Navajo Nation

So usually I title a post with a city name and since we were in multiple areas of Arizona today, but both on Navajo tribal lands, I named this post Navajo Nation. Here's a picture from the Monument Valley museum that shows how vast the Navajo tribal lands reach:

After breakfast at the hotel, we drove to our tour operator's office, but quickly realized we had to go down and across the street - we had incorrectly scoped out the wrong one on our drive around Page last night! We had reserved with Chief Tsosie's Antelope Canyon tours. Only a few operators hold permits and I read this was one of the best. 

Upon arrival, this Navajo Hoop dancer who is placed top ten in the world in a contest last year, performed an impressive dance with hoops forming animal shapes. He said the hoops represent negative energy and frustrations that should be let go. The first was for money, health, then your ex, your other ex, wifi connection..... The Navajo people are indeed very zen-minded. 

We piled into the turquoise jeeps that drove us 15 minutes to the entrance of the tribal land. Our ticket included a tribal land fee and our tour started at 8:30 am. 

 

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon and I struggled to pick which one to see - ultimately I opted for the Upper Canyon, but there is a Lower Canyon, Canyon X, and Secret Canyon. Vera was our amazing tour guide who had a great sense of humor, managed the group well in the tight spots, and took great photos after positioning us in choice spots and angles. Here are a few photos that don't do the canyon justice:

We were on the 8:30 am tour which is $10 cheaper, but the midday ones from April to September have incredible sun beams that shine through. As it was March, I picked the cheaper one, but also to get a jumpstart on the day. Even without the sunbeams, we enjoyed the light and awesome colors. 

Here, Vera positioned us in front of "the Wave" and had us look up so our faces weren't too dark. The swirls and grooves are formed by the waters that rush through during monsoon season. 

The canyon is 8 stories high at its tallest area and here's us in front of the back opening - Vera did a nice job with a vertical panorama:

And here's a beautiful shot as we left the slot canyon:

As our entrance fee included the tribal land daily fee, we rushed over to the Lower Canyon tour so we could possibly squeeze another tour in before Monument Valley. But the next tour didn't leave for another hour, so we started our 2 hour drive east. The travel gods were trying to tell us something! 

Monument Valley is most well-known for being the backdrop of many John Ford directed John Wayne westerns and is listed in the "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" book. After a fake out at the Navajo Welcome Center that was practically deserted and closed, we made it to the real Visitor Center where we paid a $20 entrance fee. We also learned we lost an hour driving as Utah was in a different time zone as Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings. 

Here's a map of all the monuments and the red outline is the 17 mile scenic drive:

A description of many of the monuments which we digested over quick sandwiches and at one of the viewing points in the Visitor Center:

 

The drive takes about 2 hours as you can drive only about 10 - 15 miles per hour on gravel and unpaved roads. It was super bumpy and we felt nauseous at times, but this was something you definitely could not rush through. Here's a photo of the road and driving:

We made our way to John Ford's point after some confusion and the point is named after the director of the John Wayne movies. Apparently, there is a scene where John Wayne is sitting on a horse on this point. You can tell from the photo of Yoonjoo below, the awesome magnitude of these monuments as she points to them: 

The monuments had signs in front of them, like this one for the Three Sisters. Yoonjoo was a good co-captain, but she sometimes was so eager to read the signs, she would yell out "road closed"!

Here's a photo of us in front of the West Mitten, East Mitten, and Merrick Butte:

After our 2 hour loop, we were so glad to be on paved roads and perused the gift shop and museum back at the Visitor Center. I enjoyed an exhibit on the Navajo Code Talkers who were instrumental during World War II. Vera had told us the Navajo language is the 3rd most difficult in the world. Here's a small shot of some of the different words used by the military and translations:

After 2 days of driving our mystery was solved. We knew Arizona didn't participate in daylight savings, but our GPS and phones kept changing on us. Since we were so close to the Utah border and the Navajo Nation does observe daylight savings, we finally corrected our GPS and drove 3 hours to Flagstaff. I knew the GPS had to be wrong when it said it would only take 2. Here's a photo of the "Welcome to Utah" sign as we hop over and back as part of our drive to and from Monument Valley:

We drove straight to Salsa Brava, considered the best Mexican in town and was on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. I had the sopapilla which is like a calzone made of fried bread and Yoonjoo had steak and shrimp fajitas. 

We started to feel sleepy after finishing our margaritas and made our way to our hotel, the Doubletree Hilton where we learned I was the guest of the day and they gave us a bag of complimentary goodies. What a great way to end a wonderful day of beautiful sights and an issue-less day of driving!