Canyon de Chelly

We spent the night in Chinle on the Navajo Indian Reservation. In the morning, we drove over the Canyon de Chelly National Monument (pronounced da Shay). Since we were on a bit of a tight schedule today, we didn't hike to the bottom of the canyon and simply enjoyed the views from above. In this picture, you see the most prominent and famous part of the canyon, Spider Rock which stands 800 ft. tall. It was nice to see it on this trip as the last time I was there, we were snowed out. See this location in Live Maps.

Spider Rock spire

Besides Spider Rock, the other attractions in the canyon are several Navajo and Anasazi ruins. Below you see the Anasazi White House ruins. It might be a bit hard to tell in the pictures below, but the ruins are named for the white colored house at the center top of the ruins.

White House ruins

We spent the rest of the day driving, but we made a few stops along the way. One of the first stops was at the Hubble Trading Post in Ganado. If you have the extra money, it's the perfect place to buy quality Navajo rugs and jewelry. I couldn't afford a rug this time around, but here is a picture of the rug I got last year when I visited with Jose and Tim.

Broken log in the Petrified Forest

Later in the afternoon, we drove to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Despite being here last year, it's still an amazing view and a neat experience to walk through the remains of a 3 million year old forest. Unfortunately, like last time, it was also cloudy. See this location in Live Maps.

More petrified wood

As usual, you can see the entire collection of pictures for Canyon the Chelly, the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest in my Picasa Web Album.