Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Every day on the trip is marked with a specific highlight that I look forward to. Angel's landing, Antelope Canyon, the Grand Canyon. Today is Monument Valley.
Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies, adverts and holiday brochures. Because of this, the area may seem quite familiar, even on a first visit, but it is soon evident that the natural colors really are as bright and deep as those in all the pictures. The valley is not a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region.
It's a two and a half hour drive from Page to Monument Valley, with a whole lot of nothing in between. Hell, Google maps barely has satellite coverage of the area. Once at Monument Valley they have guided and self guided tours. The guided are full day and half day increments visiting areas that are off limits without a guide. We probably won't make it in time for this, and even if we could I probably wouldn't want to do it. Guided tours don't allow you to gloss over things that don't interest you, or spend time at the places that do. Instead, there is dirt road you can drive on that winds through the valley with pull off points for pictures.
Map of Monument Valley
Monument Valley at sunset
After we're done exploring Monument Valley, we'll head to Mexican Hat where our hotel is, the San Juan Inn.
Mexican Hat, Utah
Mexican Hat
After passing the eroded mesas of Monument Valley, highway US 163 crosses 20 miles of rather flat landscape past scattered Navajo Indian houses to Mexican Hat, a small settlement named after a curious formation nearby with a large flat rock 60 feet in diameter perched precariously on a much smaller base at the top of a small hill. The village itself is unremarkable but the surrounding scenery is exceptional and not often visited, with cliffs, canyons and red rock buttes; the two main sites of interest are Goosenecks State Park and Valley of the Gods.
Wow, whoever wrote that was quite blunt. While researching other cities on Google maps, the satellite views of the town in constrast to the surrounding areas make it seem like huge settlements. Then when I search for more information, find out there are only a few thousand people who live there. Mexican Hat has a population of 88. Whenever I post questions on what to do in these towns (aside from the main attraction, the people always respond, "enjoy the quiet solitude". That might work for the first day, but not for 9 days. I'll go crazy, so hopefully I'll be able to find or think of something else to do for the rest of the day.
