drove West to explore, and somewhere just East of the Arizona border found myself crossing a very distinct line from a yellow desert to a red. As I drove up an inconspicuous ridge, I found that it divided two radically different landscapes. I turned back because the road I was on wasn't on my map. I took a few distant photos of Shiprock, which I had been told is sacred to the Navajo in whose reservation it stands.
I got back onto 666, and headed for the Four Corners monument.
