I woke up at 8 am and spent a relaxing morning around the campsite. Anne had texted me late the night before to say she was headed to Canyon de Chelly and to look in to it as it was beautiful. After determining how dog friendly or otherwise they were, I went back and forth on it for awhile; it was an hour and 45 minutes away, a little over an hour of which was backtracking and I greatly dislike backtracking. I drove back in to town, then, after some more thought, opted to go. Leaving Monument Valley, I had seen two more dead dogs on the road, they looked like they were beautiful dogs, this makes a total of 8 so far, very sad.
I arrived at Canyon de Chelly sometime around noon, finding Anne waiting in the parking lot. She got in my car and we headed to the South Rim drive. The pictures I had seen did not do it justice, it was stunning! We sat and admired the views at Spider Rock for a long time, then continued, stopping at the lookouts to take in the beauty. Upon arriving at the Whitehouse Ruin trail, I saw a couple signs saying “No pets”, however Anne had spoken to a worker who had told her it was fine to take dogs down there and there were a couple other dogs on the trail, so we proceeded. Just as we were about to begin the trail, a few seniors approached us and we had a short conversation, including the gentleman saying how nice Canadians were, to which Anne interjected to insist that Dutch people were nice too. As we left, one of the women, called us back and asked to take a photo of us so she could remember us, of course we stood for a photo before proceeding on. The trail was 3 miles round trip and led down in to the canyon and to a ruin. It was a lovely trail, leading through cave trails and across a stream. The ruins were very cool and it was great to see the canyon from the inside. We yelled in to the canyon, allowing our voices to echo off the canyon walls. Having the ruins to ourselves for awhile, we sat and talked for a long time, before heading back. We stopped at a couple more lookouts as the sun set, speaking with one Navajo man who Anne had met earlier while he sold jewellery. We asked him about free camping nearby and he mentioned his grandparents house on the North Rim of the canyon, however warned that the road was very bad getting to it, he suggested the two campsites in the area and a parking area that would be safe and likely no police would see the vehicles to tell us to get out, he warned against staying on the South Rim of the canyon as rowdy, drunk and sometimes violent teenagers often came at night. We thanked him and left, deciding to try out the parking area he suggested. Upon arriving back at the visitors centre, we were dismayed to see that the gates were locked, making it impossible for Anne to get her van out, so she had to stay the night there, while I opted to go find a campsite nearby. I found the campsite with no trouble and quickly made dinner as the stars appeared in the sky, it was around 7 pm by that point. With all the dark shapes moving around in the dark, I felt comforted by Luna, standing alert near me and barking or growling if anyone she thought was suspicious came by, she did wander off after awhile, interested in all the smells. As my dinner cooked, the man that had offered us advice on campsites came by to check on us, I told him why we didn’t take the hidden parking area and where Anne was at and had a short conversation with him, he was very nice, he was going to check on another person as well that he thought might be in the campsite. After he left, I ate my supper and settled in for the night.
The White House Ruin, not sure why it is named that!
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