Searching for the Searchers

STATES VISITED: Arizona / Utah

If you've ever seen a John Ford movie, you don't need my amateur shots to show you what we saw this morning -- Monument Valley, Arizona, probably the most bizarre landscape I've ever traveled through. Yes, Iceland is like being on the moon, but Monument Valley is like being on Mars -- red sandstone buttes thrusting up out of a flat scrubby desert, huge panoramas of unearthly colors and stark shapes.

We were lucky enough to have booked a tour with a Navajo guide, Carl Phillips of Keyah Hozhoni Tours, who drove us around in his open-sided truck to areas that the regular tourists can't go. These included formations like the Eye of the Sun (left) and the Big Hogan (right), which if you lie down on your back looks like a giant eagle is hovering over you, homest. Even better, Carl taught us a lot of things about Navajo culture, which has remained much more intact than other tribal cultures. He led us us into a hogan and a sweat lodge and explained how they were built; he showed us his ID card that allows him to carry around peyote, because it's a vital part of tribal spiritual ceremonies. Carl recently moved back to the Valley after living in Las Vegas for a few years, working in construction, so he has a pretty intelligent perspective on what makes his culture special. We were covered in the red dust when we finished our tour, but it was really worth it.

After that -- well, after a detour to a town called Mexican Hat where Carl said we could see the Colorado (he was wrong, it was only the San Juan River ), it was back to Kayenta, where we had lunch at Burger King, not just for the yummy fast food but also because that is where the tribe has mounted an excellent exhibit on the Navajo Wind Talkers of World War II. It takes up a whole wall in the Burger King and isfull of war memorabilia. Who'd have expected that?

A long drive then, across the Navajo tribal lands, which got even more barren (picture to come) and then more colorful again, and finally turned -- surprise! -- into forest again. By now we were in the Kaibab National Forest, on our way to the Grand Canyon. I tried to ban the male members of my family from saying, "Wow! What a big hole!" but so far I have been unsuccessful. It is a pretty big hole, though.

We checked into the Maswik Lodge, had a quick dinner at the cafeteria (not as good as Deer Valley's, but then what is?) and took a walk along the rim at sunset. Absolutely incredible. I'll post more pictures tomorrow (it's late -- we changed time zones again, without even realizing it!), and this rustic lodge doesn't even have wi-fi -- can you believe it? -- so I'm posting this on Bob's computer after he finished using it and now everybody's yelling at me to go to sleep. Anyway, tomorrow we have this big hike schedulo, and maybe we'll even find the place where Joe Dirt got abandoned in the classic film Joe Dirt. We already found the place where the Griswolds visited the Grand Canyon, so all our movie references are lining up very nicely, thank you...