April 28, Monument Valley, Utah/Arizona
I witnessed a miracle this morning. Geri was up and around a little after six this morning, and roused Don out of bed shortly thereafter. With expert prodding and provocation, she got him working on getting us underway, and we went sailing out of Moab just before nine in the morning. It was, I must say, beyond my comprehension, sort of a role reversal. We headed south through the desert, at a somewhat less than normal speed due to road and wind conditions, but made pretty good time. As we arrived at our RV Park in Monument Valley, we were aware that the wind was picking up considerably, and red sand was blowing everywhere. By the time we got into our site and properly set up, the wind was howling and the rig was shaking. Nonetheless, we dutifully got into the truck and headed over to the Visitor Center, which is operated by the Navajo Nation. Our intent was to take the self-guided tour of a major portion of the Valley, over a dirt road that has been there for ages. When we got to the Center, the wind was blowing so hard that our view of the Monuments was obscured, and Geri could hardly stand up. The air was full of sand, and Don said that he felt that he was being sandblasted. They went into the Visitor Center for awhile, leaving me in the truck, though I was well protected from the blowing sand by my camper top. When they returned, the wind was blowing so hard that Geri had to hold onto Don to keep from blowing away! The dirt road tour idea was abandoned, and we drove back toward our RV Park, which is at Goulding’s Trading Post and Lodge.


We drove up to the Lodge, which is a sort of historic place, established in the 1920’s by a husband and wife team, and we visited the museum, which is in the old Trading Post. I couldn’t go in, of course, but they told me that the place was very interesting, with displays of old photos of the Trading Post, hotel registers from the early days of the Lodge, and lots of memorabilia from when western movies were made there. I’ve never seen the film, but the movie “Stagecoach”, which starred a new guy by the name of John Wayne, was principally made in the Valley, and the cast and crew all stayed there at the Lodge. A lot of other big movies were made there, too. The upstairs at the trading post was the living quarters for the Gouldings, and it remains furnished just as it was when they were living there.


We went back to the coach and escaped from the wind, though it was rocking us back and forth. We were getting intermittent power outages, just long enough to knock out the satellite TV reception, which annoyed Don, so he started up the generator so we didn’t have to rely on the Park’s power. He cooked up some lentil soup, which he calls “linsensuppe” for some reason, and served it for dinner. It was really good! Don says that the wind is supposed to abate around midnight tonight, which will allow us to travel safely tomorrow. Consensus is we’re heading for Kingman, Arizona, where the weather is much better. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow! See you then.