I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far in this blog without mentioning that it is the 100th Anniversary of the establishment of the National Park Service.  You can say what you want about Teddy Roosevelt as a President, but we owe him a great debt of gratitude for his sense of conservation and protection of natural beauty.  He almost single handedly brought the National Parks and Monuments we have today under the protection of the Park Service.  I know I’m glad about that, and I get into all of them free.  What a country.

Today’s Monument is the Natural Bridges.  There are three in close proximity of each other in this park.  I don’t know what distinguishes bridges from arches.  I know what I’ll do, I’ll google it. 🙂

This first one is Sipapu.  This is from the rim of the canyon.  Oops, a little finger action in the shot there in the upper right.

 

Here it is pulled in a little closer and rendered in mono as well.

My lungs were good for about one trip down to the canyon floor for better shots.  I saved myself for the last one on the trail.

 

 

 

This one is called Kachina.  It’s hard to tell it’s even a bridge from above, but trust me it is.  There are also some Anasazi cliff dwelling ruins in these canyons but you can’t walk to them like over at Gila in New Mexico.  Like Gila and like Tuzigoot, these cliff ruins were built and occupied in the same time period and then abandoned.  The mystery remains.

 

This last bridge is called Owachomo.  This is what it looks like from the rim of the canyon …..

 

 … and a little closer.

And some shots from the area underneath.

 

 

 

 

You can just tell that this rock was molten at some point.

 

 

 

When I left the Natural Bridges Monument I drove over to the east a ways into the Glen Canyon Recreational Area.  Glen Canyon encompasses all of Lake Powell and stretches up to the northeast and connects with Canyon Lands National Park.  These shots were at a crossing of the Colorado River.

The adventure of the day continued.  I started to work my way south towards Monument Valley.  I drove through Monument Valley on my way into Utah but had planned a return in evening light.

I decided to take some back roads.  Not a road for casual sightseeing.

 

 

 

I landed in my new favorite bar.  The San Juan River Trading Post in Mexican Hat, Utah.  I wanted to kill some time to be down in Monument Valley as close to the end of daylight as they would allow.

The proprietor was a Navajo gentleman who was probably a contemporary of mine or maybe a touch older.  He struggled around with a cane.  There was a polaroid of him on his bulletin board taken with Willam H. Macy.  He didn’t seem like the type that needed frames for his photos with famous people.  There was also one of him with “his cab”.  He played a cab driver in whatever movie was being shot there.  He couldn’t remember the name but said William H. Macy was a real nice guy.

Ok, so now here’s the coup de gras.  I know some of you out there have heard me use this greeting.  Yah-ta-hey.  I answer the phone with it sometimes.  He had this hand painted tree trunk section hung up by the door.  He was wondering why I was laughing.  I always thought that this was a Lakota greeting, but he set me straight.  It is a greeting, but it is from the Diné language. (pronounced dee nay)  It’s supposed to have one of those little doohickeys above the e but I can’t figure out how to do that.  Oh wait, I got it!  Holy crap.  Diné is actually the tribal name of the  Navajo.  The conquering Spaniards gave them the name Navajo.

From here I went back down to Monument Valley.  That’ll be the next post.  I am going to try to get back to the San Juan River Trading Post before I leave the area.  Great grilled ham and cheese and a nice local pale ale.