View from John Ford Point
In the afternoon, we headed to Monument Valley. The first part was what anyone would see in their car: Left and Right Mitten, Merrick Butte, the 3 sisters, and probably the most spectacular view from John Ford's point. One immediately recognized the movie scene in one of John Wayne's movies. The campground where we are staying, relates to this scene. In the 1920's Hary and Leone Goulding bought land across from monument valley to start sheep herding. During the depression, everyone was suffering here. So they took their last $60 went to Hollywood with pictures of Monument Valley to convince them that this was the ideal spot for filming Westerns. John Ford saw the pictures and ended up making "Stage Coach"and other movies out here.
We left the main road and went through the back country. Part of our tour was watching a 90 year old woman, named Susie, preparing wool for a Navajo rug in her hogan, a traditional wood and mud building. We saw lots of rock formations and arches with interesting names like: Thunderbird rock, Sun's Eye, Ear of the Wind Arch, the sleeping dragon, totem pole, and the sleeping giant. Our final stop was the North Window to get a view of the familiar buttes of this area. Probably the best picture of the day, however, was taking at sunset from our campsite, which has this great view of the Valley.
On the recommendations of others, we decided to do the full day tour of the valley with a guide rather than touring ourselves. It was well worth it! We spent most of the morning in Mystic Valley just south of Monument Valley. Here we explored a lot of arches: Skull arch, Half Moon arch, Honeymoon Arch. We also examined a number of Anasazi cliff dwellings. They were fairly small compared to what you would see in Mesa Verde, but were often accompanied by petroglyphs nearby depicting animals nearby. One called the House of many hands, had hand prints everywhere on the wall of the rock. Lunch was a huge burger with accompaniments in the shade of a big rock wall. 
John and Mary at Honeymoon Arch
In the afternoon, we headed to Monument Valley. The first part was what anyone would see in their car: Left and Right Mitten, Merrick Butte, the 3 sisters, and probably the most spectacular view from John Ford's point. One immediately recognized the movie scene in one of John Wayne's movies. The campground where we are staying, relates to this scene. In the 1920's Hary and Leone Goulding bought land across from monument valley to start sheep herding. During the depression, everyone was suffering here. So they took their last $60 went to Hollywood with pictures of Monument Valley to convince them that this was the ideal spot for filming Westerns. John Ford saw the pictures and ended up making "Stage Coach"and other movies out here.
We left the main road and went through the back country. Part of our tour was watching a 90 year old woman, named Susie, preparing wool for a Navajo rug in her hogan, a traditional wood and mud building. We saw lots of rock formations and arches with interesting names like: Thunderbird rock, Sun's Eye, Ear of the Wind Arch, the sleeping dragon, totem pole, and the sleeping giant. Our final stop was the North Window to get a view of the familiar buttes of this area. Probably the best picture of the day, however, was taking at sunset from our campsite, which has this great view of the Valley.
Monument Valley from our campsite.
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