Day 3 part I

Day 3
Jordann had already planned out a perfect campground that overlooked monument valley. This was our view (pic left) from our tent.

We get up in the morning and are relieved

As we headed out to Navajo National Monument, we were excited to have the helmet cam to capture monument valley in its fullness as we left. (add short vid of mon val)

As we approached the entrance to Navajo National Monument, we noticed an offroad path to the visitors center. The path in its entirety was 9 miles. Not even after 1/2 mile we realized that this was not a grated or gravel road. Instead it was atv trails with 1ft deep sugar sand. Poor Jordann had very little offroad experience at this time and this was way too hard of terrain to throw her into. She did okay though!

"I didn't know if I could ever get the hang of it because I kept falling down because of the deep sand. I remember all the videos that we had watched about riding offroad and I just couldn't make the bike act like I wanted it to. When I hit the brakes it would slide out from under me." ~ Jordann

Finally we get tired of the super difficult sand on our heavy bikes with barely off road tires. So I zoom WAY into the GPS and find a path leading back to the road. As we started heading that way we noticed a large clearing and we had to ride about 150ft up a solid rock area. This was definitely different terrain (think terribly pitted and potholed cement). On the other side we were met by a couple desert hadden dogs that chased us for about 200 yds. At this point we realized that we were on Native American land and were technically "in someone's yard", even though there were miles of desert around us with nothing but sage bush and tumble weeds. At this point as, I was waiting for Jordann to catch up, I started hearing emus or lamas (couldn't tell).We did see some trailers, which was how most of the native americans we met lived. We quickly made our way out of their property and were very delighted to see pavement.

Once we arrived at the visitors center, we were able to watch this navajo woman weave a rug in a traditional loom. She would lay the wool through the threads and then knock it down with a dowel, and she did this for EVERY thread...needless to say it was labor intensive.

We knew we had a short hike to the lookout point to see the native ruins (cliff dwellings) so we decided to eat. Broke out the pocket rocket (aka camp stove) and heated up some chili with peanuts in it! Which was surprisingly great!

After our quick chow and clean up, we headed down the trail to the lookout point. We saw a variety of different desert plants and learned about mud huts that the navajo would take steam baths in. (super small)

At the lookout we met a super sweet French family with a little girl named Gabrielle. She was really shy at first but then she warmed up to us weird americans. We were amazed at the cliff dwellings, as expected, but I really enjoyed meeting people of other cultures that came so far just to see something that few people from this country take the time to go see. (this was a very common theme throughout the whole trip)

 After a great adventure getting to Navajo National Monument, we decided to stick to pavement for at least the next couple hours.

go to Day 3 Part II .....