NV/AZ/UT Road Trip: Monument Valley

“So this is where God put the West!”

What a glorious day to be out here in the “enduring landmark of the American West”. I was pinching myself to see if I truly was here looking at this beautiful scene before me. I was completely bewitched by the landscape - by all of these in front of me. We pulled up some distance away for a great vantage point and took photos. Drove a little closer, stopped and took more photos. This was repeated a few times. The buttes are truly magnificent both individually and together. I may have taken a few hundred shots (exagg!) of the same thing from different angles but hey, we’re not thinking about storage anymore, right?

To be perfectly honest, I may have made a serious miscalculation in planning this road trip. We could have stayed here overnight, watched the sky, and enjoyed the serenity that the darkness brings. That plan would have to wait for some future date, unfortunately.

In addition to taking a ton of photos, we drove up to Goulding Lodge and viewed the buttes from there. Again we took more photos, then went to inspect the gift shop. The gift shop was filled with so many things that I found interesting and culturally significant, but I settled on a small inlaid gem stud earrings in silver. You definitely can tell this pair of earrings is Southwestern in design. I would have loved a fabric or blanket, but I was trying to start downsizing my possessions, grin! I was so engrossed in inspecting the items that I soon realized I was on the verge of dehydration. Fortunately, I can tell when this is happening. So I went out and grabbed a bottle of water from the husband who was still outside taking photos and I downed the whole bottle and it still was not enough. So very stupid of me. Let this be a lesson to all, keep hydrated, drink before you are thirsty. Anyway, I remember that the last time I had something to sip was coffee, hours ago. And the sun was high and mighty on this last day of May.

There were a few dining options around here, but we were planning on eating on the go. Thankfully, it wasn’t a very crowded situation with visitors when we were there, but still there was a long queue for take out.

And so we started a long drive to Page, our last stop before we went back to Vegas, then home. Aah, this road trip went by too fast - although the documentation was at a snail’s pace since I’ve been writing about this for 2 years now, isn’t it? Thank you for bearing with me. Covid has dampened the desire to blog in the past year and a half. But it looks like there is an end in sight in this storytelling.