Today is Sunday, so after a night of hanging out at the hotel, and doing our laundry, we felt refreshed and went to church in Show Low, AZ. I wanted to get a picture of the church building but Chuck wouldn't let me because I think it's embarrassing for him for some reason if I am taking pictures of it. But part of the reason was because of the way the building was situated so close to the busy road, I would have to stand close to the busy traffic to get a good picture. Anyhoo, the interesting thing was that we happened to pick the place where we sorta knew the preacher. I have met him before because he used to be the preacher in Sparta, WI, where my sister goes to church. So that was pretty cool talking to him and his wife about my sister and whatnot. Lots of really nice people there! We even met a lady from Alpine, where we stayed two nights prior; she drives an hour and a half to go to church in Show Low. We told her we were looking for a hotel in Alpine, and of course she said "you could've stayed with me!". Now we know.........
So after church, we got in the car and drove for 3 hours to our next fun stop: Canyon de Chelly.
That was a really cool place and another of my favorites (I know, you can't technically have more than one favorite, right?) I have 72 pictures of this place and I wish I could show you all of them, but I will have to just randomly pick some.
Looking at pictures is just not the same as being there. It was like a mini Grand Canyon. I was so awed by it and kept thinking "man, if this is a little Grand Canyon, the big one must be ........ what's a good word here?" I just loved this place. It was really breathtaking to look down into this ginormous hole in the ground.
On the far side, half way up the wall, there was this cleft where you can see remnants of a past civilization. I know it's hard to see because of the shadow, but look real close and you can see some structures between the rocks. It's amazing how people can live in places like this. I never noticed before until I looked at this picture, but it looks like they could've lived on top of the rock also.
Way down on the bottom we could see some modern structures of homes(?) and trucks driving around. We learned that you can take a driving tour down there, which we didn't do.
Way down in another corner there were some more remnants of a homestead. The picture is blurry because my camera isn't the best one to use when it's zoomed in all the way.
When we came back to the parking lot, there was a young man (a Navajo indian) painting pictures on these slabs of stone that he finds in the area. He sells them to anyone who wants them. He was very talented and made some really nice ones, and they sold almost as fast as he could paint them. We couldn't decide which one of these we wanted, so we bought both of them. He said we could have both for $30, but Chuck only had $28, so he let us have them for $28. He was an interesting guy and explained some of the symbols to us. The flute player petroglyph is a common one that we saw quite a bit.
Anyhoo, that was a really awesome place to go and one of my favorite highlights. As we left the park, we knew we had to find a place to stay for the night, but close by there was a lodge right outside Canyon de Chelly. The lodge is owned and run by Navajos and it was a really nice place with reasonable prices. It's a place of several buildings (hotel rooms) and it was like walking through a park to get from your room to the restaurant, which was also owned and run by Navajos. I loved all the old looking trees.
The restaurant was kind of like a buffet where you take a tray and tell them what you want from the menu. We both ordered a "Navajo Taco", not really knowing what it was. I was expecting just a normal size taco that you hold in your hand. I wish I had a picture of it to show you, but I was shocked at how big it was. It was bigger than the plate, extending past the edges. This is not the type of taco you hold in your hand. It was more like a big giant pita bread with all the fillings spread over the top, and at first I just stared it, not knowing how I was supposed to eat it. After struggling with a knife and fork, one of the waters came up to me and showed me an easier way to eat it. (how embarrassing.......). It was a good taco, but of course I could not eat it all. If we knew that they were gonna be that big, we would've shared one.
So that was our Sunday. Tomorrow we're off to Monument Valley!
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