(Pictures will be near the end)

We arrive at Navajoland and Monument Valley with iffy weather ahead of us. I’m excited to be here, yet I have mixed emotions about this place in particular. I’ll try to explain, but some of it isn’t that explainable.

Long ago…about 24 years ago anyway, I was doing a lot of camping out of the back of my little Toyota truck. The truck bed was covered with a cap and I had a mattress back there. There were windows that opened with screens and I made curtains for them. I brought a tent with me and I’d set it up at my campsites, to ‘save’ them, but most of the time I slept in the more comfy truck bed.

My mom and step-dad lived in Arizona so I did a lot of camping around the state when I would go to visit them on vacations.

One time I was going to camp at Monument Valley on the Tribal Park campground here. As I got within about 5 miles of my destination, I started getting TERRIBLE vibes. I continued to drive to the park, but there was no way I could stay and camp there. Everything within me said ‘get out of here NOW!’ I don’t know why, and I’ve never had that strong of a reaction about anywhere I’ve been, before or since. I couldn’t turn around and leave fast enough!

Being out in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t know where to go, instead. Back to Flagstaff and a motel, I supposed. I set off in that direction thru the Rez on route 160. After about 50 miles I saw that I was approaching Navajo National Monument, and there was free camping allowed there. I decided to check it out. It turned out to be one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever camped. (It’s no longer free btw). Only 2 other campers were there, and the night was so dark on the high desert I felt like I could reach out and touch a star.

Forward a few years…must have been 20 years ago now…I went with a group of about 40 women in the medical field, for a week of learning and fun on the Navajo Reservation. This week was worth a whole 2 years of Continuing Education Units for RN’s, and it was pure heaven for me. This learning expedition was put on by…mmm I think it was Northern Arizona University, and the Navajo Community College. It was for the purpose of introducing us western medicine people to the Navajo Way medicine, and learning to combine the two cultures. The area of interest was birthing, and so we were all L&D nurses or midwives.

Navajo Certified Nurse Midwife Ursula Knoki-Wilson conducted the whole thing and she is a fantastic woman. She is a true ‘medicine woman’ in every sense of those words.

Some of the things we did…
Toured two hospitals to learn about how the women who made it to a hospital, labored.
We went to the Navajo Community College, lived on campus for a couple of nights, and took some classes. We had a beautiful ceremony in a Hogan with a Medicine Man who was also a college professor.
An old medicine woman took us gathering medicinal plants. Then we went back to the classroom and learned about them.
We went to a Navajo home for a traditional meal, all cooked outdoors.
We had a healing ceremony with Ursula.
We did drumming.
Went to a Navajo church service.
And more….
And also we did some sightseeing. Namely at Canyon De Chelly and at Monument Valley. (finally I get to my point!:-)

The only thing I had concerns about was coming to Monument Valley, where I’d had such a strong and frightening reaction a few years earlier. We were traveling by bus, and as we approached the area I felt anxious, wondering if the bad vibes would happen again.

But no. Nothing. No bad vibes. We stayed at Gouldings Lodge, less than a mile from where I am right now. I felt fine, had a great time and made wonderful memories.

Present time. As I approached the area from the north now, I wondered…how would I feel this time, so many years later?
Well, again, there was nothing bad. My mind felt clear. I felt sentimental about the memories of that very special time, 20 years ago, but nothing frightening, like before.

My campsite. I love it!

I do have sad moments here. I feel the poverty all around me. Winter is coming. I have full hook ups here at Gouldings Campground. That’s more than the residents of the area have. I see huge water tanks in the beds of their trucks. They come to Gouldings to get water from the well and take it back home. Frequently they have no electricity either, and no central heating or cooling. Life isn’t easy for them, but for so many it is life as they have always known it. I feel sorry for the stray homeless dogs that come to the tourist places, like this campground, in hopes of being fed. And yes, I’ve been feeding them.

We’ve had rain and now it’s sunny but the wind is buffeting my little home and it’s cold outside. I’ve been to the Tribal Park twice. It usually costs $20 to drive a car in, and through Monument Valley, and there is no senior discount here. Except both days that I went there they were ‘closed’. It turns out that all that was actually closed was the pay booth and the visitor center. The road to the valley was open, as was the campground and the gift shop. It was nice to save some money that way since Gouldings Campground is probably the most expensive place I’ve stayed ever, at $190.44 for 4 nights. The view and the surroundings are priceless though.

Now that I’ve driven through the Tribal Park camping area with no bad vibes or ill effects, I would certainly camp there, too. It’s about $20 a night. No hook ups, and just red dirt, but again the view is priceless. You are right out there face to face with the ‘mittens’.

For these people…the Dine’, as Navajo’s call themselves, there is a need to learn the old ways and there is a need to learn the new ways…and a need to understand the benefits of both, and combine them. That’s kind of what our classes focused on 20 years ago, and it’s useful and helpful for all of us to learn these things, not just the Dine’. (that mark is supposed to go over the ‘e’, but I don’t know how to do that.)

I’m the blue dot.

Amazing landscape…

These are the ‘mittens’ I spoke of. See, left hand, right hand?

Left hand. 🙂

Selfie.

Bad road! And you don’t want to come here during or right after a rain.

You’ve probably seen similar scenes in old western movies.

My campsite from a distance. Hardly anyone here.

See the trail in the lower left corner. This is near our camp. I took the previous picture of our camp from this trail.

More scenery on the trail.

The scene from standing in my doorway.

Mittens in the Mist. 🙂