my travels in pixels

Monument Valley, Arizona When you see the Mittens at Monument Valley, you think of Western Movies. Actors like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Tom Hanks worked here. Movies such as Stage Coach, the Lone Ranger, Forrest Gump, Easy Rider, How the West was Won were made here. Monument Valley was under the Gulf of Mexico 570 million years ago. It started it’s life 65 million years ago as the Pacific and North American tetonic plates off the coast of California collided sending shockwaves to the east. Erosion by water, wind and ice has chiseled the rock formations over thousands of years into what they are today. Showing the road around the buttes There is a 17-mile valley drive which can be undertaken between 8am and 5pm October to April in winter when sunrise is between and 6am-8.30pm May to September in summer. Sunrise and sunset never occur within these times anytime throughout the year, which makes it very difficult to get a good photograph. We went back to the ...

Cottonwood Campground in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, AZ Chinle, AZ One of the larger sites Check with the visitor centre on arrival as they have ranger programs and a free walking tour. There is only one walk to the White House Ruins that you can do on your own. The other options are private walking tours, 4WD tours or horse trail tours Why we chose here? There are only two campgrounds in Canyon de Chelly (pronounced shay), one near the visitor centre - Cottonwood and another – Spider Rock, a fair way in on the south rim. Location: Drive to Chinle, AZ, then drive east. Coming out from the visitors centre, turn right, then turn right, then the campground will be on your left. Sites: 92. Up to 35’. Most of the sites are difficult to get in to if you are large. The entries seem to be in the opposite direction than you are supposed to be driving. Lots of small sites. There is a dump, but no water in winter – they take the hoses away. There is only one tap in th...

Canyon de Chelly National Park, Arizona When we arrived in Canyon de Chelly (d’shay) two weeks ago there had been a ranger talk that night and a ranger walk the next day, but because we couldn’t drive our truck we missed out on both of them. Now the next ranger walks are not for two weeks due to staff shortages, so we miss out again. This national monument is on Navajo reservation land and observes daylight saving while the rest of Arizona does not. So we were a bit confused as to the right time to see sunrise and sunset. My photography app showed nearby towns with and a different current time and a different time for sunrise and sunset to what we had been told. Reality was somewhere in between. People have lived here for over 5,000 years. The current inhabitants are the Navajo, who first arrived in 1700 only to be captured or killed before or during the long 300 mile walk of 1863 when the land now known as Arizona and New Mexico was taken from the Mexicans and became part of...