We sure enjoyed our stay in Bluff, Utah but it became time to move on… Where to next? A place where I would be able to check off a bucket list item, Monument Valley. We hit the road fairly early as we could only get one night at the KOA in Monument Valley. Its an expensive place to stay so we probably would only have stayed one night anyway.
As we neared Monument Valley the familiar landscape was revealing itself. Also there was a slow down at the infamous Forrest Gump Point, something we weren't interested in. We pulled in and as we were setting up a fellow in a red jeep stopped to chat since he too was from Texas. Turns out that he told us that the entry fee of $20.00 to enter Monument Valley was not being charged this day as most services at the park were closed. We never really found out why but were grateful to save the $20 seeing as how expensive the RV park was.
We quickly set up, ate lunch and headed on over to see the sights. Sure enough we passed by the fee windows which were indeed closed. We parked in the visitor center parking lot to check things out but everything there was also closed except for the souvenir store so we went back to the car.
Monument Valley got its name from the Navajo phrase Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii which supposedly means valley of the rocks. These buttes are hardly rocks however as this part of the Colorado Plateau composed mostly of sandstone has some pretty magnificent buttes, some as tall as 1,000 ft. above the valley floor.
We entered the dirt loop road to see all there was to see. We saw all the famous buttes; Elephant Butte, the Three Sisters, West and East Mitten Buttes as well as the well known vistas such as John Ford Point, Artist's Point and the Window. It was quite impressive to see these famous icons I saw many times as a child in the backdrop of many old western movies.
While we were not treated to a stunning sunset we did enjoy a nice sunrise from our campground the next morning…
NOTE: We have left Fredonia AZ this morning and moved over to St George UT for a week, then on toward Nevada…
Nice to score a FREE trip into the valley for an up close experience. We had to pay :( But the restaurant was open :) We stayed in the RV park at Gouldings.
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