Navajo Nation

Having overnighted in a school in Tuba City, we left bright and early and headed to Navajo National Monument, a place where a bunch of Amer-Indians lived several hundred years ago, until they overfarmed the land or got hit by a drought or somesuchlike. After a short walk (compared to the down and up the Grand Canyon experience), we got to an point overlooking the ex-village. The whole thing was in an alcove in the canyon cliff opposite us and remarkably well preserved.

From there we went NE into Utah just, before turning back into Arizona to get to Monument Valley. Sadly once in the visitor centre (or center if you like) our rear right wheel was looking a bit poorly. A trip to a nearby gas station reinflated the thing, though a small hiss was noticeably... Still, we drove around looking for 'Dean" and his trading post where there might have been a spare tyre. Sadly all we found were his 10 pet dogs. Quick tyre check was okay, so we carried on, on a 17 mile dirt track route round Monument Valley. If you haven't seen them before, they're basically huge red sandstone blocks reaching straight up out the ground to the sky. They're in a lot of old westerns. Pretty aweinspiring.

Well, the tyre seemed to survive that, so off we (Tom) drove into the night, arriving eventually in Gallup, just out of the Navajo Nation, where we stayed overnight.

When we woke up, the tyre was down again, a slow puncture from an embedded nail was surmised to be the cause. Tyre was replaced with temporary one, drove about 200m down the round to a service centre, where some nice old chap repaired the hole in the tyre and put it back on for us. And away we went!