Canyon de Chelly Arizona

 

ROAD TRIPPING FROM BLUFF UTAH

TO

CANYON de CHELLY ARIZONA

(we hold copyrite to ALL photographs!) 

After spending 3 days exploring around Bluff Utah, Chuck and I headed to Chinle AZ and

Canyon de Chelly National Monument! (Pronounced Canyon de Shay)

We left Bluff almost a month ago! WoW!  Where did all that time go?  We followed Highway 191 from Bluff to Chinle and why this isn't marked as a scenic highway, I will never know!  Beautiful rock monuments and red stone cliffs, beautiful valleys and a wonderful road with NO TRAFFIC! I mean if we met 20 vehicles between Bluff and Chinle, I would be surprised!  Now for the spoiler....   be sure your gas tank is full before exploring this highway. You will be driving the backroads of the Navajo/Dineh reservation!  Going through settlements named Mexican Water, Rock Point, Round Rock and Many Farms before arriving at Chinle! It was a leisurely 3 or so hour drive from Bluff to Cottonwood Campground at Canyon de Chelly .

 

 

 

ENJOYING THE COTTONWOOD CAMPGROUND

 

Cottonwood Campground is a well maintained campground full of the cottonwood trees for which it was named providing nice shady sites. NO HOOK-UPS
You will be dry camping here. The sites are all paved and level with some pull through's but mostly back in. It's only $10 per night.

The campground was almost empty! We got there on a Friday night... August 17th!  The little Casita belongs to the workamper. There are handicapped sites available right next to the restrooms.

NAVAJO ARTISTS ALONG THE WAY...

There were Navajo artists at several of the overlooks with quality work, not the usual cedar beads you find.

This man had beautiful pottery, he was carving very intricate designs into this pot with an exacto knife! He had several pieces I really liked! We stopped by on our way back to buy one but he was gone!

 This lady has created a beautiful necklace using coral and silver!  I was really tempted because it was so nice! Not the traditional work you usually see but very interesting.

 

THE CANYON....

 

Archaeological evidence shows that people have lived in the canyons of Canyon de Chelly for nearly 5,000 years, longer than anyone has lived uninterrupted anywhere on the Colorado Plateau.

 

 I love this photograph that Chuck took...  looks like canyon spirits in the shadows headed down the stairs!  Several look like Kokopelli !  Chuck will be taking the rest of the photos...  I just can't do the cliff edge heights anymore! The 26 miles of canyon cliff walls, some rising up to 1,000 feet from the canyon floor! 

 

I couldn't believe this couple, casually perched on the edge of the canyon with nothing but air between them and the canyon floor far below!

 

 

The rains flow into the canyon floor providing farming for the families who live in these canyon walls.

Everything looked pretty dry when we were there in August!

 There are huge monuments on the canyon floor

 People we call Basketmakers built homes,storage facilities and social/ceremonial complexes high on ledges in the walls of the canyon cliffs. The alcoves in the cliff wall above and cropped in closer below were used for storage. Usually food would be stored here.

 In the close up and cropped photo, you can see the rock structures built within each alcove.  But look how high it is from the canyon floor and how treacherous it would be to descend to the grainery from above!

 

The camera lens we were using wasn't able to capture these cliff dwellings circled above! How did they ever get to them???
About 700 years ago the Anasazi (ancient ones) culture, who built these homes within the canyon walls, disappeared. Later, migrating Hopi Indians and other tribes spent summers hunting and farming here. You can enlarge the image somewhat by clicking on it.

 This is known as "Slide Ruins"

The more famous of the cliff dwellings is the White House Ruins. A fairly easy 1.5 mile hike down to the ruins gets you up close and personal with them.

The most recognisable feature of Canyon de Chelly is Spider Rock. Here, you can see the river far below that makes farming here possible.

A wide angle view of Spider Rock shows the awe inspiring beauty that is Canyon de Chelly!

 

There is a second campground near Spider Rock. This is a campground I would never recommend to anyone except bravehearted tent campers!  Certainly no RV's of any size, style or type could ever find a spot level enough or big enough to accomodate you. Extremely twisty interior dirt roads made navigating my Chevy TrailBlazer a challenge! Even trying to find our way out of this campground maze was a challenge!  Avoid this one for sure, the campground at the entrance known as Cottonwood is wonderful!

 

We loved our 2 days here, wish we could have stayed longer.  But we were rushing to get here Mimbres NM to our new workamping job.  This area of New Mexico is beautiful! Cool weather too! The cottonwood trees down by the river are turning golden we are looking forward to Autumn!

 

Happy Trails until we meet again!  Geri, Chuck and the HoundHerd Scotty, DoogieBowser and Radar!

