We are probably the first visitors inside the park today and behind a turn we stop abruptly to face an incredible scene: a coyote is happily trodding apparently towards us, when we notice a dead wild rabbit in the left lane. He picks up the road kill and veers right into the brush. Petr was quick enough to catch it on camera. We stop by the Visitor Center, an excellent museum with a recreation of life in the year 500, when the Anasazi inhabited this inhospitable land. Today, these people are referred to as Ancestral Puebloans, to recognize their descendants in the various Pueblo communities spread out in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. They build incredibly complex sandstone cliff dwellings under rock ledges and lived there until about AD 1300, when they suddenly and unexplicably vanished from the area. A short but steep hike from the Visitor Center takes us to the Spruce Tree house complex, where the ranger on duty explains to us how these people lived. We also tell her about the coyote we saw, and she confirms "knowing" him for being the only one who got smart enough to wait for a road kill rather than procuring food the usual way. The rangers jokingly called the hares "kamizake bunnies" for their tendency to dash in front of cars and get killed. Then we continue to visit other dwellings spread out around the park on a 6-mile loop road. There is no hinking or backpacking allowed anywhere in the park. The biggest settlement we encounter is the Palace, where today's Pueblo communities can still gather for their rituals in special occasions, to honor their past and ancestors. This is not only a very special National Park, it is also a World's Heritage Site.
Before noon, we are out and heading to Utah. Our final destination today is the small hamlet of Mexican Hat, UT. We arrive at 2:00pm and check in in the only campground in town. We later find out that the town consists in one gas station, and this one restaurant/liquor store/campground/laundromat. The owners are very sociable people and let us choose a site: the camp is virtually empty. We set up camp and decide to use the Vespa to go visit Monument Valley, about 20 miles away. I don't want to say it, but since we left the snow in the Rockies, we have been blessed with blue skies, and sunny days. This is the perfect combination for a Vespa trip. Monument Valley is Navajo country, we are entering the Navajo Indian Reservation, and the only road taking us to the Tribal Park is straight, with long stretches of 10% grade, up and down. We cross a large expanse of red rocks, some look so eerie and lonely, some so precarious and ready to fall. The Navajo people we talk to are friendly and cheerful, especially fascinated by our Vespa. They ask us a lot of questions about it, and find it amusing. With it, we take a self-guided 11-mile trip into the unpaved backcountry to visit some of the most incredible "buttes". Every time we pass a small group of tourists, they seem to forget for a moment where they are because they don't look around anymore, but they stare at us amused. The only ones who seem to think we are normal are a group of Italians on an off-season trip. Also today, for the first time, we met another RV couple who - I'd like to think - was in our age group. I saw them and thought "how odd, young people traveling in an RV". We seem to have grown accustomed to being around retirees everywhere we park our rolling turd.
The coyote with his breakfast.
Spruce Tree house, they estimated about 50 people lived here at one time.
Close-up view of the left end.
Close-up view of the right end.
The round "pit" is called a kiva and had a roof with a hole in it through which you could access the inside by means of a ladder. The temperature down there is at least 10 degrees warmer.
Another dwelling somewhere in the park. This had a 4-story tower, the tallest structure.
Another one, this must have been particularly difficult to reach from above or below.
The mesa.
The Palace.
A tall rock.
Along route 163 in Navajo territory.
Two funny looking rocks.
The road to Monument Valley.
Profiles of the rocks in MV in the distance.
Approaching MV.
The same rocks as above, seen from the other side.
Vespa commercial.
What our Vespa's left eye saw.
And right eye.
Monument Valley.
Don't ask which ones these are. All the rocks have a name.
This could be Elephant Butte or Camel Butte, who knows.
One lonely rock.
An entire family.
I am sure this had a name too.
Petr on our Vespa.
A view.
Another view.
A green alien with a helmet too big for her head (size Xsmall they don't make it smaller!).
More rocks.
And some more.
Finally, a tree as well.
Rocks while the sun is going down.
The colors are getting deeper as the day goes beddie-by.
Distant view from the road as we are heading back to camp.
Another distant view.
The hills right in front of our camp site.
Laura patiently waited for the sunset and caught these clouds gleaming in the sunlight.
Same clouds, just closer.
The tree in our campsite at sunset.