Fletcher: Day 5 – Old Man Bucket List Road Trip – UPDATED

[Editor’s note: Content partner Mike Fletcher is off on a road trip and Bearing Drift is going along for the ride. Be sure to check back frequently for his updates over the next two weeks.]

Tuesday, August 22….

 

 

#morningcup reflections before we hit the road again. Today, Albuquerque to the South Rim.

This morning is all about the feels. Driving through New Mexico I am taken back to the summer I spent teaching on the Navajo Reservation. At 22, I was sure I would be back. For years I’ve tried to locate the missionary couple I stayed with but we lost contact in the late 80s.

Today, Google finally let me make the connection and I found out my friend Rick passed a few years back. I would have liked to hang out with him in the Colorado mountains one more time. But things change and people come and go. Maybe my life would have been different if I’d taken that left turn in Albuquerque, but I followed a different path. No regrets. Just lots of feels.

Closer and closer.

Petrified Forest National Park. Mesa, Arizona.

Mike Fletcher standing by a rock with a hieroglyph of a bird eating a baby – or maybe it’s eating a frog. What do you think?

#oldmanbucketlistroadtrip #thereandbackagain #grandcanyon #2023

We’re. This. Close. Flooding in Grand Canyon Village is preventing us from getting to the (non-flooded) campground.

…

Change of venue. After waiting almost two hours for the road to open only to hear that it might be another three, we found a campsite in Kaibab National Forest. Canyon tomorrow.  #oldmanbucketlistroadtrip