Leaving Grand Canyon National Park; Driving to Monument Vall

We pack up and take one last drive through Grand Canyon NP.

We stop at several lookouts, the Tusayan Museum and Desert Point Lookout. The tower at Desert Point is over 75 years old and is beautiful architecture, decorated with American Indian artwork.

Painted ceiling inside Watch Tower:

Inside view:

Several of the historic buildings in the park have bible verses incorporated into their structure, Desert Point Watch Tower also has a bible verse. The incredible scenery of the Grand Canyon inspires people. When we walking out to one of the lookouts this morning, a group of Asian visitors was singing "How Great Thou Art" in their own language (I recognized the tune) as they looked at the canyon.

East of the park we stop at the Little Colorado Canyon in Navajo Nation to look at the gorge and crafts the Navajos are selling. I can’t resist the jewelry and buy a necklace.

Much of the drive is through so-so desert scenery, but then we arrive at Monument Valley and the scenery becomes “classic western”, with lots of clay-red buttes.

We set up at the Goulding RV park and take off to drive the 17-mile scenic drive through the buttes. The Navajo Nation charges $5/person to drive the road. I’m not sure what the money is used for, but it definitely is not for road maintenance. The road is unbelievably rough. We pull over and take our bikes off the roof-rack before we break the rack, bikes, etc. The drive does allow us to get a little closer to some of the buttes, but the drive should include warnings about extremely rough road.

We eat a very late dinner and then Jere goes to see the John Wayne movie Stagecoach (which was filmed here at Monument Valley) at the local lodge/museum while Joe and I work on homework, etc.