Winnebago Voyage: Day 2 in Monument Valley

Our 3.5 hour tour of Monument Valley started from the campground in the morning. We got into an open-air 4-wheel vehicle and picked up a few more passengers at the lodge. Our guide was a Navajo woman named Anna, and we had a hard time understanding her at first, since Navajo is her first language and she has a pretty heavy accent.

As soon as we started down the road into the valley, I was glad I hadn’t tried to drive it! It’s very dusty and bumpy with a lot of ruts from the last rain. Whenever it rains, many of the roads are impassible, and there are lots of places you can’t go. There are 17 miles of road that private vehicles can go on after they pay the $20 entrance fee to the Navajo Nation, but the tours go a lot further and see a lot more. We had a number of photo stops and all 18 people unloaded and walked around.

There were two places where there were large holes in the top of the rock. At one of them, our guide sang and another guide played the flute. There was another place where there was a big red sand dune leading up to the rock with the hole. I walked up it and got lots of fine, red sand in my tennis shoes.

At another stop, there was an authentic hogan with a Navajo woman demonstrating how she spins and weaves wool. She lives in a small house next door with her family. I bought a colorful necklace from her.

At another stop, there was a Navajo man on horseback who rode out to the point for photographs. You could pay to have your picture made on his horse!

After the tour, we came back to the camper for lunch, and then rode over to the visitor center, which is strategically located at a prime viewpoint. There were many movies made in this area, beginning in the late 1930’s. The Gouldings had made friends with and helped the Navajo people, and he went to Hollywood with photographs of the area and finally got to show them to John Ford. After that, many movies were shot here.

Next, we toured the Goulding’s museum which was their trading post in the early years. We also took a short hike up on the rocks behind our campground and saw another arch and some more beautiful scenery.

That's the road we traveled.

"Three Sisters"

Notice the Navajo on horseback.

This is our vehicle.

Baby cottontail posing for us

Wool spinning demonstration

Notice the hole in the top.

Looking up under the hole

At the lower right corner, you can see the
inconsiderate woman in our group who plunked
herself down almost in front of the musicians.
The rest of us were all trying to take our pictures
without her in them!