{"id":1373,"date":"2017-05-20T20:48:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-21T00:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2017-05-20T21:07:12","modified_gmt":"2017-05-21T01:07:12","slug":"15-may-2017-monument-valley-az","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/?p=1373","title":{"rendered":"15 May 2017: Monument Valley, AZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve ever seen an old Western, you’ve seen Monument Valley.<\/p>\n

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Just one of dozens of films that were filmed in Monument Valley, many directed by John Ford, including Stagecoach<\/span><\/em> and The Searchers<\/span>. Other films made here include: Easy Rider<\/span>, Forrest Gump<\/span>, The Eiger Sanction<\/span>, 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/span>, National Lampoon’s Vacation<\/span>, Thelma & Louise<\/span>, Mission Impossible 2<\/span>, and The Lone Ranger<\/span>. Plus hundreds of TV shows and advertisements.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But what made Monument Valley a special stop for me was not its connection to the film industry, but its unbelievably photogenic quality. So, with a hall pass from Wendy, I set off at 3:00 a.m., drove several hundred miles to Monument Valley (getting lost twice in the process, but that’s another story), paid the $20 to enter the “Navajo Tribal Park,” and spent several hours just taking picture in this magical place. Below are some of my favorites.<\/p>\n

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Even though I got lost twice, I still arrived an hour before the drive opened, so I went up to the hotel, had a buffet breakfast, and snagged this picture sitting on the hotel balcony. Visible here are East Mitten and West Mitten (notice the shapes–they do look like mittens) and Merrick Butte.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Everything about the area is photogenic, even the dead trees.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The view from what is called “John Ford Point” because it is the landscape seen in so many Western movies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A very special place indeed. Next stop: Utah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve ever seen an old Western, you’ve seen Monument Valley. [On edit: In a remarkable coincidence, Volkswagen has a new commercial that not only features a few clips from Monument Valley, it expresses in a very heartrending way why road trips have always mattered so much to our family. It’s worth watching here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rpq4NXtokNU.] … Continue reading “15 May 2017: Monument Valley, AZ”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travels"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p68mhx-m9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1383,"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions\/1383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skiprd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

[On edit: In a remarkable coincidence, Volkswagen has a new commercial that not only features a few clips from Monument Valley, it expresses in a very heartrending way why road trips have always mattered so much to our family. It’s worth watching here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rpq4NXtokNU<\/a>.]<\/p>\n