 

 



 Loved the back window of an RV we saw in South Dakota!

 

Grand Canyon - North Rim

DAY ONE - REACHING THE RIM

It was gloomy, hot, humid and overcast when we finally left Willowinds RV Park in Hurricane UT.

A very nice and affordable alternative to camping closer to Zion!

When we arrived on Wednesday, we just sat outside and visited with Gaelyn for awhile! What a treat just to sit outside! The weather was low 80's coooool compared with the 100+ temps of Zion and Hurricane for the past few months! What a treat to sleep with all the windows open and need a blanket!

On Thursday morning, we got up fairly early and Gaelyn took us sightseeing! Talk about a tour guide.. !!! Gaelyn has been a National Park Ranger for some 20 years, the last 5 have been as a ranger at the Grand Canyon North Rim! We met via our blogs. Gaelyn has been blogging several years and so have we, we just recently started reading each others blogs! When Gaelyn had mentioned in her blog that she was coming down to Hurricane to shop.. I invited her to come for a visit, which she did!

She invited us up to the North Rim when we finished our time in Hurricane. We agreed! Please feel free to visit Gaelyn's blog: http://geogypsytraveler.com

Gaelyn found us this beautiful camping area near the rim and under all these beautiful pine trees!

We took a traditional pose with Angel's Window behind us, Gaelyn was kind enough to take the

picture for us!

There is a short trail out over Angel's Window. But by this time the altitude had gotten to me. The North Rim is over 8,000 feet high. I felt like I had an elephant on my chest, so I handed the camera to Chuck and walked back to a bench hoping to grab some oxygen!

Oooops! I did take this photograph and the one below of Gaelyn.  Then I pooped out and found a bench! It was so cool to see rain approaching the inner canyon!

Gaelyn captures images for her blog!

It was really different seeing both sun and rain in the canyon! The colors are magnificent!

We watched as the storm approached the inner canyon.  This is a very rare sight for visitors! We were so lucky!

Then we moved to a different viewpoint. I stayed in the car, trying to breath as Chuck took these amazing photographs!

Proof that wet rocks are more colorful than dry ones!
As close as we were to the rain, we never got rained on!

WOW!

Amazing job with the camera Chuck!  You just might have a new job!

Imperial Point was our last stop for the day! Even though I wasn't able to participate as much as I wanted, I had a wonderful time! Thank you Gaelyn.

DAY TWO

Breakfast at the Lodge and

Native American Heritage Festival

 Gaelyn picked us up about 9:30am and took us to breakfast at the Grand Canyon Lodge, overlooking the beautiful canyon through huge picture windows! I had wonderful eggs benedict, Chuck had a breakfast burrito, Gaelyn and FabGrandma had 2 eggs with hashbrowns bacon and sausage.  We all waddled outta there! Here you see L to right: Chuck, Gaelyn and Karen (FabGrandma).Link to FabGrandma's blog:
http://fabgrandma.com/

FabGrandma took this candid shot of Chuck and I on the patio outside the restaurant.

 Just below where Chuck and I were standing is a shot walk to another viewpoint!  I remember walking down there with my mom soooo many years ago!

After breakfast, I was still feeling yuckkky, so we went back to The MotherShip to rest up until the festivities started at 2 pm.  One thing for sure to remember about the North Rim, it is not nearly as crowded as the South Rim and it is beautiful! It's not as accessible as the south rim, nor as big, but if I had to choose between the South Rim and the North Rim for a visit, I would choose North Rim everytime!

2 pm came and I was still feeling yuckkky  Darn, I really wanted to attend the festival!  I decided against going and handed my camera over to Chuck once again.  He did a great job!

ZUNI DANCERS

 Hopi Basket Weaving

This young lady, Ranger Susan, put this whole festival together herself!  Thank you Susan!

Hand woven, beautiful Navajo Rugs!

Hopi Dancers

Father and son Hoop Dancers

  Hopi   Singers....  young son also plays drum!

Father and son also dance The Eagle Dance

 Another day comes to an end. Saturday Chuck and I drove to Page and it is from here I am posting this blog. Down 4,000 feet lower, the elephant is off my chest and I am feeling much better! We will be here one more day as Chuck has
to pick up his meds at WalMart and then Tuesday we head up to Bluff Utah via Monument Valley and a quick visit to our friend Emanual Grey!

I must say that it feels so good to be back on the road again! Seems like we were in Hurricane for such a long time, but we made some new friends while we were there. It just feels good to have some wind in our sails again!

We love ya'll and hope you enjoyed the visit to the North Rim Grand Canyon! 
Happy Trails from the crew of the MotherShip:
Chuck, Geri, and our HoundHerd Scotty, DoogieBowser and Radar!