Saturday, June 12th Grand Canyon Here We Come! Canyon de Chelly, AZ to Grand Canyon, AZ to Kingman, AZ

Never having been to the Grand Canyon before, I wanted to go (even though it was a little bit out of our way).  Greg had gone as a child and wasn’t particularly interested in returning, but agreed anyway.

We got up very early to see the North Rim of the canyon.  Yesterday we saw the South Rim.  The South Rim offered fewer vista point stops, but as many pueblo village ruin sites.  We took a bunch of pictures and were off before the other tourists had arrived and before the Navajo craft sellers had made it (they stood near the vista points with their craft wares laid out carefully on blankets or in the beds of their trucks.

If I remember correctly, this was dubbed Mummy Rock because bodies were found either in or near the ruins

Closer up view of the pueblo village

The drive from Chinle, AZ to the Grand Canyon was uneventful, 4 or 5 more hours of playing trivia games on Greg’s iphone and discussing our previous adventures.

And then, finally.  We had made it.

To the east gate.  We still had another 20 or 30 miles left until we got to the park area.

Only a couple of miles into this last leg of the journey, it started raining.  Hard.  We were at the “can’t turn back now” stage and it was raining at the Grand Canyon.  We considered finding a place to stay for the night, but anything we could afford was at least an hour away from the Grand Canyon (and we weren’t interested in backtracking).  We had only one afternoon to see the Grand Canyon.

Despite the rain, we saw a good portion of the South Rim.  Essentially, we hopped in and out of the car all afternoon.  Raining and in the low 40s, visibility wasn’t great and comfort was almost nonexistent.

Struggling in the wind and the rain and the cold

We overheard one visitor talking about snow.  Snow!  In Arizona in June!  We had just come from the sunny heat of New Mexico and Northeastern Arizona.  Neither of us were prepared to see snow on the ground; neither of us brought appropriate cold weather clothes.

We stared into the deep foggy canyon and wondered what it might look like if the foggy cloak was lifted.  

The Grand Canyon under a cloak of fog

A bit further along the South Rim

We braved up enough to walk on the path alongside the South Rim.  When we began our 2 mile walk, the weather was cold and rainy.  Near the end of our walk, the clouds left and the sky and canyon both became sunny and bright.  The fog lifted, and it wasn’t quite so cold anymore.

"The sun will come out tomorrow!  Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun!"

3 or 4 shirts, 2 sweaters, and a scarf... after the clouds and rain left and the sun came out to play

Greg looks like he stepped into a postcard

Of course, all of this weather magic happened only shortly before we had to leave.

We had booked a place in Kingman, Arizona, a full 2 hours away from the Grand Canyon.

So at the end of our Canyon walk, we hopped on a shuttle back to the parking lot where we left my car.  And we set off once again, trying to inch a little more to the left on the map.

Friday, June 11th Santa Fe, NM to Albuquerque, NM to Canyon de Chelly, AZ

Once upon a time, Pueblo Indians lived in this Canyon through which the Colorado River flows.  There are two Colorado rivers by the way, the one in Texas and the one that snakes through Arizona through the Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly.  The Grand Canyon is on the agenda, but not until tomorrow.

These Ancient Peoples lived in pueblos built into the canyon walls and farmed the fertile land of the canyon floor.  And today, the Navajo care for the land in much the same way the ancestors did, although with a little help from technology.  

Canyon de Chelly is something like a 4 or 5 hour drive from Santa Fe (we don’t keep track of hours, although Garmin does).  We stopped for a few minutes to check out downtown Albuquerque and the sculpture park, but were back on the road shortly.

Sculpture park in Albuquerque, NM

Greg helping to push the cart

Cathedral downtown in the main square of Albuquerque

We had wanted to see ancient Pueblo Indian ruins, but had trouble deciding which ruins site to visit.  There are several sites near Santa Fe, but none in the direction we needed to drive (and so all would have been out of the way).  We decided to drive to Canyon de Chelly National Monument, a park kept up by both the US Government and the Navajo Nation.  Canyon de Chelly is near Chinle, Arizona, which was only slightly out of the way.

We arrived late in the afternoon and quickly found a place to stay in a hogan in a campground located in the park.  A hogan is a residence made of wood and clay/mud (see photos).  The hogan was furnished with a futon, a wood burning stove, an oil lamp, a desk, some shelves, and a couple of chairs.  Not bad for camping.

Our home sweet hogan

Our hogan's furnishings

After we got settled in our hogan, we went out to explore some of the vista points.  The first two stops offered beautiful views of the canyon and the farmland below.

At the third, we spotted two different pueblo villages perched up in the canyon walls.

Can you see the pueblo?

This is the same pueblo village only further away

We made several other stops at various vista points.

The canyon in the background

We should have had binoculars!  The pueblos were incredible.  I had the Canon and put the zoom lens to good use.  I spent much of the time looking at the pueblo villages through the LCD screen of the camera.  One view after another.  Each was better than the last.

We finally arrived at the White House Ruin vista point.

White House Ruins - Can you see the tiny horizontal gash in the canyon wall?

The White House Ruin is the only ruin that visitors are allowed to hike down to without a Navajo guide.  Of course there is a fence keeping the visitors at a distance, but seeing the pueblos up close is much better than trying desperately to view them from across a canyon.  The mile and a half hike down into the canyon was easy.

Greg resting on the hike down

Getting closer to the ruins...

It was the hike back that was difficult.  I’ll make excuses for myself being so easily winded by saying that we were at a much higher altitude than I’m used to.  Seeing the ruins were incredibly cool.

White House Ruins - stunning, aren't they?

It is hard to see from this angle, but at the very back of the pueblo village, there exists a whitewashed house after which this ruin site was named.

This photo shows the "white" house up close.  Notice the antique graffiti (J.W. Conway, Santa Fe, Sept. 24, 1873).  I did a little research to see if I could find out if the dates were real.  According to at least one website, the graffiti dated as far back as the Spanish Conquistadores.  

I’m not sure there are words to describe what it was like to be standing there looking at the homes of people a thousand years ago.

We finally huffed and puffed our way to the top and back to the car.  We drove back to the campground and ended our day with a light dinner by oil lamp light.