In the Name of Progress

By now, we are quite far in the interior of the Southwest. The four-corner, where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico meet are less than an hour drive away. It was windy, cold, and the sun was setting, so we didn't venture there though. We had dinner at the Burger King. This BK is special in that it hosts the exhibit on the Navajo Windtalker, which was made in the movie with Nicholas Cage. The story behind it is that during World War II, the American recruited dozens of Navajo to work with the Marines as decoder/encoder of battlefield communication. As a result, the Japanese never manage to figure out the American code, whereas the Japanese code was deciphered by the American early on in the war.

We visited Monument Valley in the morning of the next day instead. The sky has cleared by then. The scenery is spectacular all around. Monument Valley is probably familiar to anyone who watched TV and read magazines. It is one of the quintessential icons of American West, cowboy, Indians, and the like. Many cowboy movies are filmed here. Movies and commercials are still being filmed here regularly.

After Monument Valley, we headed south, deep into the heart of the Navajo Nation. Most of the people we saw now are Navajo indians, who really looked not that different from Thai people. We visited the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, a deep canyon with numerous ancient Indian ruins.

After lunch, we were on the road again, making south for I-40. We stopped by Petrified Forest National Park. There, ancient conifers from 2-300 million years ago were turned into very colorful fossils. Tons of petrified logs were strewn over the badland lanscape of the Painted Desert. After visiting scenic sights along the park road, which include rock inscriptions or petroglyphs, of ancient Indains, we drove west through the high desert landscape, and the setting sun. We passed by Winslow, AZ of the Eagles' Take It Easy fame.

We stopped for the night in Flagstaff, AZ. Flagstaff is home to Northern Arizona University, and a gateway to Grand Canyon, so it's very convenient with all the restuarants, motels, and the like.

The following morning we detoured a little bit toward the world-famous meteor crater. I've read about, seen the picture of this crater, since elementary school, so I quite looked forward to it. Here's the panoramic view of the crater:

We did a brief tour of Wupatki National Monument, which has the ruins of the ancient Sinagua indian. Then it's time to head back to where we began, Las Vegas.

We made it to Las Vegas before Sunset, on an uneventful drive through the desert. We're so tired by now though, after nearly 1600 miles in 4 days, so we didn't venture out of the hotel.

That concludes our 5 days mad dash through the scenic American Southwest. It's fun, and the spectacular scenery like this aren't easy to find anywhere else in the world (You can try Xinjiang or the Sahara, but it's not for amatuers like us). It's also very educational to see how the balance between conservation, tourism, and utilization are being played out here.