Our first destination was Antelope Canyon, the most Instagrammed slot canyon in the world. It's easy to see why.
Windblown sand cascades into the canyon from above, making for a gritty experience.
Antelope is on Navajo land, and all tours must be arranged through authorized Navajo guiding outfits. They stay very busy.
We had a quieter experience the next day in Buckskin Gulch, a slot canyon in the nearby Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, Utah.
Leslie in Buckskin.
Sego lily.
Next Chapter and our boondocker camp site in the Vermillion Cliffs.
Next destination was Canyon De Chelly National Monument in Arizona. Visits also require the services of a Navajo Guide (unless you participate in a ranger-guided hike). Our conveyance was a six-wheel- drive military troop carrier.
White House Ruin, an Ancestral Pueblo building complex in Canyon de Chelly.
Shiprock, a landmark in northwestern New Mexico. It's the neck of a vanished volcano, still connected to the dikes of hardened lava that fed it when it was active.
A kiva in Chetro Ketl, one of several "great houses" at Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico.
Ruins of Pueblo Bonito, built in stages between the mid-800s and early 1100s AD. It was the largest of Chaco's great houses, reaching 4 stories in height and containing more than 600 rooms.
Pueblo Bonito.
Doorways and window. The corner doorway is an unusual feature; only seven are known in Pueblo Bonito.
Pueblo del Arroyo, viewed from the top of a neighboring mesa.
After Chaco, we camped in the Lybrook Badlands.
Lybrook hoodoos.
Petroglyph, likely of an ibis spearing a frog, in Petrified Forest National Park , Arizona.
Blue Mesa formation in Petrified Forest National Park.
