Monument Valley Navajo Park

The trip so far.

 06/08/2024

We departed Sunshine RV Resort this morning at our usual 9 am. Before leaving Cortez, we drove to a nearby travel center that has Cat Scales. (Commercial truck scales) While in Los Alamos I had increased the tension on the load leveling hitch and I wanted to get the axle weights. The goal being to take a little more weight off the rear axle and distribute it to the front of the truck and to the axles of the RV. 

The Silver Bullet, 122K miles and still going strong!

Today we pass very close to the Four Corners marker, so it was no surprise when our route went from Colorado, then briefly into New Mexico before going west into Arizona. Before the journey ended, we popped up into Utah where our next campground is located. 

Monument Valley KOA Campgtound

After setting up the RV at the Monument Valley KOA campground, we had a lunch of leftovers from yesterday’s meal. We rested a bit before venturing out to tour Monument Valley. I mistakenly thought this was a National Park, that was operated by the Navajo Indians. The park is preserved environment by the Navajo Nation Council. It is their reservation, their land.

The monuments in the park are mostly individual spires or Mesa like these.

The park entrance is in Utah, but along the road you cross the border into Arizonia where Monument Valley is located. At the toll booth we paid the $8 per person entrance fee, received a road map of the park and were then free to explore on our own. As long as we stayed on the 17-mile sand/gravel/rock road.

Self guided tour on gravel road

The road, while not a challenge for our truck, was a very rough ride. The rear suspension of the Silver Bullet has been enhanced for towing the RV and it doesn’t give much when unloaded. We mostly kept the speed below 10 mph.

to the left is a mesa and on the right are spires

The enormous rock Sculptures some rising 1500 feet above the desert floor is truly a sight to behold. My poor literary scribblings can in no way describe the experience, so I won’t even try. You will just have to drive out here and see it for yourself.

Quite a view!

I will tell you this, the rock Monuments as they are called are 570 million years old, give or take a few years! Their transformation into the Mesas, buttes and spires we see today is due to many cycles of rising and receding seas, followed by upheaval of the earths crust and more millions of years of erosion. That’s the end of my geography lesson for the day, you’re welcome!

Goats from a nearby horse stable in the park

We didn’t hike on any of the established trails in the park today, it was over 100 degrees, the sun was intense and I’m old, Millie is still a spring chicken but she has more sense than to die in the desert!

Millie and a balanced rock

There are many vendors who offer tours of the park, many of the ones we saw were open seating in the back of a flatbed truck, an overhead tarp offering limited shade. We felt sorry for the passengers, most were wearing masks because of the dust, the drivers, with a schedule to keep I imagine, bounced along at a pretty fast pace between overlook stops. PS: most of the drivers were in air-conditioned cabs with the windows up!

Wait till you see what we found on our 2nd day in Monument Valley