Monument Valley, Utah
It was so peaceful at Shiprock Mountain. I parked at the base of the mountain and slept in the car. It was pretty windy at 7:00 pm, and the wind died down by 10:00 pm. The weather forecast was for rain in the evening. It rained lightly for 30 minutes and then stopped.
I woke at 6:30 am and the back window was pointing to the east and the sun was rising in the distance. It had rained for about 30 minutes last night and I could see a few puddles in the road ruts on the road I took in. I made breakfast (oatmeal) and sat in the back of the car enjoying the tranquility of the mountain, dessert, sunrise, and silence all around.
Monument Valley, Arizona was my next destination. I slowly drove back to the paved road a few miles away. The sun periodically popped out to light up the wall of rock on the way.
I first drove to Kayenta, AZ which was about was about 2.5 hours away. Surprisingly, there was a Starbucks in a grocery store. I filled up on gas, groceries and coffee. I headed for the Monument Valley Tribal Park Visitor Center. As I neared, I noticed a Utah sign and noticed the road wound back into Arizona. For some reason, I thought this was a National Park. There was an $8 charge to drive through Monument Valley. I handed over my National Park pass and was told that it is valid. He told me this was part of the Navajo reservation.
The drive through Monument was beautiful. Most of the time it was extremely windy and very cloudy. I had pulled up to an overlook and got out just to take it all in. I began to notice a pattern with most of the visitors. They would pull up, get out of the car, point their iPhone in many different direction to take a photo and then would get back into their car. They all took the same image. There must be millions of images of the same rocks on different days under slightly different conditions. I decided to force myself to find a different point of view and shoot images that not everyone else were taking. It is hard to see the world in a different way, but I think that is what makes photography more fascinating.
I began to notice stray dogs everywhere since I left Farmington, NM. They were in gas stations, rest stops, shopping centers and out here in the park. Some were clearly mangy. Some were very timid as if they had been abused. I wondered why someone hadn’t done something for these animals. In the following image, I couldn’t keep the camera steady because of the high winds.
Two Buddies - Both Seemed Very Timid
Sometimes I just sat and waited for the sun to come out and drop some light on a rock or change the the scene with light in some way. I had to take some images of the rocks like everyone else.
I had seen a sign for a KOA campground on my way in. It was getting close to closing time and I was one of the last out of the park. I drove about 4 miles to the KOA at the base of the access road. They had available sites, very nice showers, laundry, electricity and water. After I checked in, I drove back to the Monument Valley Trading Post for dinner. I had expected to have a really good meal like at The Mohegan Sun Resort in Connecticut. In fact, the food was very mediocre with the same high price as at Mohegan. I do have to give them extra stars for the view.
Around 9:00 pm, I drove back to the KOA and took advantage of the clean showers and new laundry machines. This was a very transient KOA and it seemed most campers were there for a single day.