Canyon De Chelly South Loop

June 7, 2013,  Friday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Lydia!  Sorry we couldn’t be there to help you celebrate.  Hope Terry treated you to a special night. 

We got an early start on purpose today.  We planned on heading out to get to our next campground so that we would have some time to tour the Canyon De Chelly (pronounced Shay).  You know what they say about best laid plans.  We got everything ready to go and I went to bring the slides in and nothing happened.  No noise, no nothing.  Crap!  Bill checked out some things and we gave in and called the repair service that is right next door to the campground (That is a really good location for an RV service shop and it is called Samson RV Service).  They came right over and Bill and one of the guys (who’s name I forgot) worked on things.  In addition to the slides, the jacks wouldn’t work and for a bit we weren’t getting any power to anything.  They found a relay that the connections were loose on and when that was tightened everything started working.  It took less than an hour and we were back in business.  I really recommend this shop if you are Holbrook, AZ and need help. 

Once we finished unhooking and putting stuff away we got on the road.  We really didn’t have far to go today, about 120 miles.  We exited I-40 to head up US-191 we were in for a rude shock.  The bridge over the highway was missing!  There were no signs stating this until you got off the highway.  On all the signs heading up to here there was no mention of this fact!  Luckily there was a highway guy there who told us how to detour.  We had to drive 6 miles further East, exit the highway and drive the same 6 miles back!  I was beginning to wonder if the was a plot to keep us from visiting the Hubbell Trading Post and the Canyon De Chelly! 

We finally did make it to the Hubbell Trading Post.  This is the oldest, continuously operating trading post in the country.  It is about 40 miles south of the campground we were heading to so we stopped in the rig.  I had called ahead and found out their parking lot was big enough for us to turn around in.  Here are some pictures. 

 

 
Navajo dwelling on the trading post grounds
 

 

After a short visit we headed to Canyon De Chelly (pronounced Shay).  We have never been in this part of Arizona before.  It is part of the Navajo reservation.  The reservation observes Daylight Savings Time, so we lost an hour.  Anyway, we found the campground, Cottonwood Campground (it is correctly named as there are many cottonwood trees here).  It is a no hookup park so we are existing with no electricity tonight.  When I fix dinner we will turn on the generator for a while to cool the rig down and let me use the microwave.  We are parked in a bunch of trees so it cooler than it has been for us.  I was surprised that there aren’t many people here.  We are only staying one night so we can rough it. 

 

 

We wanted to visit the canyon so after getting setup we headed out.  It was later in the day than we originally planned but hey, we made it.  We covered the South Rim of the canyon today.  I took a bunch of pictures.  It is pretty impressive to be driving in the middle of a desert and come upon this big canyon.  The rock formations are very cool and the ruins of the Navajo people are impressive.  You can drive the rim of the canyon but to go down you must use one of the local guides.  We decided not to do that this time.  Maybe if we come back we will. 

Most of the overlooks have names that have been given to the formations and ruins that you can see there.  The most impressive are the White House

 
Sliding House

 

Face Rock – which we really didn’t see until we looked at the picture.  Can you see the face?

 

And Spider Rock.  This one confused me as the spires in the middle are Spider Rock, named after Spider Woman who taught the Navajo how to weave. 

 

We did a lot of hiking down to the viewpoints but it is not easy in the sun.  We were more than happy to head back to the RV and enjoy the cool. 

Since we don’t have to check out of the campground until noon, we plan on driving the North Rim tomorrow morning.  It should take about 2 hours.  We only have around 140 miles to drive to our next stop so as long as we get on the road around noon we should be fine. 

I fixed tacos for dinner tonight as it was an easy meal to prepare with no electricity.  I cooked the meat yesterday so all I had to do was warm it up in the microwave and chop the veggies to go in the tacos.  Good thing it was easy as I was tired. 

Now we are sitting outside enjoying the trees and shade while I type this up.  It has cooled off nicely and we will probably go to bed early tonight since we don’t have any TV to watch.  After a bit we moved inside and played dominoes.  We played 3 games and I won 2 of them.  Yeah! 

After our games we went to bed in a nice dark RV.  Since there is no electricity there are no little red, blue, green and yellow lights glowing tonight. 

Here are all the pictures I took.  There are a bunch.



I hope you had a good day.