We leave Monument Valley on Sunday,eNovember 1, and drive SW across the Navajo Nation…Dinetah…home of the Diné. We travel miles and miles with an occasional almost unnoticed dirt road leading way off in the distance to a small group of living quarters, usually with a Hogan among them. This is the round shaped, 8 sided traditional Diné home.

Highway 160 passes 3 towns that most of us would recognize as such, in this 150 mile stretch. First Kayenta, 21 miles from Monument Valley, then Tuba City, 50 or so miles further, and last Cameron, not far from the boarder of the Rez.
In these settlements, we see mostly government housing, modern government buildings, trading posts, and the “traditional” MacDonalds, Burger King, and KFC.
Bashas grocery stores, too.

“Navajo Police”

I see growth since I passed this way 20 years ago. To be expected, right? Yet somehow, I don’t expect it.

As I drive through the Reservation for at least 100 miles the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks loom in the distance, growing larger as I travel. These mountains are sacred to the Diné and Hopi, but they are part of the Flagstaff area where I’m headed. I have an appointment at Babbitt Ford tomorrow, Monday, for routine maintenance on JR. When I bought her, I bought the maintenance service package that covers 70,000 miles at any Ford dealer in the US.

The plan was to stay in Flagstaff for 4 nights, but I see that the weather forecast is rapidly deteriorating! Weatherbug says ‘winter mix’ with lows in the low 20’s starting on Tuesday. Uh-oh. I’ll need to head farther south sooner than I expected. I stay at Black Bart’s RV Park Sunday and Monday nights and leave early Tuesday morning. It has already rained, hailed, and as I leave it’s raining again, and it’s darn cold!

Our destination is Dead Horse Ranch State Park near Cottonwood, only 66 miles away, but the elevation there is in the 3000 ft range, and it makes a big difference from the 7000 ft of Flagstaff.

Since we can’t check into the state park until afternoon, we stop at a city park in Cornville, a small town not far from Cottonwood. We wile away a few hours, walking, reading (well, Joy and Shiloh sleep rather than read), and having a snack. When it starts to rain, we move on.

A half hour later we have arrived at our campsite with electric and water hookups. I hurry to set up camp before serious rain starts.

Interesting sky…

Our camp at Dead Horse Ranch State Park.

We decide to take a walk between the raindrops. There are lots of trails here, and leashed dogs are allowed on all of them! We don’t get far before the rain gets heavy, so home we go.

The Mesa Trail

We are back in the desert!

We’ve been seeing lots of rainbows.

Our view is raindrops on the window!

Rain causes bored dogs!

Ho-hum. What to do?

Lots more rain predicted for Wednesday, so perhaps we can do chores in town. We have 5 nights here, and after Wednesday night the rain is predicted to stop for awhile. We have lots of exploring to do!