dual personalities

Tag: Monument Valley

October 7, 2024

Yá’át’ééh

by chuckofish

Hello! We made it back from the Navajo Nation and Arizona.

All went pretty smoothly and my travel planning skills were generally high-fived all around. The OM had some trouble adjusting to the altitude, but he soldiered on. We hydrated. Daughter #1 did a A+++++ job as our driver/navigator/community engagement coordinator.

Monument Valley is a remote place and it is not easy to get to. It was a six hour drive from Phoenix (this after getting up at 3 a.m. to make a 6:00 a.m. flight!) through the mountains. No one told us Flagstaff is in the mountains! (If I knew, I had forgotten.) Daughter #1 will regale you with her memories of this later in the week.

But we made it and I am amazed when I look back at my photos and realize, yes, we were actually there in this amazing, other-wordly place. You literally can not take a bad picture.

We stayed at Goulding’s Lodge, which has been in operation 100 years. It is where John Ford and his actors and crew stayed and that is respected and honored, but not overdone or commercialized.

We enjoyed it very much and would recommend it highly. There is a dusty old museum…

…and you can go in Nathan Brittles’ (John Wayne’s) cabin from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

We stayed in a “villa” and not the main hotel…

This was our view in the morning, drinking coffee on the porch…

We took a great 3.5 hour tour led by Sam, our Navajo guide, through Monument Valley. We rode in a Hatari-reminiscent open vehicle and got out at many points along the way and walked around.

Our fellow tourists, most of whom were Europeans (French and German), looked exactly like variations on my brother and sister-in-law. We were all exhausted and dusty by the end. Wonderful.

Truly it was kind of a religious experience for me, on the level with going to the Holy Land a few years ago. No kidding. I loved everything.

Back home on Saturday night I watched My Darling Clementine (1946) and it was awesome.

On Sunday we watched Ford’s masterpiece, The Searchers (1956). OMG.

Wow.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about our adventures at the Grand Canyon!

P.S. Many thanks to daughter #2 and DN for taking care of the blog last week! Much appreciated. (Hope it didn’t inconvenience the prairie girls too much 😉!)

There’s not a plant or flow’r below, but makes Thy glories known,
And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God, art present there.

–Isaac Watts, 1715

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September 25, 2024

“Oh, the places you’ll go.”*

by chuckofish

I may have mentioned that next week the OM, daughter #1 and I are heading out West to visit Monument Valley on the Arizona-Utah border. The valley is considered sacred by the Navaho Nation, within whose reservation it lies. It is rather sacred to me as well. We are pretty excited.

Recently daughter #2 and Katie were reading this book…

…which included this…

How cool is that? IYKYK. I do love Pete.

In preparation for this trip, I am re-watching some of John Ford’s iconic films. First up was Fort Apache (1948) starring John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, et al. It is the first of Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy.

Next on the docket will be Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946) and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949)–three of my all-time favorites.

Unrelated to this, I also recently watched The Human Comedy (1943) on TCM. Directed by Clarence Brown from a story by William Saroyan, it stars Mickey Rooney as high school student Homer Macauley, who works part-time as a telegram delivery boy in the fictional town of Ithaca, California, during World War II. The movie depicts the effects of the war on the Home Front over a year in Homer’s life in a series of vignettes involving himself, his family, friends and neighbors in his hometown, and his brother Marcus, a Private in the U.S. Army. Homer is thrust into some difficult situations, some of which are heart-wrenching.

Rooney handles it all with skill and does not overdo it. (He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.) He is really quite impressive and he carries the film like a pro.

This scene, which does not involve Rooney, but includes Van Johnson as his brother on a troop train, is a real emotional highpoint–the kind they were not embarrassed to attempt in 1943.

I have no doubt that many today would find this entire movie to be absolute hokum and too rah-rah America, but I did not. I pity them. We still sing this hymn at my church and I will always think of these soldiers from now on when I hear it.

*Dr. Seuss

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