So I had Friday off the week before last and we ended up deciding to go to Monument Valley. We've toyed with the idea for a while but avoided it over the summer due to heat. We've wanted to go (myself especially) for quite some time but it's hard to commit to since it's not like there's a ton to do in the immediate vicinity if you're not making it a longer trip to see other things. In any case, I've always been curious about it and, even though a decent portion of it is really in Arizona, I'll include it on a "Utah" list. Anyway, it was really interesting to me just because, for myself, and probably for anyone, our mental conceptions of the desert, whether we realize it or not, come from those images of Monument Valley. Whether it's the countless movies and continuous commercials that are even currently being aired, or even simple things such as Looney Tunes, everything immediately goes to this specific desert scene:
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So I'm not certain how much of this was amazing because it was (and it was) or how much enhancement I experienced because of how iconic it is in being the image of the desert that you are constantly bombarded with, but I really enjoyed it. I spent way too much time lining up all the rocks to figure out where exactly Marty was chased by the Pohatchee natives, or where the drive-in movie theater was, but I did eventually get all of that figured out, though unfortunately after-the-fact when we were back in Blanding and I had more time to line up my pictures with movie clips.
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Bottom left is where the drive-in would have been. Over to the right, underneath that formation is where the cave would have been where the time-machine was parked.
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We had stayed in Blanding, which was about an hour and twenty minutes outside of monument valley. As you drive in, you see the spot where Forrest Gump turned around to go home (which is actually the wrong direction if he was heading back to Alabama. We stopped at Mule Canyon, which was maybe ~25 minutes west of Blanding and did a hike along the creek that went to some Anasazi ruins. This was, I believe, about 1.5 miles in and my understanding is that the canyon goes for 10 miles with more ruins.
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We caught this a little too late with the sun but it is called the house on fire because, well, I guess that's what it looks like earlier in the day.
On the way back we ended up making a stop at Arches, which wasn't part of our original plan. The younger kids love the Sand Arch, so we stopped there. We've never hiked delicate arch before and so I decided I was going to run really quick. One of my kids ended up going with me and it was interesting seeing that. I had previously only seen it from the lower viewpoint area (though we didn't even complete that hike the last time we were there a couple years ago because a couple of the little kids were losing their minds), so it was just seeing it from a long distance away.
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