Everyone should have the opportunity to drive into Monument Valley early in the morning because this place is simply otherworldly.

Photos cannot share the scale or sense of being at a place like a visit can. While these quick weekend jaunts might see us effectively speeding through our environment, we are always thinking that it is better to have fleeting moments of these places than to stay at home to see yet another match between some sports teams that have no relationship to our sense of aesthetic reality.

There’s a small sense of tragedy here when one thinks about how these monoliths stand above the floor of the valley due to everything that has fallen away and then realizes how, at some point, they will be gone forever. Fortunately, that won’t happen in our lifetimes or for many lifetimes to come.

I’ve been near this location before, and I’ll return in the years to come, but never have I seen this rock lit in just this way that it was so easy to see a face.

After a couple of hours in Monument Valley, we drove south towards Kayenta, stopping for lunch at the Golden Sands Cafe (now closed) and then onto Road 98 towards Page and Lake Powell. You might notice that the lake is full!

Because “Nice Indians” are way better to shop with for Indian tchotchkes than angry ones.

That’s the Little Colorado Canyon out there. It joins the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, which is where we are going.

We are stopping in the Grand Canyon National Park because we can. It might be a bit out of the way if what we want to do is get home early, but as I said before, we’d rather collect these impressions and know that we’ve used our time to the best of our ability. This is the Desert View Watchtower, designed by Mary Colter and built in 1932.

Needed at least one obligatory scenic view of the Canyon.

And, of course one of us in front of it too. We made it to Hopi House over by the El Tovar Hotel in Grand Canyon Village before pointing the car south for our four-hour drive home. Must have been about midnight when we finally got home, but not bad that we were able to visit Sunset Crater, Wupatki, Navajo National Monument, Valley of the Gods, Monument Valley, Lake Powell, and the Grand Canyon all in one weekend.