Today was another day of mostly driving and riding. We had a very nice breakfast at the El Tovar before we left that served as our lunch also. But, oh, that was the best French toast I’ve ever had! As Charlotte O’Hara says, “I’ll think about that (all the calories) tomorrow.” We had to have one last look at the Grand Canyon before we left, though. Then, as we drove out in the opposite direction we came in, we saw views from the car at the lookouts that we didn’t see yesterday.
The drive to Four Corners was beautiful as well. Most of it was mountainous, but still some places had long stretches of road. We should be use to that by now, but every road and every sight is different.
Four Corners is exactly what it says and not much more. It’s where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico meet in a perfect square corner. Around the perimeter the Navaho have booths set up to sell their wares. The porta-potties made up the rest of it, along with the parking lot, which was just rock, not pavement. But there was one very important thing there—the saying that was surrounding the four state seals engraved in the cement. It read, “Here Meet—Four States—In Freedom—Under God”. How cool is that!!
But when you look at how the Navaho live, you might understand better why there isn’t much else there. They are evidently used to a more primitive way of life. Their houses (mostly trailers) are just stuck out in the middle of all this openness. Once in a while we saw some houses backed up to a mountain, but that was unusual. It made a lot more sense to me to put a house behind a mountain after we drove through a dust storm. If you look closely at this picture you’ll see the sand blowing all over the road.
Monument Valley is almost unbelievable! We could again see God’s creative hand at work here. As you look at these pictures some of them may look a little familiar to you. John Wayne made a lot of movies here, along with actors like Jimmy Stuart and Clint Eastwood. (If you’re a ‘young whipper-snapper’ you may not know who these actors are. If you don’t, just don’t tell me you don’t! lol
I almost like this place better than the Grand Canyon because we can get so much closer to it. There are trails that we could take to get us right up to the rock formations. But even without taking the trails, we feel like we’re right in the middle of them. I guess that’s because we are! This hotel is called ‘The View’ for a reason. All the rooms face the east so that we can see the sun shining on the formations as it goes down. When we come out of our room and walk down the hall, there are huge windows so we can see the formations on the backside of the hotel. When we get in the elevator, there’s a huge window in it so we can watch the view as we go up and down.
When we went to dinner we walked around the terrace to the restaurant and… you guessed it…the view completely surrounded us. Then, our hostess seated us right up to the huge windows in the restaurant where, again, we could see so many of the rock formations, or ‘the view’! Even the ‘trading post’ had big windows. (I bought another piece of authentic Navaho pottery. It was HALF PRICE! Woo Hoo!)
Our room (huge compared to the one at the El Tovar) has a terrace out front, as do all the rooms so we can sit out there and just take it all in. We’re on the top floor, so that makes it even better. We took some beautiful pictures until another dust storm blew in and obscured the monuments. Paul then went out into the hall and took pictures from the big windows there of the sun setting.
The simplest thing I can say about Monument Valley is—it’s just breathtaking! What an amazing place to be. We plan to get up early enough tomorrow morning to see the sun rise. After that—on to more adventures!
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