2017 Day 3

Our first stop was Antelope Canyon near Page - we had to do the lower canyon because sun doesn't hit the upper one in the right places until later in the day. Brook was our tour guide and is a full blooded Navajo and proud of it as she should be. She is a student at Arizona State, and since she is studying to be a teacher we hit it off quite well. She gave us a short history lesson on the Navajo Nation which we enjoyed and needed. We had no idea the Navajo Reservation is the largest in the country - about the size of West Virginia. She also took us on an incredible tour of this famous slot canyon that was formed by flash floods. The picture below is just one example of its beauty. And just as many "Holy Smokes" were exclaimed as yesterday, and today by more than just Barry.

Brook was so helpful that we reciprocated with a good deed. At then end of the tour she had several jobs to do after we walked back to the starting point. One of them was to hand out bottles of water. But we three good deed doers relieved her of that job so she could concentrate on her other tasks.

We spent the next one and a half hours driving through rugged but beautiful desert lands to the famous and even more rugged and beautiful Monument Valley at the border of northeast Arizona and southeast Utah. Several John Wayne movies were filmed there along with others. The two hours we spent there were hot (check out our car thermometer) and included views that are absolutely spectacular, which caused moments of "verklemptness" in more than one of our group of three.

We ended up getting a room at Goulding's Lodge near the entrance to Monument Valley. The view from our balcony is breathtaking.  The gigantic formations are fading in the waning sunlight as I put the finishing touches on Day #3. Holy Smokes!