September 21, 2019

This morning was sunny, a bit windy with the temperature in Williams about 10°C. The bus departed at 8 a.m. with a quick stop in Flagstaff, for people to buy something for a picnic lunch. Today we travelled on the extensive Navajo Reservation which has very infrequent villages and little amenities. We turned on to Highway 89, retracing some of the route we took to Williams two days ago. We turned northeast onto Highway 160 for the rest of the morning. Today was a travel day covering almost 300 kilometers. As we approached the Navajo National Monument, we paralleled the electric railway which transports the coal mined on nearby Black Mesa back to the Page, Arizona, to the Navajo Reservation coal burning electricity power generator. Matt advised us to adjust our watches to one hour ahead, to revert to Mountain Daylight Time for the rest of the trip, and gave us more information about Navajo National Monument.

The lunch stop was at Navajo National Monument, where most of us utilized the picnic tables for lunch. It was about 10 kilometers off highway 160. We sat with James and Litha on one side and Nant, Wiren and Ria on the other side. The temperature was 19°C, sunny and a bit of wind.

After lunch, we walked the paved two-kilometer (round trip) Sandal Trail to view the cliff dwelling ruins. They were abandoned around 1300 AD, due to a prolonged drought in the area. Across the canyon, we viewed the Betatakin (which means House on a Cliff) Ruins. In the shelter of a large cavern on a ledge, we could see the outline of 135 rooms which were separated by walls and once were divided into 25 or 30 households. For about 400 years the farmers of the valley lived here, saving the fertile land for crops and living on the cliff ledge. The people were also hunters. On the cavern walls, archeologists have found pictographs, which could not be captured by our telephoto camera lens. Most of the group walked the gradual descent and return to see the cliff dwellings.

There was enough time, for us, to find the Canyonview Trail to view the Tsegi Canyon. It was a 1.3-kilometer round trip winding sandy trail to the old ranger station. The only person we met on that trail was Kim. We shook out our shoes before returning to the bus. Then we drove to Goulding, Utah. Steps 6,683

As we approached Goulding, there were lava monoliths on the landscape, which were the remains of volcano plugs, which were visible now due to erosion of the surrounding sandstone rock. One monolith was called El Capitan, and is 2,163 meters above sea level.

Matt told us about Harry Goulding, who founded Goulding, Utah, promoting the landscape to Hollywood director, John Ford in the 1930s. Ford used the Monument Valley area as a backdrop for many John Wayne movies, including “Stagecoach” and “Rio Grande”before and after World War II and reenergized the Western Movie. Other movies with scenes filmed in Monument Valley include “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Forrest Gump” and “Mission: ImpossibleII ”.

At the village of Goulding, we had time to browse the Goulding Lodge gift shop before the open-air 4-wheel drive trucks arrived to take the group on a one hour 45-minute drive through the Navajo Nation’s Monument Valley on a dusty, bumpy, sandy track. Monument Valley, straddling the Utah-Arizona border, is a Holy Place to the Navajo Nation. It is also called Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. The bumpy drive added extra steps to the pedometer, which have been removed from the daily count. There was a variety of mesas which are rock formations wider than they are tall; buttes which are rock formations taller than they are wide; sandy dunes and monoliths. The names of some of the rock formations were “Three Sisters”, “Left Mitten”, “Right Mitten” “the Totem” and “Elephant Butte”. The time flew by. We stopped at several places for photos. At some of the stops there was an opportunity to buy Navajo jewelry and pottery.

After returning to Goulding Lodge, 26 people of our group waited for two other open-air 4-wheel drive trucks to take us to a Navajo Cookout in a red rock canyon which was accessed by a dusty, bumpy, sandy track. This drive added also extra steps to the pedometer. The scenery was quite different from Monument Valley less than ten miles away. We were treated to barbecued chicken breasts or 10-ounce steaks accompanied by corn on the cob, baked beans, tossed salad, delicious Indian Fried Bread, apple spice cake and the choice of Lemonade, Iced Tea or water. The Navajo Reservation is alcohol free. After dinner our guide showed us a traditional Navajo cradle board for carrying infants on a parent’s back. Then she sang us a beautiful traditional Navajo song about praying for the safe return of warriors. As the sun set, there were small bats flying as we returned to Goulding Lodge, where we were met by Jose and Matt for the 25-mile drive to Kayenta and the Kayenta Monument Valley Inn. Kayenta’s elevation is 1,737 meters above sea level.

Final daily steps 12,407.