Day 12 – Moab to Monument Valley

We felt quite sad leaving Moab this morning. It’s the sort of place you feel you can spend more time just chillin’. One guide book says it’s the only town in Utah were you will not feel you’ve seen the same people over and over and over again. That is – it’s just big enough. It goes as far as to say that most of Utah’s small towns, particularly the ones influenced most by the Mormons are downright boring! Well, we can only vouch for Moab -and we think it’s great.

The drive to Monument Valley started at 9:30am and we continued south from Moab on the Interstate 191. The landscape became more and more desolate and stark and much flatter. In fact, at one point it became a bit monotonous – the vast plain was unchanging for quite some time. Scrub land, dust and very few signs of life. Then, from time to time mountainous chunks of rock would appear and the interstate would cut straight through it.

We came upon a ‘City’ called Blanding and we wanted to stop for a rest and pulled into a visitors information centre. It was a sleepy sort of place with Fine Art galleries dotted about. The Navajo influence was creeping in. You could feel it. The galleries seemed to depict colourful desert landscapes and hand made Navajo jewellery was on sale.

The further south we travelled the more we saw road-side shacks with hand-painted signs – ‘Hand Made Navajo Jewellery’ and a lone man or a couple of women would be sitting patiently in the shade for tourists. A lot of the jewellery advertised seemed to be threaded beads. You got the feeling that these people were just trying to make a living in any way they could.

The next place we stopped at was Bluff, where the first Mormon settlers came to and tried to befriend the indiginous Indians. Bluff Fort is the site of this settlement and we stopped there for a while. We saw the actual house of the Barton family – one of the original and leading families in the settlement. Over 200 people made the original journey south into Utah and, apparently, all survived the journey against the odds, even adding to their number along the way. Rachel got chatting the the gardener, who was tending the grounds of the fort and was given all sorts of advice about where to go on our journey. We later tried one detour he recommended only to find that the road was unsuitable for RVs! We had to back up pretty sharpish!

Not too long after leaving Bluff we saw on the horizon the iconic monolothic structures you associate with this part of Utah. They were just visible in the shimmering heat of the day. The road stretched straight ahead for as far as the eye could see and disappeared into the haze and we noticed a change in the landscape. The land on either side was being farmed – ploughed and tended and there was an increase in the colour green. But this, however, didn’t last long but returned to dry dusty desert as the towering structures we had seen crept closer.

Soon we were driving between those structures. They were deep red in the sun and rocks balanced upon thin spires looked ready to fall at any moment. But they had stood like this for tens and hundreds of thousands of years, if not more. We made our turn onto Monument Valley Road and headed for the camp site. As we entered Goulding’s Lodge we could see it had it’s own gas station, supermarket and two single engined aircraft stood just in front of the supermarket at the end of a very short runway, which was just a dirt track as far as I could see. We stopped to get some supplies for the time we would be here.

Now, I’m not making any judgements here, but Rachel managed to crash the supermarket trolley twice in one visit – not once, twice! In one collision she just nicked the isle with the back end of the trolley (sound familiar?) – the second was a full-on sideways assault! All I can say is I’m grateful she has no desire to drive the RV! Enough said.

As I write this we are sat in the RV on the camp site. It’s a real step up from the last campsite for sure. A nice indoor pool, gym, launderette etc and tours of Monument Valley available at the front desk. Some of the other RV’s are like houses on wheels. Also, enourmous de-mountables dragged by tank-like 4×4’s. Our neighbour also has two Harley Davidsons – his and hers!

But there is no beer! Can you imagine not being able to buy a beer in the USA? Well, in Navajo law it’s illegal to sell alcohol on these reservations. You can bring it in with you but there’s nowhere to buy it when you are here. Not sure what to make of that really.

Anyway, we have just done the washing and booked our tour for early tomorrow morning. Tonight we will have dinner and sit outside under the awning and watch the sun go down and the stars come out. We are hoping to see some great stary skies tonight. And it’s a full moon too. But no beer!

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