Monument Valley

One of my good friends, Lauren Barnum, and her family moved from Page (about an hour and a half away) to Kayenta, a little over a year ago. Kayenta is part of the Navajo Reservation. Her oldest boy got baptized on Saturday, August 11. We were able to drive out for his baptism. It was so nice to catch up with our friends! 

Ben and I enjoyed the drive to Kayenta, the colors and rock formations along the way were beautiful. It was neat to go check out a new part of Arizona. After the baptism we took a short drive over to Monument Valley.

Bridget fell asleep on the way there and took a short snooze on her Daddy's shoulder while we walked around the visitors center.

While Ben and I read the signs about the Navajo code talkers, Jocelyn, looked out the window with her binoculars. While looking outside she noticed that there were a lot of flies at the window.

She somehow was able to catch a living fly and then proceeded to carry it around with her for almost the remainder of the visitor center. She would pet his head and hold it up to her cheek. This silly girl and her love for bugs, minus spiders and cockroaches!

When Bridget woke up, Jocelyn had to show Bridget her new pet fly. While Bridget was sticking out her tongue in disgust to the fly...

another fly happened to land right on her tongue! It only stopped for a moment and flew away. Ben and I were laughing so hard! I was looking back at the pictures and noticed that I actually got a picture of the fly on her tongue.

Included in the visitors center was a statistical profile of the Navajo Nation from the U.S. census of 2000. Ben and I thought it was interesting to hear how only 32% of the housing units have complete plumbing facilities, 40% of the families live below poverty level, but about 50% do have a high school education or higher. Only 56% of the children under the age of 17 can speak Navajo while those 18 and over 83% know Navajo. In 2000 the population on the reservation was 165,673 and the population of sheep was 143,000. Lots of sheep! 

After walking around the visitors center we went out to see the view of the Mitten Buttes. Bridget enjoyed pointing at all the buttes saying, "Wow, big rock."

It was a warm day so the two hikes in the park were closed.

But, we were able to drive the loop-tour through the park and see a few more buttes.

The girls were very good on the drive snacking on strawberries, apples, and veggie straws. Jocelyn also enjoyed looking at the buttes with her binoculars.

We drove by the Three Sisters,

Elephant Butte,

and the Totem Pole, just to name a few.

It was a beautiful drive. Our little Subaru handled the road like a champ.

On our drive the girls saw a huge boulder at a view point and wanted to get out to get a picture of it. My camera's batteries died on the trip so we pulled out Ben's phone and took a few pictures.

Jocelyn tried to climb the rock.

The girls were amazed at how large it was once they were standing next to it.

Once we finished the loop tour of Monument Valley we drove home.

We had a lot of fun visiting with friends, and exploring a new part of Arizona.