Monument Valley (Navajo: Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, meaning valley of the rocks) is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft above the valley floor. It is located on the Arizona–Utah border , near the Four Corners area. The valley lies within the territory of the Navajo Nation Reservation.
We traveled today with Jay and Elna, Caravan Leaders, to Gouldings, in Monument Valley. Harry Goulding established a trading post here in the 1920s, which has grown to include a Lodge, Restaurant, RV Park, and of course, a Gift Shop…
In the 1930s, in an effort to generate income for the Indians, Harry contacted Hollywood movie folk and arranged for the studios to shoot movies in Monument Valley. There is a stage set of a cabin supposedly used by John Wayne in John Ford’s production of “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”…
Even this fake cabin had authentic construction…
Other buildings at Gouldings are not so lovely…
Monument Valley has been featured in many movies and TV shows since the 1930s. In the words of media critic Keith Phipps, “its five square miles have defined what decades of moviegoers think of when they imagine the American West.”
And it is stunning…
We saw the right mitten (above) and the left mitten (below)
We saw the castle…
And we saw some arches… (Arches differ from Bridges in that arches are formed by erosion by wind and the freeze-thaw cycle, while bridges have (or have had) flowing water beneath them, and the primary method of erosion was from this water…)
We were all herded into three touring trucks to see the sights…
After some driving along rutted, gravel roads, and seeing marvelous sites, we arrived at John Ford’s Point. John Ford like to ride his horse around here while shooting movies… (This is not John Ford…)
At one of our stops we saw authentic hogans, homes of the Navajo. About 30 families live in these traditional homes deep in the valley, using traditional methods of living, with no running water or electricity. They don’t even have cable TV! These hogans that we saw were for display purposes and for demonstrations…
This is a sweat lodge…
These hogans had beautifully constructed wood roofs to support the earthen exterior covering…
We saw more impressive structures…
Then we reached the arches…
This place is very awe-inspiring. Everywhere you look you see these marvelous structures…
We returned to Gouldings, had a nice lunch in the restaurant there, and then headed back to The Villa… We had a Drivers Meeting to discuss the route of our travels tomorrow, then we had dinner and a quiet evening in The Villa…
And an enjoyable time was had by all…
And an enjoyable time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 