Monday, May 16th – Mexican Hat, Utah to Navajo National Monument, Arizona – Day 95
We woke up and the kids went to class until the batteries died on our cell phones and no more internet. Aisling is behind on assignments which isn’t surprising since she only goes to school for an hour a day. We made some oatmeal but not many children ate it. We packed up and before we left took a few pictures of our campsite.
We drove through Mexican Hat and decided to check out the San Juan Inn to stop for lunch. The waiter was very enthusiastic and enjoyed hand gestures. I got a Navajo taco on fry bread, a Navajo special. Gen got chili which was really the same thing only fry bread on the side. The kids got burgers. We found an outlet and had our three laptops and cell phones all plugged in.
We continued on our way, seeing the spectacular rock formations across the Utah desert. We stopped at a view stop with Navajo craftspeople selling their products on the side of the road. There were all these people standing in the middle of the road, sometimes running, and taking pictures. We were very confused. Later we found out that this was the spot where Forrest Gump finally stopped running and announced he was tired.
We crossed the border to Arizona and pulled into Monument Valley. We have been living off the America the Beautiful pass which has given us free entry to all National Parks. The pass cost us $100 but we have saved a lot of money. We made the pass price back in the last week; typical park entrance fee is $30 per car in Utah.
Monument Valley was a National Monument run by the Navajo. We didn’t really want to pay for the park and on top of that, the road conditions were not good. so we would just be paying for a viewpoint. We had been told that most monuments could be seen from the main road. We kept driving into Arizona. The rock formations we could see from the road were very nice.
Our next stop was the Navajo National Monument. We arrived at the visitor centre to get a map and junior ranger booklets. The kids found they had an activity area with puzzles, colouring and games; they started completing their activity books. John has been missing puzzles, so we settled down to complete one. Gen found cheap junior ranger fleeces for each kid. We also found out that the National Monument runs a free campsite complete with a bathroom with running water. Big bonus.
We wanted to walk the Betatakin trail from the visitor centre to an overlook where you could see a canyon that had been occupied by Hopi, San Juan Southern Paiute, Zuni, and Navajo tribes over centuries. Under a cliff overhang, you could see a community of sandstone buildings that was last occupied around 1300 ACE. When hunter and gatherers started settling down to tend crops, such as Maize, they built pit houses and eventually, stone buildings. Gen loved the hike. She appreciated the replica Hogan (mud house) and sweat hut; the desert is so arid that they use the sweat huts to clean and use water or dirt to clean the sweat off afterwards.
When we returned the visitor centre was closed so we went directly to the car. A short five-minute drive and we were setting up in a beautiful little campsite. There was plenty of shades and a nice, elevated rock ledge that allowed a great sunset view. When we were getting ready to eat cold dal from the night before with a salad, we met Ron, Kathryn and Ezekiel.
Ron and family were very interesting. He was a single dad that decided he was tired of what he was doing, sold all his possessions with the intention of going to Honduras to set up a business there. The immigration process didn’t work out, so he was left backpacking with his two kids across Honduras. They would stay in AirBnBs, because they were cheap, and travelled on Collectivos (communal small buses) and by walking. From Honduras they travelled through Central America back to the United States for a business opportunity. They decided they weren’t done with travelling at that point and loaded up their Prius and had been tent camping and travel blogging through the southwestern US. Fascinating.
Our food stayed cold while we chatted with Ron and the kids played together. The kids were having so much fun playing hide and go seek, tag and other games throughout the campsite. We went to watch the sunset from the top of a rock face. Ezekiel, Kathryn, Charlotte, and Aisling quickly climbed down and played hide and go seek until it was dark enough that no one could see. It was nice seeing the kids get along so well together and playing games in the woods.
Later we found out that Kathryn had exposed Aisling and Charlotte to BTS, a Korean pop (K-pop) band. She gave Aisling a magazine and they have been talking about each singer, what is their name, birthday and so on. Gen asked Aisling if she knew who they were, and Aisling knew all the lyrics.
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