*Birds we’ve seen on our 2011 trip so far: mountain bluebird, golden eagle, Indigo bunting, Lazuli bunting, Say’s Phoebe, yellow-rumped warbler, Western Tanager, bald eagle, blue heron, American white pelican, trumpeter swan, osprey, magpie, mountain bluebird, Clark’s Nutcracker
*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2011 trip so far: 7
*State Parks visited on 2011 trip so far: 1
We decided to treat ourselves to breakfast before heading to Monument Valley, and figured there’d be some sort of diner in the nearby town of Mexican Hat. It’s a small village of about 88 people that gets its name from the nearby rock formation that resembles a sombrero or Mexican hat. This rock is about 60 ft. in diameter and sits on top of a much smaller rock on top of a hill. Near the edge of town we found a place called The Old Bridg
e Grille (SanJuanInn)located next to the San Juan Inn & Trading Post. The menu is extensive and boasts a full Ranch Breakfast complete with eggs cooked any way you want for about $7, but if you want those eggs poached, it’ll cost you $20! Guess they don’t like to poach eggs. I chose the Southwest Green Chile Omelet that came with toast and potatoes and was more than enough food for me, and Russ decided on the Southwest Breakfast Burrito that was about as big as Russ’ arm and would have easily
fed us both! Should have taken a picture of that!Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park (MonumentValley) is one of the most photographed places on earth, and the site of many a Western movie (and as the backdrop in many oth
er films such as Forest Gump and Back to the Future III). In fact the first movie ever filmed in the valley was Stagecoach in 1938 starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford. The Valley is part of
the Navajo Nation located on the Utah/Arizona border, and has a 17 mile scenic drive on a very rough dirt road. The entrance fee is $5, and you can tour with a Navajo guide for some extra moola or you can drive it yourself. We figure they keep the roads particularly bad to try and entice more people to pay for the guided tours which are basically c
onverted pickup trucks with a makeshift seating area propped on the bed in back. After walking around the Visitor's Center, we chose to drive ourselves, and it does make for an interesting and bumpy ride!The monuments in the park have very descriptive names like East and We
st Mitten Buttes, The Three Sisters, The Thumb, Totem Pole, and Elephant Butte just to name a few. Just as we (and several of the guided tours) arrived at John Ford’s Point, a Navajo man on horseback rode out to the point and posed in typical John Wayne fashion as everyone snapped photos. Quite an impressive sight! Eviden
tly he does this daily every time a tour truck pulls in to the little parking lot there, and after a few minutes of posing out on the point, he gallops back to where all the tourists are and for $2 you can have your photo taken sitting on his horse. (No, we didn’t take advantage of this opportunity.)
Just down the road from the entrance to the park is Goulding’s Trading Post, Lodge, & Museum (www.gouldings.com). In 1924 Harry and Leone (a Mike) Goulding purchased 640 acres next to Monument Valley and began trading with the Navajo people. A few years later they built the stone trading post that still stands today and is used as the museum as is their apa
rtment upstairs furnished as it was when they lived there. Back in the 1930s when the Gouldings learned that John Ford was looking for a place to film a Western, Harry went to Hollywood with photos of the Monument Valley area and the rest is history. There are many photos, autographs, an
d memorabilia throughout the museum, and the mess hall that was originally built for the crew of “The Harvey Girls” is now filled with movie stills, posters, call sheets, and there’s always a classic John Ford – John Wayne film being shown on a TV. Located behind the museum is the stru
cture that was used for the exterior shots of the personal quarters for John Wayne’s character, Capt. Nathan Brittles, in the movie “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” in 1949. It was actually Mike’s potato cellar where she stored her fruits and vegetables, and the interior shots were really filmed in Hollywood studios. The Gouldings were lifelong friends of the Navajo people, and a memorial overlooking the Valley rests just outside the trading post.
The next day we were leaving Goosenecks State Park to begin our trek towards FL, but before doing so realized that we were able to see part of Monument Valley in the distance from our campsite (photo is obviously zoomed in). It had been a cool place to visit with all of its history and awesome geological formations, and a place we can now check off of our list. 
We try to discover new places along our travels, and as we made our way south and east, we had planned a couple stops to places we had not visited before. In northeastern AZ we stopped briefly at Canyon de Chelly National Monument (www.nps.gov/cach). This place is unique within the National Park Se
rvice in that it is entirely located on Navajo Tribal Trust Land within the Navajo Nation. It preserves the ruins of the early Anasazi people as well as the Navajo along three major canyons which can be viewed as you drive along the canyon rims. We decided to forgo the auto tour as we were trying to get to our next destination before nightfall, but we did stop in the Visitor Center where we got our NPS book stamped, learned a little bit more about the area, and watched a local artisan.
Only 4 miles away is the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site (www.nps.gov/hutr) and was our next stop. Purchased by John Lorenzo Hubbell in 1878, the Hubbell Trading Post is the oldest continuously operating trading post on the Navajo reservation and was operated by Hubbell family members until it was sold to the National Park Service in 1965. As usual we started in the Visitor’s Center and for a short time watched a Nav
ajo woman weaving one of the many rugs that are sold over at the Post. We walked across the parking lot to the trading post which opens up into the grocery store and then breaks out into several rooms filled with handcrafted jewelry, rugs, and baskets along with all manner of items hanging from the rafters and lining the walls and shelves.
Behind the trading post stands the Hubbell family home complete with the original furnishings and artwork. We happened to arrive just as one of the rangers was giving a little history on the family and house to a couple of other people. Original pieces of art work line the walls including a portrait of Geronimo (in red hat at right) for which he posed and Native American baskets line 
the ceiling among the rafters. This was a fascinating stop and one of those hidden gems we discovered along the way.We spent the night in Grants, NM, and over the next couple of days made our way across TX spending the night in Vernon and Lindale, and finally in Forest, MS. Tomorrow we’d be seeing our good friends (and Capitol Reef co-hosts) John and Nancy at their home in Union, MS.
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