Happy Trails

Road Tripping to Monument Valley

October 2,3,4 2010

We left Bluff Utah on the 2nd and started driving through moonscape landscapes! No wonder they used this area of the west to shoot so many science fiction films!  It is eerie and beautiful!

This formation is Mexican Hat.

The colors are muted, the textures

are amazing. Looks so totally unreal!

The background looked like an old lava flow.

All grays and blues, the foreground is sandstone formations in various hues of reds and blues.

The town of Mexican Hat probably became established because of this landmark!

Two Navajo/Dineh men

I love that Appaloosa!

The road less travelled!

Highway 163

You might remember this scene from Forrest Gump

when he was running cross country. This is where he stopped, turned around and went home.

It is named Monument Valley for a reason,

rock monuments everywhere. Those little "dots" at the base of the rock is a small Navajo neighborhood!

Homes!

We arrived at the Goulding RV Camp and set up the MotherShip. We had huge rocks like these all around us! Very nice campground complete with heated indoor pool, nice laundry and camp store!

We got up the next day and headed

to Monument Valley. $5.00 entrance fee.

You can choose to drive yourself around the valley or take one of the many Navajo Tours available.

We intended to drive ourselves. I have driven it 3 times in the past. But heavy rains this summer made the roads very rough and rutted.

Chuck laughed at this 15 mph sign!

Road was so bad, we were lucky if we could get

speed up to 10 mph!

We didn't quite make the 5 mile marker when we decided to turn around. No use ruining our front end.

But even within those first 5 miles, the scenery was amazing!

We planned on taking the Navajo Tours the next day, but it rained off and on all day.

We decided we didn't want to take an open vehicle tour through mud and rain either so we will come back next year!

Back up at the Visitors Center, I safely got a photo

of the formation known as "The Mittens". If you look closely at that light colored strip below, you will see a couple of cars and a tour bus on the road. You can click onto the photo to enlarge it.

Monument Valley, on the Utah/Arizona border

is one of my favorite places! I sincerely regret that we didn't get to tour it this year as planned.

Put this one on your bucket list!

This was a photograph I took in 1989! I happened to be camped there when an amazing lightning storm passed through! All I had was 3 rolls of slide film.

I grabbed the film and my tripod and used all 3 rolls but got one amazing shot! The slide scan was not good, but you can see the image at least! I should re-scan that slide... scanning technology has vastly improved since I scanned this image!

Happy Trails!  Geri and Chuck on the road with our "furkids" ScottyBoy and DoogieBowser