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Back to some photos from our early June vacation.  These are from Monument Valley, Utah.

We finally made it!

We stayed at “The View Hotel,” which is the only hotel actually in Monument Valley.

Each room has a balcony that overlooks the Valley, hence the name “The View.”

Immediately Rich was on that balcony!

This is part of the view.

And from another direction.

This is a look down on the front lobby of the hotel.

There’s an excellent gift shop within the hotel.  When I saw the Hopi Kachina dolls in the window, I immediately photographed them in silhouette.

Another view of the Valley from the hotel.

This one is sort of funny in that we asked someone to take our picture.  The point was to get some background in, too!

There were many western movies shot in Monument Valley.  Each evening the hotel played a movie, projecting it onto the outside wall where people gathered outside, under the stars, to watch.  We could see and hear it (just at the right volume) from our balcony.  That evening it was Fort Apache.

The next morning, many people with camera and equipment gathered to take pictures of the sunrise.  I was right there with them!  These are some of my favorites from a couple mornings.

The road snaking through the Valley is what we traveled the next day.

Several of these images I quite like, and I’m hoping to incorporate some into future artwork.

Next up we stopped at Navaho National Monument which is also on route to Monument Valley.  We stopped at the visitor center, walked the trails, and admired the canyons.

Wow, our guide Marie wasn’t kidding when her stories included info about the three-toed Jurassic reptiles!

The walk along the trails was lovely, albeit hot.

This is a sweathouse which serves as an “ancient solution to the problem of keeping clean in a land where water is scarce.”

We climbed in and looked around.  It wasn’t until we left that we saw a sign that had fallen face down saying not to enter.  There was no one around to apologize to, as we certainly meant no disrespect.  It was, however, interesting to see the inside.

We enjoyed the park.  Once we got on the road, the landscape began changing and we were finally heading into Monument Valley territory!

I’m finally starting to go through the several thousand pictures (yes, thousands — I cannot believe I went that snap happy) that I took while on vacation.  I’m hoping that each day I’ll  post some of my favorites.  So, here it goes:

We left NJ

and flew to Phoenix, Arizona.  From there we picked up our rental Jeep and started our drive to Flagstaff.

I expected to continue seeing cactus, and I was surprised when the landscape became more green with various evergreens.  Once in Flagstaff, we stopped for food, drove around a bit on Route 66, then headed to our hotel for sleep.  We woke very early, checked out, and started our drive to Monument Valley. Knowing we could not check into the hotel until 4 p.m., we stopped off at various places along the way.

We stopped at Wupatki National Monument.

Then we continued driving and driving, not seeing a traffic light in sight.

Outside of  Tuba City on Route 160N, we saw a weather battered sign for dinosaur  tracks and couldn’t resist checking it out (fear not, the McDonald’s was in Tuba City rather than at the dinosaur tracks area).

Our guide, Marie, took us around.  She squirted water from a bottle to define the outline of various tracks that she claims were from the Jurassic period.  Initially I was a bit skeptical, but it didn’t take long for her sincerity and pride of the area to shine through.  I found her and her stories extremely endearing.

Some of the fabric that I recently discharged has such a similar coloring to this area.  It’s almost like I created fabric to match a trip I didn’t yet have.

We walked on and on, with Marie telling one story after the next.

Although I was having a great time, we were wandering about for what felt like an hour in very hot weather.  We were told 110 degrees hot.  At one point I politely suggested that we head back to the area from where we came.  We were all set to give her money for the time she spent giving us the tour, but before we did so she very politely said she made jewelry.  I was very happy to buy some pieces from her.  We thanked her for the tour and then drove on.

I haven’t posted because I’ve been away on vacation, visiting the Four Corners area — Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.  I’ve taken an obscene amount of photos, and haven’t been able to (okay, haven’t wanted to) access the Internet other than using my iphone to upload images to friends and family.  In other words, I’ve been totally avoiding work (which I hope doesn’t come back to bite me!).

We’ve a few more days here as we head from New Mexico back to Arizona.  Here are a few images …

Me at Monument Valley at sunset

Monument Valley at Sunrise. I took this from our hotel room balcony.

Driving up the Moki Dugway. I took this from the car window as Rich was driving.