In the land of the Navajo

We made our second trip to Horseshoe Bend this morning after getting some breakfast. The lighting was better this time, though the crowds were not. As odd as it may sound, I'm beginning to hate summer trips. Everything is overcrowded, and I feel like we are being taken advantage of because there are such crowds at everything. Priced are high. Service is low. It's all pretty basic if you ask me. Anyway, it was a relatively short drive to Monument Valley albeit confusing in terms of states, time zones, and radio stations.

We crossed in and out of Utah multiple times. We also struggled to find a good radio station. For being in the middle of nowhere, we had no difficulty picking up 100 stations. They were all scratchy at best, but at one point we were somehow picking up a radio station from Bend, Oregon. That is over 900 miles away. I don't understand. When we got to Monument Valley, we checked in to the View Hotel. Unsurprisingly, it has a good view from the balcony.

It was grossly overpriced, but worth it I suppose. When one is a captive audience, and there's really only one hotel by the park, one doesn't really have a choice. We were going to drive the valley view road, which is an unpaved road encircling the main formations, we were informed that the road was closed . . . unless you were on a tour. So it wasn't really closed, just closed for people who wanted to do it for less than $75 per person. The Navajo ranger told us that she would be gone at 630pm and therefore wouldn't be able to turn people away, so we could come back at that time.

That gave us about four hours to kill, so we drove to Mexican Hat across the border in Utah. It wasn't anything to write home about, but something to do. I don't think it looked very Mexican hat-like if you ask me. This is presumably why you can no longer buy alcohol on Navajo land. After getting dinner at the one restaurant at the one hotel, we drove our Nissan Sentra to the unpaved road.

Despite the original lady going home, she was replaced by a far more annoying guy in a truck telling us the road was closed. Five minutes later, he left, so we thought about his instructions for a second and started driving down the road. We went about 1/2 a mile down. It wasn't any worse than other unpaved roads I've been on, but when there's money to be made . . . While we would have liked to continue, it was clear that regular folks weren't being welcomed. The tour trucks were giving us the stink eye even though other cars were driving the road as well.

We were able to at least get a little bit closer to the mittens. With the road closed, and the hiking trails closed, there is really just one view we could get. After we returned to the hotel, we settled in by the balcony, watched the colors change over the mittens as the sun went down and hope to get some good pictures of the stars when they come out.