Monument Valley

After Arches, I headed down to the Arizona border to drive through Monument Valley, of road trip movies fame. I kept thinking of Easy Rider, even though I don’t remember for sure if they rode through Monument Valley in that one. The whole area is part of a Navajo reservation.

Aside from driving straight through the area, there are two diversionary routes to take in the Monument Valley area. Going south, there’s an intersection where you can either go right to a town, or you can right to the Navajo Nation park. I thought I’d get a better experience going to the park, but I’d recommend taking the right fork. I highly doubt the formations were any more striking in the park area, and there is no way the road could be worse. I know I keep saying this, but the road into the park was the worst road ever. There weren’t just large potholes, rocks, and ditches. There were also actual ledges that I was terrified would rip up the Insight’s tender underbelly. I knew it was unpaved, but once again, that’s not what I would call an unpaved road. I don’t know why I didn’t just drive off the road. It was worse than no road at all. I’m not sure why the Navajo Nation can’t have used some of the entry fees to do a little work on that road. They don’t even have to pave it – just . . . smooth it out a little. Geez. It also didn’t help that it was again extremely windy that day, so little dust storms would swirl up occasionally and obscure the road ahead. Okay, enough ranting. Aside from that, the formations were cool.

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