We had a long and tiring night, even though we were sleeping in a motel room. Orr must have still been suffering from her stomach, Shi also chimed in once or twice and Ron kind of fell off his bed and needed attention. However, morning finally arrived and we headed back to the RV to continue our journey.
We drove along the south rim of Canyon De Chelly. Our first stop was the farthest lookout on the south rim, called Spider Rock Lookout. From the empty parking lot there is a 200 meter walk to a balcony overlooking the steep canyon walls, the valley below and a peculiar totem pole of a rock extending from the valley floor almost all the way up. I walked to the lookout with Shir and Orr (no stroller, just legs and occasionally daddy’d hands). Paola prepared a tasty breakfast in the RV, and Ron preferred to draw in his coloring book.
From Spider Rock we drove back along the south rim, 15 miles, enjoying the views. We parked at the White House Trailhead when Orr fell asleep and Shir and Ron were watching a DVD movie. This gave me the opportunity to do some trail running and photography combined. I ran down into the valley and “ran†back up in 45 minutes. About 2.5 miles. The White House is actually a series of houses in the rocks and the valley floor from about 1000 years ago. The dry weather has preserved part of them. This is the only trail that tourists are allowed to do on their own. Any other sightseeing in this canyon is with a Navajo guide.
After returning from the trail, we drove southwest to the Hopi Indian Reservation which is totally engulfed by the Navajo reservation. They have had a lot of land disputes over the 100s of years of history here. There are 300,000 Navajos and only 8000 Hopis. We drove a bit through the local roads and even did a loop at a town called Second Mesa. We went into a Hopi Culture Museum which was pretty lame. We then ate at the adjacent restaurant and the traditional Hopi food of beans and Homily (a type of corn) was not such a hit. Their fried blue corn bread was very tasty though (not blue though). You can’t see any pictures in the photo gallery because the Hopi do not allow photography.
From Hopi land we continued our voyage through a very windy and almost stormy afternoon until we reached our campground for the night. On the way we had an unplanned sightseeing stop called Little Painted Desert. There is the National Park about 100 miles south of here, but we did not plan on visiting it. This mini version was pretty impressive as well.
We are now camping at Meteor Crater RV park. Tomorrow we will go see the crater. We arrived around 5pm and took the kids to the campground playground where they had some good old fashioned kid fun. We need to do this more often. When we returned to the RV Shir felt warm. She has a bit of a fever. At dinner, Orr ate voraciously, so I guess her stomach problems are over. Shir as usual, ate very well. And mostly by herself. She is probably eating more per day than Ron. We just hope they all sleep well tonight. We need the rest…
Good night.
Hemi
Here is a film clip laced with history from Canyon De Chelly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKJJnBsWbNs
It’s from a dvd on Edward S. Curtis, which bears on other Indian lands as well.
More info:
ES Curtis Film Clip
The Indian Picture Opera
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Amazon link:
The Indian Picture Opera
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