US Hwy 191: Off The Reservation

Heading out of Canyon de Chelley this morning, I stopped at the Burger King to use their wi-fi internet and to get some grub for what I expected would be a long, desolate day on the road. As soon as I parked, I was "greeted" by a handful of middle-aged men who inspected my rig with somewhat discomforting interest, then told me they were hungry, asked me to buy them some food and offered to "watch" my rig for me.

I honestly couldn't tell if this was just a routine hustle or some kind of petty extortion, so I said I would then took care of my business in short order, bought a bag of sandwiches and handed it over on my out. Not another word was spoken as they took their booty and moved away. I'd like to think it was just a benign tourist hustle, but I'm still not sure. Better safe than sorry.

US191 north from there is a pretty rough road, poorly maintained and patched virtually everywhere. I set the cruise control for 45mph and made slow but reasonably low impact and steady progress. The greenery that I had enjoyed on the previous driving stint seemed to have substantially disappeared, but was replaced by some geological formations that looked to be right out of a western movie.







The route remained virtually the same for 100 miles going north, but changed abruptly -- and dramatically -- the moment I got off the reservation... Stay tuned!

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