Day 16 - Santa Fe to Canyons of DeChelly to Kayenta, Arizona

Before saying Goodbye or should I say "Hasta la Vista" to Santa Fe we had to make a visit to Loretto Chapel to see the Miraculous Stairway.  It is a beautiful little chapel with a story that makes you believe in the power of prayer.  Santa Fe was beautiful but I suspect costly to live there with all the artsy folks.

Back in the car and more miles of stark but still nonetheless enchanting vistas.

Slowly the landscape changed as we neared our next destination. We were also a bit surprised to see snow along the highways of Arizona but I understand that the forecast calls for snow at the Grand Canyon and Bryce on Friday and Saturday.  Like most of this trip it is definitely "off-season" and we rarely run into any other "tourist."  We had the Canyon to ourselves today.

The Canyons de Chelly(pronounced Shay, kinda like how Hochmuth is pronounced Smith) which means rock canyon did not disappoint.  It is in the Navajo Reservation which is the size of West Virginia!  Similar to what we are familiar with our local reservations there are a lot of casinos and poverty.  However, they have done a lot to preserve their culture.  Each overlook on the Canyon road held another view more breathtaking than the one before. I only fear that our pictures don't do them justice.  Having only seen canyons in books or movies they simply beyond words.  We met a Navajo at each "overlook" and engaged them in conversation related to their history and culture. 

We have had many interesting experiences so far - Ron had to stop on the highway because of horses crossing - oh well this is the west.  We had a 50 mile excursion down some godforsaken road to connect again with some semblance of a "real" road as evening settled in.  If it were 150 years ago I'm sure the Apache would have found us greenhorn New Yorkers an easy mark. Just like in the restaurant on the reservation when we were the only "Caucasians" in the place. Hey you only live once.   

There are so many places in this area that we want to visit that I'm not sure where we are off to next but on the list and in the same general area are Bryce, Zion, Lake Powell, Vermillion, Monument Valley and Bridges Monument.  I'm not sure if we'll ever get back here so we want to "see" as much of this country as we can on this trip.  I believe by the time we reach San Diego we will have been in 16 States!  Tell Anna the Blazer has been running great and getting 20 mpg.  We've also driven 3700 miles thus far.  Sorry Chris.