We planned our eighth day of travel to be in Moument Valley, to wake up early and beat the crowds to take the self-guided car tour of Monument Valley.
We were up well before dawn, grabbed coffee, and were third in the short line to enter the loop rode by 6:30 a.m. just before the sun came up. (To minimize impacts, and due to Covid, only 15 cars are allowed at one time to be on the two-hour loop. You could drive it faster, but why would you?)
Even with a lot of pretty good pictures, it is impossible to catch the beauty of the place. We kept trying, with Cell Phones and my daughter's loaned Canon camera. Every few hundred yards one of us would go "Oh!. Look at that!"
And then we would go around a bend in the dirt road, and the view would change. Like this.
And then a new vista would appear, with the sun climbing slowly everything changed every minute.
I suspect this photo is out of sequence, as it looks a lot like the moonrise the evening before.
And then we would have to take pictures of each other just to prove we were there.
The scale of the monuments is such that you hardly have time to consider the geological changes that took place over millions of years.
Whether far away.....
Or nearby.
When we finished the drive through the Monuments, we went back up to the Visitor Center atop the ridge looking east. The information center was closed, but the gift shop was open. It proved to be a good stop. Everything they offer is carefully labled, and one entire section is devoted to native-made items, from large expensive pottery to small souvenirs. They had a lot of Navajo silver and jade jewelry, not something we collect, but we could admire the workmanship.
One more view from the ridge looking east.
The Navajo people, who call themselves "Dine'", have done an excellent job protecting and sharing this national treasure. They not only manage the resort and visitor experiences, they also live in the valley among all this beauty. Side roads, marked "private" lead off to small ranches and homes and hogans tucked in among the towers. A few horses and sheep are always visible, and you can get a feel for what it is like for people who have lived here for hundreds or thousands of years.
The people we encountered were friendly and helpful. The best example was when we had trouble with a tire, and were considering calling AAA from a town 100 miles away. At the trading post gas station, the air pump was broken and they said there was no help anywhere nearby.
But a shop keeper in the native market told us about a local man who had a tire shop, and gave us directions. In this area, the directions were to go along the road past the commercial RV park, expect the road to be narrow and maybe dirt, but look for a home off to the right with tires stacked outside a small wooden garage. We pulled into the yard, and the man stopped what he was doing, helped us immediately, and fixed the problem.
And so, as the old travelogue movies used to say, we bid farewell to the incredible Monument Valley.
Go visit this place. It should be on every bucket list.
Next and finally: On to Colorado. Briefly.
And then we would go around a bend in the dirt road, and the view would change. Like this.
And then a new vista would appear, with the sun climbing slowly everything changed every minute.
I suspect this photo is out of sequence, as it looks a lot like the moonrise the evening before.
And then we would have to take pictures of each other just to prove we were there.
The scale of the monuments is such that you hardly have time to consider the geological changes that took place over millions of years.
Whether far away.....
Or nearby.
When we finished the drive through the Monuments, we went back up to the Visitor Center atop the ridge looking east. The information center was closed, but the gift shop was open. It proved to be a good stop. Everything they offer is carefully labled, and one entire section is devoted to native-made items, from large expensive pottery to small souvenirs. They had a lot of Navajo silver and jade jewelry, not something we collect, but we could admire the workmanship.
One more view from the ridge looking east.
The Navajo people, who call themselves "Dine'", have done an excellent job protecting and sharing this national treasure. They not only manage the resort and visitor experiences, they also live in the valley among all this beauty. Side roads, marked "private" lead off to small ranches and homes and hogans tucked in among the towers. A few horses and sheep are always visible, and you can get a feel for what it is like for people who have lived here for hundreds or thousands of years.
The people we encountered were friendly and helpful. The best example was when we had trouble with a tire, and were considering calling AAA from a town 100 miles away. At the trading post gas station, the air pump was broken and they said there was no help anywhere nearby.
But a shop keeper in the native market told us about a local man who had a tire shop, and gave us directions. In this area, the directions were to go along the road past the commercial RV park, expect the road to be narrow and maybe dirt, but look for a home off to the right with tires stacked outside a small wooden garage. We pulled into the yard, and the man stopped what he was doing, helped us immediately, and fixed the problem.
And so, as the old travelogue movies used to say, we bid farewell to the incredible Monument Valley.
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