The Fat Girl Running – Kristann Monaghan

Have you ever gone on an adventure? BFF and her parentals and I recently went on one and it was quite the experience.  We had every intention of going out to a local attraction and somehow ended up an hour out of our way on a dirt road in the middle of the Navajo reservation all thanks to Google Maps.  What we did discover, however, is that the four of us can make a good time out of even getting lost.

It all started out with BFF’s Momma wanting to go see Grand Falls, a natural waterfall system located out on the Navajo reservation.  It only flows with snow melt and is actually higher than Niagara Falls.  Since none of us had ever been out there and we heard it was flowing rather heavily, we decided to take the trip and go see it.  Instead of asking for directions or looking it up, BFF put it into Google Maps and we headed out early in the morning.  I mean, Google Maps has never steered us wrong before.  Back before there was GPS, we did get lost trying to get to Disneyland and ended up in Compton.  Luckily, Bubby was able to decipher the tiny map I had printed off the computer and get us to where we wanted to be.  GPS always re-routes you if you turn wrong so I felt pretty confident about using it to get out to Grand Falls.  I was so wrong.

Now Grand Falls is only 30 miles outside of town so it shouldn’t have taken us too long to get there.  We followed Janice (that is what we call the voice on Google Maps) and ended up on a dirt road, which wasn’t too surprising.  Since it was a weekend and the falls were so full, I thought we would see a lot more people driving on the same dirt road as us.  Nope.  Totally alone.  On a dirt road.  In the middle of no where with no signs.  An hour and a half later, we were still on various unmarked dirt roads and hoping that somehow, they led to the falls.  I kept thinking that what if we broke down or what if an axe murderer came out of the landscape to kill us all.  Seriously, the reservation is pretty desolate.  Janice kept directing us on all these unmarked dirt roads and I was thoroughly convinced that we were going to end up stranded with only 2 mini bottles of water and a couple of breakfast bars between us.  We might have to resort to cannibalism to survive.  Who would we eat first?  This is a serious question to ask yourself when traveling with a group of people.  Do you not think of this?  No?  Just me then?  Ok…well I did wonder which one of the four of us we would eat first if we were stranded and needed to survive.  Totally normal way of thinking when you are lost on the reservation if you ask me.  Don’t judge.

Eventually, the road turned and we could see the canyon and the falls so we pulled up and got out.  Upon doing that and looking around, I realized something.  We were on the wrong side of the falls.  The official lookout and parking was on the other side.  How the heck we ended up on that side was beyond me.  None of us could figure out how we ended up on the that side.  Where did we make the wrong turn?  We followed GPS.  We listened to Janice.  She let us down.  We risked our lives and almost ate one another to get here and we are on the wrong side?  Sigh.  Well at least we had a good laugh, a great time and ended up with epic pictures.  No, really, they are quite epic and not because of the falls.  Because of BFF’s bang.  Her bang could not compete with the winds around the falls and I couldn’t see because of the sun, so I had no idea what was happening until we looked t the pictures later.  Epic I tell you.  See for yourself.

Upon leaving, we ran into others who Janice had led astray and ended up on the wrong side.  Stupid GPS.  Turns out that we went about an hour out of our way and we still have no idea how to get to the right side of the falls.  Or how we got out of there without eating one another.  GPS fail.

Oh yeah.  I didn’t die today.  I did, however, consider which one of us I would eat first if we got stranded on the reservation but I didn’t die.  I am Fat Girl with epic pictures of BFF’s bang on a reservation adventure Running.  The experiment continues…