Green River & Monument Valley
With so much of our travel-time taken up at Bonneville Salt Flats, we scurried right past Salt Lake City, which looks not unlike any other big city, but one unusual thing I noticed was billboards advertising jobs. Jobs?
After passing Salt Lake City, we turned south and continued until we reached the crossroads where I had reserved a room in Green River Utah. The room was nice enough, albeit in a ghost town atmosphere. The staff was just a single teenage boy – we had most of the place to ourselves, including a nice indoor pool. Dinner was Mexican food in a throwback 50’s restaurant and while the food was sorta-pretty good, I have to admit being surprised to have been served refried beans that obviously came from a can. A first for everything!
In the morning, we made our way to a very nice museum celebrating the man who was the first Anglo explorer to take boats through the Grand Canyon. He began this expedition in 1869 using wooden boats, shooting uncharted rapids. Several of his crew perished during the months-long trek. They embarked on their journey from the Green River in Wyoming, passing the the town we were staying and continued down the Green River where it joins the Colorado – it’s an adventure worth learning more about. In the Museum we were treated to a 20 minute film as the only audience members in a very nice theater. The film uses an interesting technique of superimposing ghost-like images of the explorers on contemporary footage. It’s an award winning film, I recommend it. “Journey into the Great Unknown”
As the museum placard above mentions, the city of Green River’s economy has gone the way of the river – up and down. The boom and bust cycle of resource extraction in the western USA is well documented – quite well in Oregon State’s professor William Robbins’ “Colony and Empire”. Obviously the city of Green River has seen better times. Once the Uranium Mining companies pulled out, there began the decay of the town…
= = = = =
The morning puts us back on the road – 5 short hours to Goulding’s Lodge in Monument Valley.
The picture above looks to me like just about anywhere in the western states. Could be eastern Oregon, the deserts outside of San Diego or northern Nevada. In this case, it’s southern Utah. A few more miles and the world becomes more interesting.
As we descend into the the beautiful red colors nearing Monument Valley, I am filled with happiness to see these great sights. Wondering what makes some soil red, I found the following after a short Google search “The red color of soils is generally related to unhydrated iron oxides, although manganese dioxide and partially hydrated iron oxides may also contribute red colors”. (While doing this search, I found this fella who made a blog entry of his own, boasting about rolling up a $1,000 rug under his arm and walking away from the store – saying he was getting back at the man for ripping off the Navajos. I was stunned and forwarded his deed to the local authorities. Maybe he’ll be a headline on fark.com).
The beauty!
A sky I’ll never see in Oregon!
Approaching the Monuments, we drive into a minor dust storm – This place has WEATHER !!
These fantastic geological monsters have been the backdrop to many films, and are very sacred to the people who live here.
From the deck of the Navajo Nation’s Monument Valley Park (see http://www.navajonationparks.org/htm/monumentvalley.htm)
The Navajo call this valley Tse’Bii’Ndzisgaii – the English name for this monument is West Mitten.
Above is the view of Tse’Bii’Ndzisgaii from our campsite.
