Today we are heading over to the Monument Valley! Another scenic hike!
The trail basically makes a big loop around this big rock formation, but the trail is long so there is lots of scenery to look at on the way.
I loved the trees and took lots of pictures of them.
It was a nice hike and we had nice weather for it.
After we got done with that, Chuck decided to change our plans. Our original plan was to go back to Santa Fe, NM and see more stuff that way, but we had to get back to Phoenix on Wednesday, so Chuck didn't want to go in that direction and back again (too much driving), SO.........! we decided it would be better to start heading in the direction of Phoenix instead, and stop and see what there was to see on the way, and one of those things was THE GRAND CANYON.
We were gonna save this for another trip when we knew we would have more time to spend there, but since we were in the area,............why not?
Neither of us has ever seen it before, so this was gonna be exciting.
I also want to insert here a little piece of gratitude that, because of Chuck's military vet status, we were able to get into ALL of the national parks absolutely free. We went to a lot of national parks on this trip, so I don't know how much money we saved, but I'm sure it was a lot. All Chuck had to do was show his military ID, and we got waved in. Heh, heh, heh!
So anyhoo, we entered the park at the Southern Rim, and you basically just drive down the road and stop and get out in various places. Some places were more popular than others, thus the crowds.
It was........magnificent to behold! Surreal!
Like Chuck said, it was like looking at a huge painting. This is why I almost like Canyon de Chelly better, because that wasn't too magnificent to be real. This is so magnificent, it can't be real.
And of course, all I could think about was the Great Flood. There is nothing else that could've possibly caused this. If this is a painting, none other than God's signature would be down in the corner of it.
Someday we hope to come back here again and do more exploring, rather than just staying on the road which ends at a touristy area. Chuck says he would like to down in there and go camping. I know there's a lot of things you can do there besides just drive on the road, but that would have to be a separate trip. Even though we didn't stay there very long, at least we finally got to see it. There were some Navajo ladies there selling some jewelry that they made. I bought a necklace with a flute player that looks just like the one that guy painted on that rock we bought at Canyon de Chelly.
So after that, we decided to go to Flagstaff to bunk for the night. Chuck really liked Flagstaff; he would probably move there if he could coax me into it.
Our trip is almost over, so at this point we were trying to decide how we wanted to spend our last day and a half. There were some places nearby that I really wanted to see, but in the end, Chuck makes the final decisions.
No comments:
Post a Comment