Day 30: Look up!  Monument Valley, AZ 

I forgot to mention.  We are now in Mountain Time.  We lost an hour as we entered the Navajo Nation.  You see Arizona does not do DST.  So even though they are MST, they do not switch to MDT.  The Navaho Nation which spans several states does use DST for consistency. 

It was a good night sleep despite the “is our trip going to finish too early” discussion just before bed.  Hint, it is not.  But, we are taking a more relaxed clip on the Northeast leg of the journey.

We arose close to an hour later than we have been (see above).  Morning walk was blah.  There are no trails I can walk to without venturing down the highway.  So I did two loops of a dirt road and the campground before calling it quits.  We had intended to do the trail at Monument Valley Tribal Park.  So my truncated walk was guilt free.  Beautiful background though!

Post breakfast we packed up everything except our outdoor carpet and headed over to the Park.  

Mrs Milddogs has regretted not going to Monument Valley since we were in the area 13 years ago.  This was the one goal we had for this trip.  It did not disappoint.  The entry fee is $20 and that is good for 2 days.  The loop is a sand/gravel road this is two way traffic for the first 1/3rd or so and a one way (except for the tour people apparently) loop for the remainder.  There are mostly useful pullout areas to view the key monuments.  We stopped at the John Ford lookout (iconic picture with dude on horse).  There was a food stand there that had Navaho Tacos.  We shared a Navaho Taco!!  We almost finished it too!  The guy on the horse that you can pay $5.00 to recreate the famous picture was not there today.  It was not busy so I ran out on the rock and Mrs Milddogs snapped a picture or 4 with my camera.  Unfortunately she did not zoom in so I am the small item on the large rock.  

Here are all of the pictures I can upload in one gallery.

The road conditions were a bit scary in our van.  We don’t have a lot of ground clearance so we have to be careful with wheel placement and where we go.  Occasionally we would wait and take the oncoming lane as it was better.   There were a few particularly interesting bumpy hills but we made it with our OEM tires.  Likely the expert driving!  We have archived the dash cam footage which will not do anything justice.  

We noticed that people with cameras that have really long lenses seem to be less considerate (rules, parking, getting in your shot) than those with regular old iPhones or other stuff.  Maybe it was just the 4 or 5 of them that we encountered today.

As we completed the loop portion we stopped at the John Ford lookout one more time.  It was probably four times as busy as when we had been there a few hours earlier. But you know what wasn’t busy?  The food stand.  We got a few Fry Breads (think puffier Beaver Tail) for our desert.  Sadly, they were not as good as we had hoped.  Just under saturated with Cinnamon Sugar.  But the Tacos were really good.  I forgot to take pictures.  

We had useful discussions about which one of Grand Canyon or Monument Valley is better.  That’s like trying to pick a favourite child.  The kids think the other one is the favourite but they only ever really find out at the reading of the will.  Both of these areas are amazing.  They are so close.  Do both.  Pictures and words don’t equal what the eyes see and the wonder you feel.

We did not end up doing the hiking trail.  Did I mention we had a Navaho Taco for lunch?  It was pretty hot in the full sun by the time we got back to the trail so we nixed it.

As we exited through the gift shop we took a few more pictures.

We then drove the 8 or so km back to our campground.  When we arrived it was pretty empty.  That did not last.  One of the new arrivals was a couple from Guelph, ON.  They lived in Sarnia for a while.  Many rental RVs are here.  One group of 8 all arrived at the same time.  They had been at the gift shop parking lot.  It was like an armada arriving.  If only they had been blaring “Flight of the Valkyries”.  

Showers here are brand new and wonderful.  I rate them an 9/10.  Probably the best yet.

Amy got a little bit of grooming on the picnic table bench. She loved that.

Dinner was steak and veg on the Blackstone.  It is really windy so we had extra sand added.  In fact, we have extra sand added throughout the van right now.  

Tomorrow we are not going too far.  We have many stops to make along the way.  We are staying near Bloomfield, NM at an RV park.  We called and Marvin (Mervin?) said there was a spot just for us.  I’m sure it will be fine.    We have planned out the 2 nights after that as a combo of making headway and seeing cool stuff.  

Disclaimer:  I googled whether “Navaho” or “Navajo” is the correct spelling.  Apparently they are both acceptable.

That’s it for us today.  Up and on the road tomorrow with more to see.

Toodles!