GoFever: On the way to Mesa Verde National Park, July 11

Our next stop was at Monument Valley, and it is another WOW! experience. The valley is located on the Navajo Reservation in northeast Arizona, and there is major construction taking place. A new beautiful lodge with outstanding views of the valley has just opened and work is being completed on a new visitor center. There was a lot of chaos, but when it is all completed, it should be very nice. The temporary visitor center was supposed to be in the gift shop, but no one there seemed to know anything about it. Strange? We had a delightful lunch in the new restaurant and then decided to start trying to figure out the drill, since no one who worked there seemed to be very helpful. After talking with one of the tour guides who was just out in the parking lot we decided to take the 2 ½ hour tour which included a few extras, such as visiting a hogan. We were the only Americans on our tour, with a family of 7 or 8 Japanese, one or two of whom spoke english. One interesting bit of trivia that came out during the course of the tour is the fact there are several words in Japanese that are the same in the Navajo language, with the same meaning. In addition to being able to go into a hogan, the other highlight of our tour was being serenaded by our tour guide. We stopped at a large rock formation named the Big Hogan. He had us sit down on the ground and lean back against the rock, while he played a drum and sang three or four Navajo songs. There was an opening above us and a gentle rain began. The whole experience was magical. Instead of a lot of descriptive prose we are going to let our pictures speak for themselves.

Monument Valley - East and West Mitten with Merrick Butte

Horseback Rider at John Ford Point

Filming at Giant Ear

Face at Big Hogan

Guide with Cradleboard inside Hogan

Outside Hogan

From Monument Valley we went to Bluff, UT to spend the night. The campground owner’s mother (long story) told us about the goosenecks of the San Juan River so we had to go have a look that evening. At this point, the river, which is cut into a deep canyon, makes three sharp hairpin turns (often referred to as horseshoe bends) in a short distance. Standing on the canyon rim, the view is impressive.

Gooseneck - First Hairpin

Gooseneck - Second Hairpin

Gooseneck - Third Hairpin

The next morning we got up and headed for Four Corners. It too is on Navajo land and is extremely commercial. People were milling all around, and you have to get in line for your chance to stand in four states at once and in a separate line to take photos from a platform. There was a cooperative effort; because we couldn’t one be in line taking pictures, and both be in the photo, we found others with the same problem, and we took each other’s pictures. Also, we had heard the rumor (in fact the mom at the Bluff Utah campground “confirmed” it and said that she had KNOWN it for years) that the monument is not correctly located. So, I brought my portable GPS, and checked it out. I was getting particularly good satellite signals and had only a +/- 15-foot error circle. The GPS confirmed that the actual location and the monument location were well within this error circle. The rumor indicates that they’re much farther apart than that. Time for more photos.