GCRT Day 10: Monument Valley

Day 10 and 11—Monument Valley

Day 10 was the day that Brad had been waiting for; the day we entered Monument Valley.   Since he is a HUGE Western fan (exhibit 1:  his choice of music for this trip), he was truly looking forward to seeing where John Ford had made his movies.  We learned that the land was originally Dine land, but in 1958, they gave the land to the Navajo to run so that a man named Goulding could not get the land.  Now it is considered Navajo land, and the Navajo tribe runs the national park and the gift shop.  

Again the diversity of the land was breathtaking.  On this trip, we have seen forests, desserts, petrified forests, mesas, red rock mountains, petrified sand dunes, canyons, slot canyons, and in Monument Valley we saw enormous monuments of sandstone.  We drove the gravel road through the park and were amazed at the enormity of the monuments that were created by flash floods and wind. 

View on the road

My view to Monument Valley

The mittens

Brad so proud to share his love of John Wayne with his children

After Monument Valley, we were going to go to the Valley of the Gods, but somehow we missed the turn, and we were in the part of the trip where there was no turning around.  The drive from Page to Moab, Utah was another amazing drive, though, through desert, red rock vistas, and enormous, colorful sand dunes.

Mexican Hat, Utah; you can see this Mexican Hat if you look closely

Moab, Utah is the coolest town, and our hotel was right in the middle of downtown.   We ate at a place called Zax that was perfect—it had pasta for Emma, pizza for Logan, sweet potato fries for me, and hamburgers for Brad, and then explored the town a little on foot stopping at Pokemon stops on the way (there were 4 near our hotel).  We returned to the hotel for a little night swimming, and then fell into bed (after popcorn) that evening.