A long-time home for the Navajo, Canyon de Chelly still houses several Navajo people. Oddly enough, Chelly means “canyon”, so Canyon de Chelly translates to something like Canyon of a canyon. But it’s an odd place, seeing as how the US government operates this land inside the Navajo nation, which itself is inside the US, …
After possibly one of my favorite nights camping under the stars, we continued South towards Monument Valley. The road took us through a town called Mexican Hat, which we both found amusing, until we passed through town and saw exactly what they meant. The roads in the area are straight and the land flat enough …
After seeing what a big river can carve into sandstone, it was time for us to visit our most anticipated feature in the area, Antelope Canyon. As people without internet who only search the next 3-4 days down the road, we frankly just got lucky with this space. You can only visit one of the …
Having gotten to better know the US’ most famous v-shaped feature, we cut across the Southern part of the Vermillion cliffs, windows down and music up. There was something about that experience and those cliffs that went straight into the deep banks of my memory; I can recall the moment even now. There’s something wonderful …
With a new idea of natural respect, we headed back to the Grand Canyon as it was now open. We didn’t think about all the other people who were also waiting and spent a good hour in line with everyone else who went to the North rim on the first day. We should have given …
After giving the van a six hour sand bath, it was time to succeed in something, so we headed towards the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We arrived in the little town of Jacob Lake, at the turn-off towards the park, to find all the campgrounds closed and a notice saying that the park …
Filled with the majesty of rocks and space, we pressed on towards the Utah-Arizona border. We knew we were going to loop around the Vermillion Cliffs and so decided to visit Horseshoe Bend later. Instead, we camped out by Lake Powell, rested, and did some laundry. White Pocket During our research for this trip, Shiz …
With one of the cultural relics of the area better understood, it was time to better understand the geological one, the Grand Canyon. Our first problem: we didn’t have a place to camp. We knew of some wild camping spots outside the park, but figured that we’d try our luck at the campground, since it was …
We were happy to leave the shopping mall that is Sedona and where most people probably head into Flagstaff when they travel North, we breezed through to see the Wuptaki National Monument. It’s a drive and very far out of the way, but what can I say, we like ruins. Wupatki These are good ruins, …
Phoenix was the last large city we planned to visit for a while, so we stared wild camping and the Southwest in the face and said: Let’s do this. Montezuma Castle Our first stop North was to see more cliff dwellings (there are lots of them in the Southwest) at Montezuma Castle National Monument. By …