Mesa Verde National Park & Canyon de Chelly

After some strategizing, we figured out that with a small bit of extra driving, we could fit in two additional national parks in our route.  The first was Mesa Verde National Park, which we detoured over to on Tuesday morning on our way to Canyon de Chelly.  It is a neat place and it would be nice to spend more time there!  They have 5 well preserved cliff dwellings that you can view up close.  We saw one of them and it was really neat.

On our way to Canyon de Chelly we passed through New Mexico.... for a whole 20 seconds!

... and on into Arizona.   So the question is, do the three girls color in New Mexico on their maps?  Hmmm...

We arrived to Canyon de Chelly in the early afternoon.  This area is owned and run by the Navajo tribe and you can't go into the canyon unless accompanied by a Navajo guide.  We arranged for a jeep tour offered by Spider Rock Campground, where we had a reservation that night.

This canyon is impossible to describe, and the pictures don't even come close to doing it justice.  If you find yourself anywhere close, make the effort to go here.  And the cost for the tour is totally worth it.  The cliffs are so tall and the canyon is so narrow that you can't even capture a partial effect with the camera.  That, of course, didn't stop me from trying....

There are some small farms in the canyon and this is a scarecrow guarding the border of a field

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Right above the top of the fence you can see pictographs.  The ones on the right show up better in the picture because they are darker, but moving towards the left they continued along that same line... some white, some yellow, and some just a lighter shade of pink.  

This is officially the most picturesque setting for an outhouse that I've ever seen.  :-)

As I suspected, it's hard to see in the picture, but if you look very closely you can see some pictographs right above the horizontal crease--right about at the center of the picture.  

That night we stayed in an authentic Navajo hogan.  Well at least Bear, Tulip and I did; A chose to sleep in the car because there was more than a 2% chance of spiders.

The girls slept on the cot they are sitting on, and I was on the other one to the right.  I have to say, that was the best night of sleep I've had on the trip so far.   This experience only served to fuel my obsession for yurts.....

The girls had a blast running around the campsite playing with the campground dog.  The dog's name was "Fifty One" on the day we arrived, and "Fifty Two" the next morning when we left.   Apparently they aren't too concerned about getting the dog to respond when they call to him...  On the other hand, they'll never lose track of how long he's been there.