Up in the morning looking for a drive-through car wash. We definitely owed it to Big Red after taking her down that dirt road to Chaco Canyon. Apparently drive-throughs are not a thing in this part of the country. Maybe it's because of this being a drought area, but they did have the self-spray washes. I don't know which one uses more water. Anyway, we didn't find one in town, so we headed to a town called Shiprock, named after the rock named Shiprock that is just outside of town.
This rock was easily seen from outside of town on the main road. I think we were on US 64, but I've been asleep since then, so . . . It was visible through Bruce's window, so the shots aren't the best. For those who don't know, when we're traveling, I take pictures through the windows while we're driving. Bruce will often slow down when he sees me taking pictures, but unless we're the only traffic on the road or there are pull-outs on that road, he can't stop just because I want a picture. So, the foreground may be a little blurry.
Anyway, when we got to Shiprock, we headed to the rock. I kept taking pictures on the way to get the different faces. It's a huge and lovely formation!
Down another dirt road, we finally came face to face with the rock and with this sign.
I respect the First Nations people, so we didn't go past that sign. I did like the rock wall to the side of Shiprock. It will likely be falling soon.
I got a final shot of the back of the rock through the back window as we headed to the Four Corners Monument.
The Four Corners Monument is one of those things we read about in elementary school - at least in my little school in Kentucky. I remember two of them that I always wanted to see. Tierra del Fuego and the Four Corners. I was in Tierra del Fuego (Ushuaia/End of the World) a couple of years ago, when I went to Antarctica. The Four Corners monument has been significantly out of the way with few roads in every time we've come by here before. But, going up through Farmington made it much less of a side trip, so this was it. I knew it wasn't the big thing that I remembered from my childhood geography books, but it was neat to see. If you go, keep in mind that it is in the Navajo Nation, and they charge an admission fee. Currently, the Navajo Nation fee is $8 per person.
This is pretty much it. Flags surrounding the monument and sales booths encircling the entire site. Each set of booths is in a different state. We got something from Colorado and Utah.
The monument has this central circle and each of the four states with their state seals.
Bruce's feet in all four states at once.
It's not a really busy place, but people come in and out at a consistent pace. This was the best shot I could get without other people.
A few shots along the road on the way to the next location. The landscape is starting to get interesting!
This set of formations looked like a face to me.
The smaller of these formations looked like it was flipping the bird!
The drive into the Navajo National Monument was paved, an the view from the first pull-out was beautiful.
We went into the visitor center to get a map and information, as we usually do when entering a national property. Usually, we encounter park rangers who are happy to tell us about their area of interest. This park was very different. There were a few people milling around the gift shop and a park ranger sitting behind a desk not engaging with anyone. When I asked if there was a map, he just pulled one out and placed it on the counter, not saying anything. I looked at the map for a minute and asked if there were any cliff dwellings we could see without any large hikes, he just said, "No." So we walked behind the visitor center, thinking we'd get just a few pictures.
Some rocks with dinosaur tracks from the area have been moved up to the visitor center.
There is a miniature of a sweathouse. Hot stones are placed inside and the naked bather enters before a blanket is placed over the opening to keep the heat in. After sweating for a period of time, the bather gets out and either gets a rinse with fresh water (in the rainy season) or dries off with nearby sand.
This is a hogan, previously a common Navajo home (but bigger). These are still around, though they're not used as homes so much anymore. But, certain curing ceremonies (I don't know which) can only be conducted in a hogan, so most communities still have at least one.
We started down a paved trail that was labeled "easy". Once we got started on it, we learned that, though it was paved, it was very steep. Bruce and I both have trouble with "up". We have difficulty breathing when going uphill. This visitor center was at 7200 feet, so that compounded the problems. So, we hiked down a little bit until we saw an alcove in the cliff, similar to the alcoves the people built their dwellings in. In another trip through, we'll be going to Mesa Verde National Park, where the cliff dwellings are supposed to be more easily viewed, so we decided to turn back to save some spoons for other activities.
The way out of the park was not paved. Bruce said he was beginning to see a pattern!
Right before finding the paved road, we had to go down this very steep, curvy grade on the narrow, part gravel/part powdery sand road with a steep cliff off the side. There were some poles loosely strung up as a barrier, but you could see where many vehicles had already used them.
We finally pulled into Page, Arizona. We stopped at a Shell station, the first place we saw since the Navajo National Monument. It had a sign on the door that said EBT cards were not accepted because they were food stamps. I was terribly underimpressed by that, so we just used their bathroom and left. Purchases were made in town.
In keeping with our tradition of choosing restaurants by name, we chose the Gone West Family Restaurant for dinner. It wasn't just a kitchy name, but had the decor to match!
We walked in to see a large room with many tables, two of which were occupied. There was a sign asking us to wait to be seated. There were three people sitting on a sofa at the side, looking like people waiting to be seated. There was a man behind a counter on the other side of the room. He was looking straight at us. After waiting a while, I put on my glasses so I could see him better and made a gester to indicate that we were, in fact, wanting a table. He made no response. A woman came out of the back room, looked at us and turned her back. I waited a bit to just see if she was going to do something else, or just turned her back on the people waiting to be seated. She didn't move. At that point, Bruce and I decided the food couldn't be good enough to account for the level of service that had already been displayed, so we went next door to the Chinese buffet that was delicious!
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