Jeremy's Pictures

Day 9 Friday May 20th Page, Lake Powell AZ – Chinle AZ

Paul van der Straten & Marie Isabelle

Colin's Picture

We are in Arizona after the luxury of a two night stop in Page… so now let’s turn the page to our next adventure. Departure this morning at 08.00 hrs and I was ready too early so when coming across Ken Miles preparing his morning talk I observed to him “ you have an appropriate surname to organise the MOAers” and quick as a shot he replied “Yes but when Canada went metric I tried to change my name to Kilometre ! “ A funny start to the day.

The sun is shining, the temperature is ideal, a few puffy clouds in the blue sky and a group of 5 cars in convoy Jim & Trudy, Phil & Margaret, Manu & Annick, Michael (Satnav) & Sherry and Marie Isobelle and me. With 80 miles of straight road we turn off to the Navajo National Monument of Arizona and we discover here 13th century farmers houses built in a cave.

Some 700 years ago perhaps up to 30 people lived here for almost a generation – then the site was abandoned as they moved on. Viewing of these impressive ruins are supported by an informative film explaining how the Indians lived here.
With a dinosaurs footprint in stone we could have been in Jurassic park.

We then continued our journey through the desert and, after our flying visit yesterday, we saw Monument valley again from a distance. En route we lunched at a Holiday Inn with non-alcoholic beer, none being allowed on the Indian Reserves.
After a very hot journey we were all looking forward to using the Holiday Inn, Canyon de Chelly swimming pool, but on arrival found it was closed!
Perhaps for good reason for as a consolation we had to cope with the hordes of mosquitoes!