Adventures with Luna: Day 39

After a nice morning reading over my bowl of porridge, I met Anne at the fifth lookout on the Monument Valley drive. There was a corral of horses there, all small and quite fuzzy in the hot winter. As I drove, I had seen a mare and a yearling walking along beside the valley road as the owners let horses loose for the day to graze and wander, the mare was skin and bones, although most of the horses looked in fairly good condition. Anne, Luna and I continued on in my vehicle, soon stopping at a beautiful lookout. With no sign saying not to hike (and there had been almost everywhere else), people there who could tell us to stop if we weren’t actually allowed to and an extrovert with little regard to the rules (hint, it’s not me ;)), we headed off on a hike. We sat on some sand dunes for a time, watching Luna digging like crazy, I am sure she had smelled a rodent in the ground. Luna dug for a long time, perhaps she was trying to dig her way back to Canada ;) We stayed until she started moving on to a different place to dig, then continued on towards the rock pillar in the distance. We sat for awhile, enjoying the quiet (once Luna had stopped digging her new huge hole in the incredibly soft sand) and waiting for the blue sky to reach the pillar. We then explored around the back of the pillar, seeing beautiful sights that could not be seen from the parking area. When we returned to the parking area quite some time later, one of the vendors, who had seen us leave and not commented, told us we had been trespassing, that the ranger came by so we must buy jewelry to make up for it. I only heard the part about trespassing, she was talking quietly enough and Anne, closer to her had already stopped to talk before I heard her, that I could easily pretend to not hear her at all as I got Luna in the car and prepared to leave. We headed to several more lookouts, enjoying stunning views and taking many photos. We walked the trail near the entrance for a little while, before heading back as Anne had to leave, Luna was tuckered out after all her digging and running around, however she was a great sport as always. We agreed to meet at the Grand Canyon the following day and headed our separate ways. I decided to go back to the campsite and was thankful to find the office still open. It was a little after 5 pm, which is the closing time of the campsite office, however some people ahead of me had already kept the woman late, so I was able to pay for my site and get my restroom key there. After dinner, I settled in to my car and had a wonderful, 2 hour conversation with my mom.