Simon is a huge fan of old cowboy movies and Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti Westerns.” So much so that we decided to leave Fati for two days and make the 790-mile round trip from Kingman, Arizona to the Navajo Nation to see Monument Valley’s iconic red-rock formations.
Leone only shot scenes for one movie in Monument Valley – Once Upon A Time In The West – as a tribute to filmmaker John Ford, who helped make the area famous through his classic Westerns. Nearly 30 movies feature scenes shot in the red-earth valley, including Thelma and Louise, 2001: A Space Odyssey, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Back to the Future III, but none captured the magnificence of the place the way the Westerns did.
In reality, we paid a visit to Grand Canyon’s South Rim on the way to Monument Valley, but we’ll share that with you in our next blog.
While researching our trip to Arizona’s north-eastern corner, we read several times that the scenic loop through what is properly called Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is a rugged dirt road, and only recommended for those with a high-clearance vehicle. One of us (whose name begins with the letter Simon) could not accept that as fact, and a few websites also insisted small cars were fine. Both of us agreed we’d check it out and decide for ourselves.
When we reached Monument Valley’s toll booth, Simon asked the question. The woman in the booth took one look at Nippy and said, “The road is really rough. I wouldn’t try it in that.”
We had begun using a “points” system when it comes to things that challenge us as we travel but we do them anyway. To be fair, we give each other anywhere from a thousand up to a billion points for any given challenge, so it’s a bit of a skewed system, and it was here that Simon cashed in some of his points. The decision was made.
But not to worry; we’d noticed two things as we were driving toward the park. One was that you can see all of the valley’s rock formations from Route 163, which parallels the park, and the other was that Route 163 is entirely paved.
Each formation can be viewed up close from inside the park, but we were perfectly happy with our grand overview, and we stopped at every turnout, marveling at the magnificence.
The movie Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, was also partly shot on location in the Navajo Nation, and Route 163 was the setting in which Forrest stops running during his three-years crisscrossing the U.S.
Today, the road draws visitors who want to recreate that memorable scene. It does involve standing stock-still in the middle of a relatively busy road, but that doesn’t deter fans, some of whom have been injured or killed in the process. We chose to stand along the side of the road rather than in it, because it would take a long time for Emergency Services to reach us if we got run over by a truck.
What a wonderful afternoon it had been! For Simon, it was the fulfilment of a movie fascination dating back to his childhood, when he watched John Ford’s The Searchers, and again in Once Upon A Time In The West.
“It opened up a magnificent real-life panorama that far surpassed the two-dimensional qualities of the cinema screen, in a landscape that was both breathtaking and awe-inspiring,” he gushed as we drove to Williams for an overnight to break up the long drive back to Fati.
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Arizona so far, but there was something quite special about Monument Valley that gave me (Susan) a deeper understanding of why my parents, especially my beloved mother, loved the Southwest so much. And in that moment of acknowledgement as we were leaving the Navajo Nation, I looked to my right and saw the only cloud in the sky, which, to me, looked ethereal and angelic.
It was one of those moments people who have lost a loved one recognize, and I smiled, silently thanking my Mom for showing up.
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