[Monument Valley, UT]

After our tour of Antelope Canyon, we drove out to Monument Valley, another 2 hours east of Page, AZ. We arrived there around 4 pm – or was it 5 pm? We keep getting confused about the time, because we are supposed to be an hour ahead of LA, but Utah observes daylight savings time and Arizona doesn’t, which means Arizona matches LA time but Utah is an hour ahead… except in Navajo land, which observes daylight savings, so it matches Utah, not LA or Arizona. Got it?

We are staying at The View, the only hotel on Navajo land. Everything else that’s populated is about 40 minutes from here.

Hotel lobby

We splurged on a Valley view room. It’s been so nice being to just walk out of our hotel door or even on the balcony and enjoy this immense landscape, familiar from so many movies.

We had dinner at the hotel with a nice view overlooking the rocks – you’ll notice the two mittens in the photos. Some clouds had rolled in, so we thought we weren’t going to get those classic sunset photos. But then, the sun came out from under the clouds, and a rainbow appeared next to West Mitten. We felt so lucky!

We tried the Navajo sampler for dinner, and it was yummy!

Navajo sampler – three different stews, frybread and navajo taco 🙂

The Monument Valley trading post here featured many wonderful creations by the Navajo – pottery, wood carvings, sand paintings, woven blankets, jewelry. Everyone who works here is Navajo. Olivia commented how nice it is that the Navajo have been able to keep these beautiful lands.

Again, not much else to say here other than through photos. I am starting to like these photography-heavy sites – I do not miss the days when I spend a good couple of hours recapping a day’s worth of sight-seeing. 🙂