Monument Valley (Arizona, Utah)

We left Cubero and hit Route 66 again for a little while, where we visited Gallup for an hour and grabbed a coffee at a nice small café. After that we drove north into Arizona. The landscape changed and we soon found ourselves in vast valleys with giant rock formations all around.
An hour before sunset we arrived at our campground in Monument Valley. The National Monument is located at the Arizona side of the state border, but the landscape doesn't end there. Our campground was not even a mile away from the National Monument, but already in Utah. We parked the car, talked to the grandpa of the Navajo family that owns and lives at the campground, and followed a small trail towards the canyon rim, where we had an amazing view over parts of Monument Valley and the vast desert valley surrounding it.
The sunset was great. The evening sun hit the big mountains next to us and we took a lot of pictures. But the sunset was nothing compared to the sunrise we saw the next morning. We had set the alarm to 6am, poured coffee and walked to the canyon rim again. We didn't know at what time exactly the sun would rise, so we were early and got the whole spectrum from dark blue night sky over pink morning sky to intense orange sunrise behind the massive rock towers of Monument Valley. Beautiful!

The valley can be explored on a scenic drive. The road was rather bumpy and at the entrance we were asked if we had taken the car offroad before. I guess they want to make sure that tourists don't get stuck half way. We stopped at several pullouts, had a foto shooting at the John Ford Point and ate Navajo Fried Bread. There were a lot of tourists, but the experience was still great. The landscape perfectly reflects what every child imagines the Wild West to look like from comic books like Lucky Luke or any Wild West movie. 🤠🦬🏇🏹Read more