Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Canyon De Chelly, Petrified Forest, July 2012

Mary Ann and I made a road trip to Northern Arizona from 7/19 – 7/21 2012. We went to Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley National Park, Canyon De Chelly, and Petrified Forest National Park. This post has some description and photos from that trip.

We left for Flagstaff after work on Wednesday and stayed at the Super 8 (about a 2 hour drive). The next morning we drove to Antelope Canyon in Page, which is another 2 hour drive. Antelope Canyon is on the Navajo reservation, and you can’t visit it without a guide. We discovered there are a lot of different tour companies. We checked around and picked the 2.5 hour ‘photographer tour’ with Adventurous Antelope Canyon Photo Tour, which is owned by Carol Bigthumb. We were very happy with them, and I would recommend them. Josh was our guide. He is a very good photographer and provided a lot of individual help to us amateur photographers. Also, they tend to keep the size of the group small. I noticed other guides had much larger groups. I took a ton of pictures in the canyon. I deleted a bunch, kept a bunch, and picked a handful to publish here. Here they are (click on a photo to enlarge; use the arrows, or your arrow keys, to navigate; click on the photo to return here):

After the tour we drove up to Monument Valley just north of the Arizona border. Here are my photographs from Monument Valley (click on a photo to enlarge; use the arrows, or your arrow keys, to navigate; click on the photo to return here):

We stayed at the Hat Rock Inn in Mexican Hat Utah, which is just north of Monument Valley. The inn is adjacent to the San Juan river. I tried some birding the next morning, but didn’t see much. I saw a Spotted Sandpiper, Blue Heron, and Canadian Goose. When we drove to see Hat Rock we found what looked like a great birding spot on the road to Hat Rock, but we didn’t stop there (maybe next time).

On Friday morning we drove to Canyon De Chelly (pronounced canyon de shay). It’s a beautiful spot. Here are some pictures (click on a photo to enlarge; use the arrows, or your arrow keys, to navigate; click on the photo to return here):

We stayed at the Best Western in Chinle, which is near the entrance to Canyon De Chelly. The next day we drove south, and then headed west on I-40, which took us through the Petrified Forest National Park. It was incredible to us the quantity and variety of petrified wood and logs scattered all over the park. There are other things to see also, such as the ‘bad lands’ rock formations (I didn’t include pictures of that). It was worth the visit. Here are a few pictures (click on a photo to enlarge; use the arrows, or your arrow keys, to navigate; click on the photo to return here):