Day 4 - Destination ~ Canyon de Chelly

For as long as I have known Scott he has said, "Someday I want to go trek around Canyon de Chelly (pronounced shay, and is a National Monument).  Well, as most of you know by now, sometimes we don't make it to "someday", so time to get this one off Scott's list.

We didn't rush this morning.  In fact, we have not been rushing at all and it was only tonight that we looked at the clock in our car and realized it was an hour off.  Time hasn't mattered much except if we wanted to be out at sunrise or sunset.  The GPS was saying it was four hours to the Canyon, which meant one shift of driving each.  Scott drove us out of Sedona, I drove the boring 40 while listening to a country/western station on the radio, then Scott maneuvered the Indian roads, which weren't bad at all for two lane roads.

There was a point in the road where on the map it shows the green dots indicating a scenic route.  We grew increasingly concerned as the scenic road was not even as scenic as the I-40.  Of course, there was a lot of joking about it, but I really was thinking that this was going to be another "Odessa experience".

Odessa experience, you ask?  Yes.  During one of our trips across the country (hard to believe we have done this five times), Scott said we should go to the Odessa meteor crater since when he was 23 he passed it up when on a road trip because he could not afford the gas to go the extra 80 miles to see it.  Well, I am one for fulfilling lifelong dreams, and I thought it would be really cool to see a bonafide meteor crater.  Scott's two words to describe the Odessa meteor crater are, "Don't bother!"  It was more like someone had started to dig a basement and it had filled in over time.  Now, anytime we visit a place that is way less than we expected, we refer to it as the "Odessa experience."

We reached Chinle, the small town outside the Canyon, and we were still not convinced that this would be a good experience, but we kept driving.  We finally saw the sign directing us to the visitor center and then the Thunderbird Lodge.  After checking in, we drove to the end of the South Rim, Spider Rock Overlook and can say that we were not one bit disappointed!  The Canyon is beautiful shades of red, white, green, and the rocks actually sparkle in the sunlight.  Stopping at each overlook, we saw different aspects of the Canyon, including the fact that they do farming here.  All was good until the wind started ripping through with a sudden fierceness that left us wiping sand out of our eyes and coughing from the dust in our throats.

Heading back to the lodge we found what we thought might be a good place for sunset.  I think the difficulty here is that the Canyon is small and deep.  It's not like the Grand Canyon whose expanse across is probably as big as Rhode Island (hehe for all my East Coast friends).  Some light and shadow play made for a few good photos, but before the sun even went below the horizon, the Canyon went flat as if someone had just decided to leave and turned off the light.

All was good tho, since we were hungry.  The cafeteria here at the lodge is only open to 7:30pm so we knew we would have to go to Chinle for food.  I tapped into Yelp and found there was an A&W so we went all out!  It's been along time since I had a Coney Cheese Dog, and let me tell you it will be a long time before I have another one, too!  It was delicious, just as I remembered, and surprisingly, I have not had to eat a Tums.  As we were waiting for our food, we saw banana splits being served and there was just no way to resist that either.  I'm thankful we walked a lot today!

As we left the restaurant, a huge pack of dogs came running into the parking lot.  Over the years I have come a long way on my fear of dogs to the point of being able to actually put my hand out for a dog to sniff.  But, when I see them in a pack, I turn and get back inside as fast as I can without running.  Scott was at a loss of what to do, but a nice local came and herded them off.  Cultural differences.  I like my dog with me on a leash!

Off to Taos tomorrow, but before I end this tonight, the highlight of my day comes right after these words....  I've been to the desert on a horse with no name.....