October 2 - Monument Valley and Goosenecks SP

With blue skies all around, ​we finally made it to Monument Valley. 

We drove the loop road twice because we didn’t want to miss anything.

When you start the loop road, the first monuments you see are the East and West Mittens Monuments 

Elephant Butte is one you really need to use your imagination 

Three Sisters Monument 

Camel Monument 

View of the North Window Overlook

There were vendors at a lot of the stops selling jewelry and other items made by the Navajo.

We bought fry bread at John Ford’s Point where several John Wayne movies were shot.

John Ford’s Point.

The next 2 were taken at Navajo Code Talker Outpost. More on that when we get to the Tribal Center. 

The Tribal Center had a museum. The one exhibit that interested us was about the Code Talkers. This exhibit highlighted the legacy of the Din’e Cose Talkers who used their unwritten native language to create an unbreakable military code during World War II. This code was critical to winning the war in the South Pacific.

The exhibit was created in 2001 by students at Wingate High School called “Our Fathers, Our Grandfathers, Our Heroes.”

After lunch at the Tribal Center, we drove to Goosenecks State Park to see the San Juan River meander through tight loops 1,000 ft below the rim. 

It was so hard to capture it all. There were 4 loops  

Back at camp, we had a fire and watched the sky  perfect dark sky spot.