Monument Valley & Grand Canyon

We had our last long drive to get to Monument Valley on Thursday, and it definitely was worth it! We first had to detour off the quickest route to visit the Four Corners Monument. This is the only place in the country where 4 states meet. There is a small monument on the ground showing where the borders are. Its also on Navajo land so you have to pay a small fee to get in to see it. There isn't much else to see but it was worth a stop!

The detour we made for the 4 corners turned out to be the best route for the scenery. It meant that we headed into Monument Valley from the North. This has some of the more famous views which we stopped along the way to take pictures of. We also saw the 'Mexican Hat Rock' from the road which is a 60ft wide sombrero shaped outcrop.

The campground was a few miles across from the visitors centre. It was in a fantastic setting between tall red rock mesas. We had a good spot as we were at the end of a row and could see out the end of the gorge to the mesas and buttes on the skyline. The next morning I managed to get up for the sunrise which was an unforgettable sight.

We left fairly early for the Grand Canyon, but went for a quick look at the view from the visitors centre at Monument Valley. Again this was Navajo land so we had to pay $5 each to get in. I'd say its worth it though even for the 5 minutes we were there. It was similar to Yosemite in that the view was that good it didn't seem real.

We had a couple of hours drive before we got to the Grand Canyon. It wasn't too busy on the roads until we got to the main visitors centre. They had just started work on the road system so that parking was awful. We had to park a mile away and get the free shuttle bus in. I had been before, but the view was still phenomenal. With more time you could do loads there, but we just had a wander around near the centre and also where we parked before heading off to our campground an hour away in Williams, AZ.