August 19, 2015

Our Adventure Begins

The next few days posts will be several days behind when written.  Have had no internet connection for several days and connection now is iffy.

  Drove north out of Flagstaff.  Dropped just a few hundred feet in elevation but lost the pine trees.     Scrub oak,juniper, and rolling high desert terrain.  Pretty dry and barren except in washes and riverbeds where things are green and even sometimes lush.  There is water here.  It just is not obvious.  It comes in spurts.  Many warning signs along road to watch for flooding.  We saw many spots where silt had been washed over the road.  About an hour north we entered the Navajo reservation.  A nation within a nation.  Complete with their own culture, language, government, culture, customs, life style, etc. We also began to see monument land formations.  Here is one we drove by.  It is called Owl Rock.

 

On the border between Arizona and Utah lies the turnoff to the entrance to Monument Valley.  Across the road in the other direction is the road to Gouldings Resort. Associated with the resort, situated in a picturesque canyon is a very nice RV campground.  A little pricy but comes with lots of amenities.  Even a landing strip .  The founders of the resort, the Gouldings, ran a trading post and traded with the Navajo people.  The Navajo economy was subsistence at best and when the depression hit the Navajo were in a bad way.  The Gouldings heard that John Ford was planning on making a western movie in the Sedona area. They took their last $60 and some pictures and went to Hollywood to pitch the Monument Valley area to John Ford.  Meeting with him was difficult but they persevered and eventually met with him.  One month later Gouldings ‘Resort’ hosted John Ford, John Wayne, Andy Devine, and others and production started in Monument Valley on ‘Stagecoach’.  The rest is movie making history.  The resort shows a John Wayne movie, filmed in Monument Valley, every night.  We watched ‘Stagecoach’ tonight. 

The entrance road to Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is across the highway from the entrance road to Gouldings.  In the afternoon we went to the visitors center to check the view and get educated.  We took a number of pictures but this one will do for now.

 

Note the hazy background.  The northwest corner of the United States is on fire.  Guess where the smoke is going.  Lucky us.