30 July 2013, Spider Rock Campground, Chinle, Arizona

"On The Road Again."  We left Santa Fe with the understanding we would have a 4 1/2 hour drive. This from "Google Girl" as I've taken to calling her. I am loaded to bear with all the required books and maps I've collected from reading other travelers' sites, perusing the bookstores online and in person, and of course the official TripTik from AAA.  But what do I use? Damn Google Maps on my iPhone.

Google Girl has misled us. In Memphis and in Santa Fe she got us nearly there. Almost. So, keeping that in mind....

We drove south toward Albuquerque. The continually changing landscape keeps you occupied. You don't want to look down because you surely will miss something!

But of course, not everyone is as enthralled at the sights as Paul and I are.

According to Google Girl, we had a 3 1/2 hour drive to our next stop. It was currently 11 so we had a little exploration time. I thought a brief educational walk through the Petroglyphs National Monument would do the trick. This is the largest site of petroglyphs in the county. Petroglyphs are created by removing part of a the volcanic basalt surface and revealing a different color underneath.

These are thought to have been made between 1300 and 1800 by the Puebloan people.

Okay, that was cool, now let's do something fun and look for Walter and Jesse's houses. Who? The three oldest Rousso's are "Breaking Bad" fans and most of the show is shot on location in Albuquerque.  The National Park Ranger had drawn a map to them for us!

As we are driving to the first house, I called to confirm our 4:00 appointment in Chinle with Leon Skyhorse Thomas. Leon Skyhorse freaked out on me and said it was a 5 hour drive and I had better hurry. I said I had checked Google and my maps but he was adamant he drove to Albuquerque every week. He had my credit card number and this was our only chance to have a tour, so we bailed on our location scouting. (Maxwell not happy. Joy not happy either.)

So off we go. 

Three and a half hours later, we arrived at our destination.  Leon Skyhorse (found out he played the sheriff in Natural Born Killers) must drive a burro. Or stop at all the casinos along the way.

Canyon de Chellly is in Navajo Nation. It is a National Park but you and I can only enter the Canyon with a Navajo. This is the second largest canyon in the country and it is filled with amazing cliff dwellings and kivas and pictographs of the ancient people.   

Our Navajo guide, Leone pointing out pictographs. iPhone could not capture them, but amazing pictographs are still visible. Paul was very interested to know what the paint consisted of. Along with the expected minerals, they apparently used animal blood, human blood and urine. Hmmmmm.

Leone was an excellent guide and after she warmed up to us was fun as well. Some families still move into the canyon seasonally to raise crops. Of course they have no water, electricity, cable or even phone service. We were told not to take pictures of their homes, their animals or of them. Once when we stopped a tiny girl named Nina came out to sell us beaded necklaces. None of us could possibly say no. This was such an amazing tour that it kept us all interested. Except when Alex spaced out and started talking about Spongebob!

We skulked back to the back of the back of the campground to our dry campsite. The quiet hours are from 8:30 on and we knew we couldn't survive without AC, so we got as far away from everyone as we could.  After preparing a quick dinner (my spaghetti never tasted quite as good) we just laid back and watched the show above. The sky was blanketed with thousands of stars that we normally can't see with the city's ambient light. We all caught a shooting star and said goodnight.