Phoenix to Grand Junction Road Trip Guide
Introduction
An artist desperately looking for inspiration needs to look no further than Phoenix, AZ. It is the perfect destination to expand your ideas and notions via the endless wealth of historical, artistic, and cultural information exhibited here.
Step through the threshold of Heard Museum and find yourself in the world of Southwestern folk art and indigenous artifacts. Learn what life was like at the turn of the modern era and in the prehistoric days at the Phoenix Art Museum and Pueblo Grande Museum. If it’s the under-the-sun fun you’re craving, why not catch a baseball game at Chase Field and satisfy your hunger pangs with the finger-licking Sonoran Cuisine?
Whenever you end up yearning for a quick weekend getaway, you can get on to Intersection-17 in your RV and embark on a glorious road trip through Utah to beautiful Colorado.
Grand Junction, CO, has forever been thought of as a place where seniors retire. However, millennials have recently started rushing to the city after realizing how cool this place really is. As a result, you get a city perfect for families and friends with its wine country vibes, adventure sports opportunities, and the majestic Grand Valley to explore.
Point of Interest
Hole N" the Rock
Two hours before you reach your end destination, you’ll find another reason to stop on the highway. Hole N" The Rock in Moab is a tourist attraction with often a crowd around it. Yet, it is one of the best tourist attractions and deserves your full attention. Hole N" The Rock is essentially a home, but a very unique one.
This 5000 square foot historic home is carved out from a humongous rock in Canyonlands Country. You can take a spontaneous guided tour around the house, learn about its unique history, and enjoy the unusual collection of items at the gift shop.
As huge as this house looks, this marvel was created as a simple gesture by the Christensen family to make a small alcove for the young boys in the family to sleep and play. The plan eventually got bigger and more sophisticated and ended up taking 20 years to create this 14 room house in the rocks, in the middle of a desert.
Blanding
Nearly three hours later, it’s time for you to take a rest, enjoy a good meal, and appreciate the general vibes of a beautiful city and all its attractions without the overwhelming crowd. Blanding is a beautiful city in Utah with a small population and lots of interesting things to see and do.
The atmosphere of the city is a diverse mixture of cowboy culture and Native American culture. But what Blanding is really known for is its tremendous preservation of everything prehistoric. In fact, the only sanctioned repository of ancient artifacts in the Four Corner Region, Edge of Cedars State Park and Museum is found here.
Then there’s the extremely wholesome Dinosaur Museum with its life-size dinosaur models, fossilized skin of a dinosaur, a skeleton, a petrified tree, and other prehistoric exhibits. What’s more is that some pretty epic festivals, markets, and celebrations are organized and hosted by Balding in different months.
Moenave Dinosaur Tracks
Fives miles west of Tuba City, AZ, in Navajo Nation and right along your route, some 200 million-year-old dinosaur tracks are found on the riverbed in Moenkopi, Arizona. Something like this definitely needs a stopover and a much closer look.
A full-grown adult can enjoy this fascinating attraction just as much as any child. And no, these footprints haven’t been encased behind glass screens or cut into stone pieces, they are actual footprints out in the open along the bench, right underneath the Hamblin Ridge.
It is believed that these footprints were formed by the dinosaurs who walked past this area during the early Jurassic Period.
The paleontologists from Northern Arizona University even verified their authenticity. However, it still remains difficult to identify the types of dinosaurs that left these prints here for us humans to find, millions of years later.
There have been speculations though and some believe these footprints might belong to Dilophosaurus wetherilli, Grallator, or Coelophysis kayentakatae.
Kachina Wetlands Preserve
Once you set out from Phoenix, drive for about two and a half hours before making a stop and stretching your legs at the Kachina Wetlands Preserve. Located just a ten-minute drive from Flagstaff, AZ, this preserve offers one of the best birdwatching destinations in the United States.
Kachina Wetlands Preserve in Kachina Village is an extraordinarily diverse natural area to visit where you get to witness both a variety of different kinds of wetlands as well as an assortment of various species of upland birds. Whether you are a birdwatcher or not, you’ll find yourself fascinated by all the different kinds of birds, their traits, and their appearance.
The preserve is so rich with its bird species that it has been claimed as a global hotspot for birdwatching. Birds aren’t the only creatures you can see here; the wetlands also attract a variety of wildlife such as elk, garter snakes, fox, deer, and small mammals.
Summary
Grand Junction is a place where everything is fun, be it traveling, working, or retiring here for good. Enjoy this beautiful city by paying a visit to its picturesque and extremely scenic national park, Colorado National Monument − also known as the Grand Mesa − or just go swimming, boating, and fishing at the James M. Robb Colorado River State Park.
Once you’ve had your share of outdoor activities, you can explore the city some more in a different light. Relax and wind down by embarking on one of the many winery tours offered in the city. You’ll also find yourself adoring all the great shops, restaurants, and art galleries in the city’s charming downtown district.
