A couple of really interesting driving hours outside of Page saw me in the Monument Valley area. Tribal Land. Fierce but quiet. A feast for the eyes. I felt somehow touched deeply by this area. It surprised me.
Within the confines of Beast, I just kept repeating outloud "It's quite GREEN!?"
Monument Valley is somewhere I expected to see brown, red-brown, orange-brown... yellow-brown... 50 shades of ocre. Not this. Knarled and weathering trees bushes leafy-ish and growing happily.
Who was the perfect companion with whom to share this jarring off-road adventure? Beast was! He didn't mind at all that I stopped every 3 minutes to photograph random dogs, trees, vistas and little weird things that took my fancy. Plus, boy is he adaptable! Handling everything from 'deeply rutted' to "I'm sure this is not the road and is this angle safe to drive at?"
17 mile loop through Navajo tribal land done and quite literally, dusted for the reasonable price of an entry fee and a couple of hours.
The drive out towards Mexican Hat (north?) is just as pretty, IMHO. Not that I recommend saving the $8 or the time by skipping Monument Valley. This sacred Navajo place is being well cared for and preserved. It's money well spent, especially if you want the coveted view from 'The View Hotel' and a clean bathroom. Yeah - don't be that person who pee's and poops along the highway and leaves toilet paper for the rest of us to step over. Bad karma! May those people endlessly fight the urge not to soil themselves!
As for me, the biggest challenge of today - and maybe everyday - is to find a unique composition at well photographed iconic American treasures. Do my pics look like those of a thousand people before me because we all use the same pull-outs on the road... Or is it because I literally watched hundreds of photography YouTube vid's and now, I'm the product of nuture; Influenced by those who graciously shared their experiences and their craft?!
This is the now famous Forrest Gump lookout pic...You know...Where he stopped running. Everyone has this picture!
These better capture my style.
I'm a unique person, at a unique and fleeting point in time. It is my hope that I can present a new perspective on an old - very old - subject. The song "Spirit in the Sky" was playing as I left Monument Valley.
So here I was at Goosenecks State Park. 2:30pm. The sun is as high in the sky as it's going to get mid-winter. The shadows line the canyon and a precarious dropoff makes it hard on a windy day for me to venture forth to the edge for a more daring composition. And the whole park is edges! I figured to make the photos and then spend some time in Lightroom to see what can be done. (What do you think?)
I'm not sure I ever comtemplated Valley of the Gods being my final stop today but at 3:30pm I knew I had no real time to explore it and make my way up the Moki Dugway with any real quality of experience.
Valley of the Gods is quiet. I saw just one vehicle passing through. It's pretty amazing although compared to Monument Valley, it's definitely the much younger, more homely sibling. BUT it's BLM controlled, not National or State Park or Tribal Land. That is not easy to find around here and it's way easy to camp on!
My time had come.
Tonight Beast and I were going to get the full 'alone in the desert' experience. Cold. Dark. Silent. BEAUTIFUL.
Then I discovered cell signal... so fell asleep snug in my sleeping bag, watching some ol' episode of Reba on Netflix! I'm seriously not kidding. LOL
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