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Wednesday May 21, 2003: Monument Valley Nat.Park (AZ)
WARNING : this text has been translated automatically from french
Alarm clock with 8h, departure with 9h, races for small the déj' with the 7eleven and it is with difficulty but one succeeded in (one does not know yet how nor why) using our telephone chart!
I do not remember any more what the guy of L.A. had said to us by selling the chart to us (makes some support on 1 before numbering will remember Carole later), therefore I press on all the buttons and the automatic message in English commutates in Spanish. As much to say that the operation reverses will be impossible, I do not include/understand straightforwardly more anything with but one says to me. I arrive in spite of very coming into contact with an operator with whom I give the number to be composed. At the end of several tests I manage to join my correspondent.
Ca is there, the Motel is reserved for this evening: in Bluff. With us "Valley Monument".
Arrival at midday, for them 13h: one is in "Navajo Land" do not forget it! It is very different: constructions, landscapes, people. Since makes of it Tuba City the roads are bordered of red sand with surprising mountains from time to time, like unmoulded sandpies a long time ago: the sides are engraved with the wind. Then that and there a small number of house punts, very distant all the same from/to each other. There is place...
When to the inhabitant, Ben it is not complicated: one is in "Navajo Land"! They have the black hair, black corbel, and that they are man or woman, at least carry them in tail of horse or slackened, long until the size.
In the car, the music of Mano Solo completely plunges us in an environment hispano-Indian.
Thus while arriving at 12h (13h local) at Monument Valley Center, Fabien buys its hat of Cow Boy.
One leaves then to research a restaurant: "Diné Coffee". With the menu: the speciality "Navajo Taco", extra: a gherkin of 15 cm spiced and for Fabien a met of too: the "fried bread with red onions and cheese"! Fortunately that one has Coke if not one would die of heat.
One tastes inside the hut (in the shade) the feet in red sand. Finally one decides to be made the turn of Valley Monument earlier, therefore as of 13h50 one starts. It is me which leads, it is scotchant. From meter in meter, each composition of the landscapes varies, one would like all to have on film and especially to take time to observe each detail, the least hollow, the least bump, all the folds, one has the feeling that it is by observing them a long time that one includes/understands all the gasoline of it, like a table with the museum.
I see with far Cow Boy with his hat and a red shirt on his horse, in edge of chasm with behind plane a "Hillock". Unique opportunity to take such a photograph, quickly one stops and I declad my apparatus. No precipitation, the catch returns quietly towards us and requires the part of the group of tourist in the mini bus behind us. What a beautiful setting in scene, I was done misused!
One collects even sand, red of course. One could just as easily have filled a box with that which returns in the car by ventilation, because there even Fabien realized some, there was more than in the large Canyon: you speak, with all the cars which ravel on ensablées tracks it is normal!
16h30: it is finished, one still benefits from the landscape in Visitor Center, one buys quills of Coke while Fabien photographs panoramic of Valley, and with 17h10 one takes again the road for the Motel with Bluff. It is called it "Recapture Lodge". One arrives there at 18h05, but in fact one learns that here 1h was lost: it is 19h05 in Utha, as in Navajo Land!
The person of the reception, which seems to be it responsible, is super nice (or super pro). She informs us on all: 1h lost, the restaurants, the breakfast, slides with 21h, moreover one should not trail: the 2 only closest restaurants close with 21h.
Shower, there is (and even a micro wave and a refrigerator)! Beautiful clean clothing and hop restaurant.
One chose "Twin Rock", very tourist obviously, but not less sympathetic nerve and considered for his smoked meat: I choose chicken, Fabien for the sections of beuf. Ben it is good, but if it had not been said that it was smoked I would not have found all alone. And then also an American experiment was made: "Root Beer", it is a soda with camphor... beurk!
The addition and direction the slides, that will be the hour. One remains there that 20 minutes, one is nazes and one still has taf, then especially nothing is included/understood. Direction the room n°28, one prepares quickly made the day of tomorrow and one lies down towards 22h30 (23h30 local).
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