Monument Valley

"I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now." 

If you've seen the movie "Forrest Gump" you might recall the scene where he finally quit running. That scene was shot in Monument Valley, a few miles from where we camped at Arrowhead Campground.

Evening view from our camper. 
Look! A rainbow!

We left Durango and stopped at Four Corners on our way to Monument Valley. This is the only location in the US where 4 state borders meet (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona). Sometimes you have to stop somewhere tourist-y just to say you've been there. I would say this is true of Four Corners, but we bought some Fry Bread, and that changed everything.

Standing in four places at once!

A lovely young Navajo woman prepared my Fry Bread.
It tasted a lot like a funnel cake.

We continued on to Monument Valley, after passing through Arizona, Utah, and back into Arizona within 5 minutes of each other. It was like Four Corners all over again! 

We arrived at our campsite at Arrowhead which was... well... lacking everything except a fabulous view. No water (no problem), no showers or restrooms (no problem), and no electricity (problem). We arrived and detached the camper from the truck (requires electricity);  leveled the camper (requires electricity); put down the stabilizers (requires electricity); and rolled out the slide room (requires electricity). The electricity from the truck and camper batteries handled these jobs just fine. We knew the refrigerator would be on battery power, so we limited opening the fridge and freezer doors. We also knew we would not have lights, so we had pre-charged our headlamps and made sure a lantern had fresh batteries. The camper was sitting on a sandy section of the desert, with sagebrush and other desert flora close by. The owner came by on an ATV to welcome us, and to warn us about rattlesnakes. And we were paying for this?

We drove into the park, which is on Navajo land, and took a few pictures. The sky was cloudy, so the pics didn't capture the orange sandstone features very well. 

From L-R: West Mitten, East Mitten, Merrick Butte

The Mittens - it was just too cloudy to really get good pics.

We decided to put the truck to the test on the 17-mile scenic Valley Drive. This road took us around the major mesas, buttes, and spires in the valley. I use the word "road" loosely, as it was a rough, unpaved washboard, full of potholes and loose sand in which to get stuck. So off we went, jiggling, jarring, and jolting along. Dave is such a good sport, putting his truck under such duress.

Valley Road

Three Sisters

Hamburger Rock (our name for it).
The colors were brighter up close from the valley floor.

Some random chick by some random tree in some random place on Valley Drive.
See those rain clouds? They will soon produce mud.

Looking through two mesas to another mesa beyond.

When our insides were completely shaken upside down we decided to head back to the camper. A little bit of rain began to fall, and the sand around the camper instantly turned to mud. Our shoes, pants hems, and Trooper's paws were caked in seconds with orange muck. We cleaned off as best we could, and hoped we could sweep it away once it dried. This actually worked well, except our now-orange socks will never be white again.

We wanted to get some photos the next morning, hoping the light on the monuments would be better than the cloudy shots from Friday. So Saturday about 7 AM we were in the park on the Wildcat Trail, which is a loop trail around the West Mitten. We would need to be on the back side of the mitten with the sun shining on it to get the shots we wanted. Off we went, even though it was still a bit cloudy.

Trooper loves hiking with us.
The West Mitten is visible here, and the sun looked somewhat promising for pics on the back side of the butte.

A description of our hike. And rules, rules, rules.

The East Mitten is in this pic. Notice the clouds.

We finally made it to the far side of the West Mitten, and suddenly the sun broke through the clouds! Thanks, God, for that delightful blessing!

The back side of the West Mitten.

The sun also illuminated one of the spires.
I don't know its name, but it was cool. 

Another sunny moment on Wildcat Trail

After our 2+ hour hike, we needed to move our camper to another campground, one with full hookups. Why didn't we start at that better campground? It was full on Friday, but had vacancy on Saturday. So... we needed to vacate Arrowhead and head to Gouldings. Dave figured the battery on the camper was pretty low from running the fridge, and he would have to hand crank the stabilizers to retract them, and also the tongue of the trailer to raise it enough to fit over the ball hitch. No problem. Then I tried moving the slide room back in, using what little battery power we had. No way. The battery was dead. We hooked up the truck power to the camper, and that wasn't enough amperes to do it. Now what?

We did what any enterprising camper would do: went on YouTube to figure out how to manually pull in the slide. Apparently there is a special bit that goes on your drill that attaches to the slide motor that is hidden under a wood panel in the camper that has to be removed first. What? The company that sold us the camper failed to include this all-important CRITICAL piece of metal. We thought it through and decided we needed to jump the trailer battery to give it enough juice to pull in the slide. It worked! 

So after our 7AM-9AM hike, and our 9AM-11AM slide dilemma, we finally arrived at Gouldings at 12PM. As we used the electric stabilizers, tongue jack, and slide motor, we rejoiced in this wonderful thing called electricity. And that we would still have it when it was time to reverse the process in another day.  

Gouldings was a really special place, partly because they had all the electricity we could possibly want, and the best showers of any campground yet, but also because they had a hidden arch on the property. So before we left on Sunday, we hiked to the arch, then used electric power to retract stabilizers, raise the trailer tongue, and PULL IN THE SLIDE! 

Hidden Arch at Gouldings

Stay tuned as we drive to Page, AZ and hike a slot canyon!