Adventures of Lynn & Dan: Bouncing Along the Canyon Floor

September 28, 2012

We have been at Canyon de Chelly located near Chinle, AZ. It is smack dab in Navajo Nation Territory. The park is run by the Navajo, and the campground we are staying at is run by the Navajo Parks and Rec Dept. Since many Navajo families inhabit the canyon area within the park, you are allowed to drive the north and south rims, but to go into the canyon you must have a Navajo guide. Although it seems like a ploy to make some money, it is easy to understand why they do not want the public running wild down there. I suspect they’d have people looking in windows, stealing souvenirs, and generally acting like A-holes. Certainly the Navajo have withstood enough from us.

Canyon de Chelly is beautiful. It is very much like the Grand Canyon, but on a much smaller scale. Being smaller makes it easier to take it in and really see the detail. We drove the rim routes but as we said last year, we should have taken a 4x4 tour in Canyonlands NP, we thought this would be the perfect place to do that, since we could not get in there on our own. So we booked an all day trip in the canyon.

The following picture is our “limousine” we rode in all day. You may recognize this thing, if you’re old enough. It is government surplus from the Korean War. Dan called it the “Hemorrhoid Express”. There was zero give in the suspension, noisy, and dusty; and the cushions were 1 inch foam on steel plate seats. To top it off, ours broke down about 3 hours into our trip. Oh boy we’re sleeping in a cave tonight. We wanted an adventure didn’t we? Fortunately they brought in a replacement about an hour later, and we were on our way. Well sort of, the universals were squealing. Our guide bummed some oil off another passing truck. I was dubious about the application of some 10W30 in the joints would work, but they quieted down and we made it back without incident.

Within the canyons were numerous petroglyphs, paintings, and Anasazi ruins. Oh, and Navajo vendors hawking wares at almost every stop, which detracted from the natural ambience. Despite that, it was still a beautiful trip and well worth the bouncing and dust. It was hard to pick a few pictures of the canyon and they really don’t do it justice.