Southwest US trip - Day 5
This post is part 5 of the "southwest_us_trip-2009" series:
- Southwest US trip - Day 1
- Southwest US trip - Day 2
- Southwest US trip - Day 3
- Southwest US trip - Day 4
- Southwest US trip - Day 5
- Southwest US trip - Day 6
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We woke at sunrise after a fairly miserable night (although David claimed to have slept well) with the temperature hovering at 72F (at 5AM), and headed about 20 miles south to Monument Valley. There was still quit a bit of cloud cover from the past night's storms, which made the sky somewhat less photogenic than I would have liked.
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The pictures above (and at top) are what we saw from the vicinity of the visitor center. Note that Monument Valley is on the Navajo reservation, and as such is actually a tribal park, administered by the Navajo nation. Sadly, the entire area is under assorted states of disarray. The buildings were in various stages of construction, plots of land which were clearly intended to be landscaped in some fashion were just open pits, and even the roads were in poor condition. From what I've read, as recently as just a few years ago, all that they had up there was a small campground and a small visitor center. Now they're building a motel, restaurant and enlarging the visitor center. While development isn't necessarily a bad thing, the work that they're doing seems to be poorly coordinated, such that everything looks horrible, especially in the context of the natural surroundings.
Upon leaving Monument Valley, we made the long drive across northern Arizona (through the western half of the Navajo reservation) to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.
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We arrived at mid-morning. The north rim is vastly different than the south rim in many ways. First, its over a thousand feet higher in elevation (which is why its closed for half the year). Second, the visitation is much lower (about 1/8 that of the south rim) which makes it sane & calm rather than the touristy chaotic mecca that is the south rim. The views (above, first row, and 2nd row, 3rd from left) are nearly as good as the south rim, minus all the obnoxious day trippers who are jostling for a view. On this particular day, we could see several storms out on the southern horizon, dumping rain on the south rim (above, 2nd row, 1st & 2nd from left). We took in several viewpoints near the lodge (which is literally the focal point of everything at the north rim, you can't even get to the rim proper without walking through or around the lodge property), had some lunch, and then headed out.
We spent the night in the first motel of the trip, in Page Arizona, and slept like the dead.
All the pictures are posted here and here(landscapes).
This post is part 5 of the "southwest_us_trip-2009" series: