We did a Monument Valley tribal tour; a Navajo guided tour in an open truck through Monument Valley tribal park, including parts that are only available via such tours.
Here’s the brochure with the map and description:
Lots of iconic rocks:
Our tour vehicle:
Other tour vehicles:
Our Navajo tour guide:
One of the stops was a hogan:
Navajo hair tie:
Driving over sand:
Big Hogan:
Vertical panorama:
Ear of the Wind:
Suns Eye:
Sinclair Trails now has a professionally-designed logo, crafted by Gert van Duinen of Cresk, based on our design ideas (so credit to them if you like it, blame to us if you don’t).
The central concept of the logo is an S-shaped road, which is contained within compass points inspired by the Tiffin logo, and decorated with trees and mountains, and surrounded by the name:
We also have an edition of the logo without the encircling name:
And for smaller icons like the website favicon, there’s a simplified edition, with just the core elements:
I’ve updated the website, YouTube channel, Twitter account, and Facebook page to use the logo. (I think that’s everything.)
We will get a large sticker to put on our coach, and make some cards, too. Unfortunately not in time for the Tiffin rally, which starts tomorrow.
I don’t post about food very often, as I feel it isn’t that interesting. But I make an exception for notable places. One such is Goulding’s Monument Valley Stagecoach Restaurant. It is the dining room of the famous Goulding’s lodge, a historic area of Monument Valley. Harry Goulding and his trading post and lodge were instrumental in popularizing Monument Valley, including bringing it to the attention of Hollywood for many Western films.
Here’s the monumental view from the parking lot:
Goulding’s trading post, now a museum:
Goulding’s restaurant:
The restaurant menu, with some history on the cover:
A very simple menu:
The view from a window booth:
Jenn had Navajo fry bread and beef stew:
And I had a Rez Bah sandwich, also on fry bread:
The Navajo fry bread was super tasty; highly recommended.
A few days later we went back there again. On the way, we encountered some wild dogs running down the road:
The view out the window again:
A different angle, showing the gift shop (which we checked out before dinner):
Since we enjoyed the Navajo fry bread so much the first time, we ordered some as an appetizer:
Best enjoyed with honey and powdered sugar:
Jenn had Salmon (which wasn’t great, apparently):
I had the burger:
Mostly good food, and an excellent view.
Six days in six minutes! A timelapse of RVs arriving and leaving, and other activity at the Monument Valley KOA Journey RV park in Utah. Check out the wind and blowing dust on the last day!
We stayed at Monument Valley KOA Journey in Monument Valley, Utah. (Campground Reviews listing.)
Dates:
Weather:
Noise:
Site:
Internet (in usage priority order):
Amenities:
Here’s the review Jenn wrote on Campground Reviews:
The view you imagine when you imagine a Western
A bit overpriced for what it is, but you can’t beat the panoramic views of one of the most iconic landscapes in America. We had a 50amp pull-through site, which was just long enough for our 40′ motorhome and we parked our tow vehicle alongside, with plenty of room left over for outdoor living space. The sites and roads could use another layer of gravel to keep the dust down. It’s a fairly basic park, but very convenient for visiting Monument Valley, Goosenecks State Park, Bears Ears National Monument, etc. We camped at Monument Valley KOA Journey in a Motorhome.
The RV park map:
Here’s the weather for our time here. Two screenshots; the first is using the GPS location, which for some reason lists us as Moab, even though it’s over 100 miles from Moab. And the second searching for Monument Valley. Close enough, regardless:
Our site:
Since there was no T-Mobile connectivity, which is our preference for unlimited internet, I set up the Starlink dish:
Electrical and water utilities; the electrical pedestal is in a strange place, but the water and sewer are conveniently placed:
65 PSI water pressure (I have a regulator to limit it to 60 PSI):
Table, fire pit, and charcoal grill, with our rug and chairs:
This is a very scenic location, with several buttes nearby:
Sunset every night saw several people lined up along the fence, taking pictures:
Another sunset:
Let’s walk around. Here’s the entrance, with another butte beyond:
The office, and Jeep rentals:
Other RVs:
Bathroom:
Playground:
Dog park:
More RVs and views:
A nice-looking skoolie — a retired school bus, converted into an RV. Many RV parks don’t allow skoolies, or other custom or older RVs, but this KOA obviously doesn’t have that rule:
Our coach, with the skoolie beyond:
Our coach:
Another skoolie, not so nice looking:
There are horse tours available next to the RV park (we did such a tour; stay tuned for that):
This being a KOA Journey park, it tends to have a high turnover of occupants; it can empty out during the day, then fill up again by the evening:
Watching the sunset:
Jenn playing a videogame outside:
Sunset between the truck and coach:
On the day before we left, there was a lot of wind (with 45 MPH gusts), kicking up a lot of dust:
We pulled in our front passenger slide-out to reduce the rocking and rattling of the slide topper.
A timelapse of driving our Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome 195 miles from Green River, Utah to Monument Valley, Utah.
We drove our coach 195 miles, about 4 hours, from Green River, Utah to Monument Valley, Utah.
If you’ve ever seen a Western movie, you’ve seen Monument Valley.
Here’s the map, heading south:
Green River is proud of their melons:
An interesting church:
We stopped at Love’s to top up the diesel, since fuel stops are few and far between for the next few legs of our journey:
Only about 40 gallons (our tank is 150 gallons), though still rather expensive with current fuel prices:
Back under the lowish rail bridge:
Mesa:
Rocks:
Moab:
We stopped for lunch at the rest area by Hole N the Rock:
Onward:
An arch:
Trading post:
First sight of some iconic Monument Valley rocks:
Bridge:
The bridge was a little narrow for our coach, so we treated it as a one-way bridge:
Several people stopped at Forrest Gump point; an iconic location from the movie:
Our destination:
Another very nice Utah state park is Goblin Valley State Park. It features thousands of uniquely-shaped “goblins” of eroded sandstone.
The entrance sign, with Wild Horse Butte in the background:
A small visitor center as part of the entrance station:
A relief map of the area:
A paper map. A nice feature of this park is that the Valley of the Goblins is free-range; there are no designated paths, and you are allowed to walk anywhere (but no climbing on the goblins, of course):
Wild Horse Butte:
The Three Sisters:
Part of Valley of the Goblins; some people for scale:
People suck, exhibit #1: naughty people climbing on goblins:
People suck, exhibit #2: we picked up some garbage:
We enjoy visiting state parks in addition to national parks; they are often just as nice, and less busy.
One such was Dead Horse Point State Park near Moab, Utah.
On how the park got its name, quoting from the website:
Dead Horse Point is a peninsula of rock atop sheer sandstone cliffs. The peninsula is connected to the mesa by a narrow strip of land called the neck. There are many stories about how this high promontory of land received its name.
According to one legend, around the turn of the century, the point was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. Cowboys rounded up these horses, herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point. The neck, which is only 30-yards-wide, was then fenced off with branches and brush. This created a natural corral surrounded by precipitous cliffs straight down on all sides, affording no escape. Cowboys then chose the horses they wanted and let the culls or broomtails go free. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralled on the waterless point where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River, 2,000 feet below.
A cow by a sign on the way to the park:
More cows:
The Dead Horse Point State Park sign:
A little lending library by the visitor center:
Visitor center:
View:
Info sign:
Ponds:
Colorado River:
In the ceiling of our motorhome are a series of register and return vents for the three ceiling AC units; the air is sucked in on the right side, cooled (or heated), and blown out the left side:
Here’s a closer view of one of the intake vents:
Looking on the reverse side, you can see that each of them includes a foam filter to catch dust:
These filters need to be cleaned every few months. But we decided to try some replaceable filters from RV Air, that should do a better job than just a thin bit of foam:
A comparison of the new and old filters:
An old filter, showing the collected dust:
The new filter installed:
The vent back in the ceiling:
About half of the ceiling vents are a different kind, for some reason:
These ones are attached via a clip in the middle, so need a different style of filter:
We’ll see how these new filters perform; I think they’ll be an improvement.