Oct 15, 2012 - Canyon de Chelly

Canyon de Chelly is a beautiful deep canyon in the heart of the Navajo Indian reservation. The park service makes it easy to explore the rim of the canyon but there is only one hiking path to the bottom. All other access requires a Navajo guide or a tour. The observation areas along the rim all have vertical walls up to 700 feet straight down. Amazing to see and very hard to capture with images (just like the Grand Canyon). While walking along the rim I've had Buddy tethered to me and that has worked well. There are many signs warning about...

Sep 19, 2012 - Hubbell Trading Post and Canyon De Chelly

The Hubbell Trading Post is the oldest operational trading post in the US. The Navajo woman making the rug will take about 4 months to make the rug and it will be valued at about $5K. The detail is awesome. She sits like that for hours a day. Ahhh!!! Canyon De Chelly (pronounced D'Shay) National Monument is 36 miles long and has ancient Anasazi and Puebloan ruins dating back many hundreds of years. Even though it is in Arizona, the land it owned by the Navajo Nation and occupied by the Navajos. The Mummy Ruins date back to the 1300s. There...

May 12, 2012 - Chinle, AZ

Hi everyone! We traveled to an area of AZ called Chinle.It is in the middle of the Navajo reservation and has Canyon De Chelly there. The canyon is a very cool place with really neat rock formations and colors. The Indian people have lived there for well over a thousand years. We were able to explore the canyon and hiked to the canyon floor. Not bad for a couple of flatlanders, but the trip back up was breathtaking to say the least. The campground we stayed at was very primitive. No hooks up of any kind. The family that owns it have been...

May 2, 2012 - North Rim Drive

This morning we took a drive along the North Rim. Massacre Cave overlook has a sad story. It was from this vantage point that the Spanish soldiers may have fired upon the Navajos during the infamous "massacre of 1803". Spanish accounts describe a battle against Indians "... entrenched in an almost inaccessible point ..." and the killing of 90 warriors and 25 women and children. The Navajo, however say many men were away hunting at the time. Thus the dead were mostly women, children, and old men who had sought refuge from the invaders. The...

May 1, 2012 - Jeep Safari to Spider Rock

Today we took a Jeep Tour through the canyon to Spider Rock. This was a place that was so awe inspiring last year when we visited. Of course we could only look down last year. Bob arranged for a jeep tour with Howard and Katie Smith. They run the Spider Rock Campground. Howard is Navajo and has property down in the canyon. We learned that you can’t buy land in the canyon, you inherit from family. Howard was a great tour guide and took time to point out the thousands of pictographs. One of the first he pointed to showed three different...

Apr 26, 2012 - Canyon de Chelly

Thursday, April 26 Canyon deChelly, Chinle, Arizona Today we had planned to remain at the campground here because we had some household duties with regards to the RV and Michigan RV chapter things to do. We thought we would take a hike to the bottom of the canyon floor and drive either or both the North and South Rims. Fortunately, we looked at the local weather forecast and knew the day was going to go from nice to much worse. Just as we drove to the South Rim, we noticed the wind had picked up and there was rain moving northwards from the...

Apr 25, 2012 - Canyon de Chelly

Wednesday, April 25 -- Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Chinle, Arizona 6:30 am. Up early (for us). We paid for our campsite, and then walked to Thunderbird Lodge to pay for our tour. We chose the 8 hour tour which turned out to be a good choice for us. The weather was not too hot and not too cold. The sky was partly cloudy. It was just great weather for this tour. We had jackets and layers with us and we used them throughout the day. When we were in the shadows, the long sleeves felt right. When we were in the full sun, the short...

Apr 24, 2012 - Show Low, AZ

Tuesday April 24 Show Low, Arizona Our short drive of 150 miles took us about 8-9 hours. The drive from Show Low was relatively easy since we were driving in the Colorado Low Plateau area. However, we entered the Petrified Forest in the south entrance. We had been here about ten years ago, but we had only explored the north end of the park. The drive from the north edge of the Painted Desert entrance should only take a couple hours…wrong! The road was very rolling, big rolling hills and relatively narrow. Jim was growing tired so I drove...

Apr 20, 2012 - Cast Off

Friday, April 20 Sahuarita, Arizona home Jim takes his normal 2 hour bicycle ride with the guys before we finish our packing and closing the house. Cleaning the fridge and emptying the pantry into the RV takes more time than I had planned. After being gone from Arizona for five weeks, I have more supplies than I had thought. The fridge and freezer in the RV are chocked full! Today the temperature here in our area is mid 90s, and it makes for a hard day of packing. It was easier to drive away than other years. We are headed to an RV park in...

Nov 12, 2011 - Canyon de Chelly

It was cold and VERY quiet overnight here in the campground. Just a few RVs and one tenter. We had blue skies in the morning and intermittent clouds with a few sprinkles during the day. It was cool and windy. With the changing light, this was a beautiful day to see and photograph the Canyon. We started our tour by going to the visitor center. We learned about the Canyon, the Anasazi/Pueblo/Navajo way of life and met a wonderful older (dare I say it - he is about my age!?) Navajo silversmith. His "English" name is Gary Henry. He told us his...

Nov 11, 2011 - Arizona

Today we are thinking about all those servicemen and women who served and particularly those who made the ultimate sacrifice - thank you to all of you who have served to protect our freedoms! After taking care of chores in the morning - laundry, propane refill, fuel up, etc., we departed the Desert Rose RV Park and drove just up the road to Aztec to see the ancient Anasazi ruins. These are amazing. Dating from around 1100 A.D., the "ancient ones", as referred to by today's Navajo, built this huge, 3 story amazing complex of kivas and rooms....

Oct 25, 2011 - Canyon de Chelly

One of the most interesting and visually stunning places we have visited is Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “du shay”), where there are Native American villages and ancient cliff dwellings. The Canyon has been inhabited a long time, from the Anasazi of the 12th century before suddenly disappearing, to the Navajo who have lived there for 300 years. Many times in my life I have admired photos of cliff dwellings and I had promised myself that I would visit such a place. The national monument has a very nice visitor center where you learn about...