Monument Valley Update

The trip to Monument Valley went well. George and I left Chandler at about 3:30 got out of Phoenix city limits by about 4:45 (long weekend and there is no quick way across the greater Phoenix area). Our trip found us in Sedona for sunset. From the sunset itself I'd say I got some very nice pictures, but the proof will have to wait until I get the film developed. That is the mixed blessing of film. You are forced to wait until you get around to developing it, but then you have the anticipation and excitement of get the prints back and going through them.

We spent a good couple hours taking photos of plants scenic views and the sun dropping behind the surrounding hills. You will have to just wait and see how the photos turn out. After the sunset photo session we took a break and had dinner at one of the local restaurants.

Our journey continued up through Flagstaff towards Monument Valley. The trip across the desert at night has very little to look at. We did stop a couple times to try and get some night shots of the stars but clouds kept drifting across the stars...Or cars going by on the roads. We did try to find a side road but it is quite a challenge since they don't like to mark them with signs of any kind. And as soon as you leave the main road you are on a dirt road--not gravel, dirt.

Eventually we found ourselves in Monument Valley around 1:30 or so. Instead of finding a hotel we decide since the sky is clear that some night photography of the moon, stars, and surrounding landscape was in order. Also, why bother sleeping when sunrise is but a few short hours away.

So for the next 2 hours George and I play with our new toys, both thoroughly pleased. Until the unthinkable happens. George's battery on his camera dies. This as you can imagine puts a damper on things. So we try to think of how we are going to get his camera back up and running. We are out in the middle of nowhere the only nearby town is Kayenta and they got nothing, zip. But what they did have was hotels. George braves the random wild dogs that seem to roam the town at night and asks the clerk at one of the hotels if he can charge his camera battery. They do so without and problems and George bought some postcards from them. We are back up and running in 20 minutes.

With the sky getting brighter by the minute George has us tearing though the desert at 90mph crossing the 23 miles back to the valley in record time. I got a few shots using my digital camera as we are speeding towards our chosen photo location (see the picture below).

For the next hour or so we captured the sun rising over the many stone monuments in the valley. I have no idea whether my photos will turn out but we will see. Once the sun was full up we both came to realize that we were both extremely exhausted, so we got back in our car and drove back towards home until we found a tree on the side of the road to provide a little shade. We parked and slept from 6:30 until 9:30. We couldn't sleep any longer since the sun had made it far too hot to survive without the air conditioning. So we got back on the road and headed for home.

Back in Flagstaff we stopped to check out the sunset crater (a volcanic crater). The weather was starting to turn bad with cold rain. But we did get some good shots of the Francisco Mountain that overlooks Flagstaff.

So that was pretty much the weekend, we got back in Chandler around 6:30pm to find Adam still at our place. Pictures will hopefully be ready later in the week (I plan on getting a photo CD to allow me to upload the pictures).