Terrell Brothers Road Trip - Day 2: Canyons, Valleys and Gods
The first full day on a road trip usually has, much like a first travel day, a quality that differs from the other days of a trip. On the one hand, you’re now fully immersed in the travel pattern - hopefully wake up at or very close to your morning destination, photograph, figure out where you’re going to eat, travel a bit, photograph, travel a bit more to your night destination, and maybe photograph a bit there. Within all of that, you have to figure out life routines - setting up and tearing down bedding, eating, and all of that stuff. The other hand is that on that first full day, none of it is “routine” yet. Everything takes just a bit longer, is a bit more frustrating and, well for this trip at least, leads to a lot more bumps to the head.
So it was with this trip. Granted, rolling into camp in the dark and pretty beat from the first day hadn’t helped things much. Nor did the fact that, by the clock, our mental timing was a bit off. Still, we managed to get up and out before sunrise, but we missed a bit of the pre-dawn desert light I love so much.
But not all of it. We managed to get out to the Spider Rock viewpoint just before sunrise and work the area as the sun first broke, then rose from the horizon.
If our last stop the day before hadn’t convinced Len that the desert can have beautiful light, that morning at Canyon de Chelly did. That morning was sublime. There was the light, the beauty of the canyon and the silence that comes when a place forces its presence on your soul, interrupted only by the music of the rushing water from the stream at the bottom of the canyon and the occasional swoosh of a raven as it sweeps past - its effect is beyond words. Being there was wondrous. Fortunately, it was a feeling we’d be blessed with time and time again during our trip.
Len and I spent most of the first hour photographing in silence. Him doing his thing, me doing mine. It had been a long time since we’d photographed together, but that morning we didn’t mis a bet. It was if we’d been doing it together every weekend for years.
We took our time that morning, slowly working our way around the Spider Rock viewpoint to make a variety of images. Some tight crops, other wider landscapes. There was so much to offer if you just allow yourself to see.
In time, we’d exhausted our possibilities at that location and we moved on to the next viewpoint and repeated the process. We worked in relative silence, which seemed fitting for the landscape.
The nice thing about not rushing things is that you get to take your time to find images and then make them. Take the image below. This image required not only wandering well off the normal hiking trail, but waiting for a contrail to slowly pass out of frame. Well worth the wait if you ask me.
We had started at the eastern-most viewpoint and stepped our way westward towards the exit as the morning passed. After the second viewpoint, other people started appearing and the silence was lost. Still, the landscape was just as amazing.
Photographic opportunities abounded while we took our time; tourists arrived, walked around us and then left while we did our thing. Sure, it was viewpoint photography, but what lovely viewpoints.
And taking one’s time allows one to mentally adjust scale to vary one’s image making.
Much like the day before, it was a refreshing photography session. A reminder of how fun and deeply pleasing image making can be, as well as how rewarding the images can be on revisiting them. No, they’re not all excellent images, but enough of them are moving and who can ask for more than that?
Unsurprisingly, we stayed at Canyon de Chelly much longer than I’d originally imagined. Still, it wasn’t nearly long enough. Next time, we’ll give ourselves plenty of time to check out both the north and south rim viewpoints and, even better, take a day and rent a guide to take us into the canyon. Maybe 2 days. I suspect it would be worth it.
As the sun rose higher and higher, the light lost it subtle qualities and transitioned into the spotlight that is the desert sun. The landscape started to take on the harshness that so defines the desert most of the day. That and fact that more and more people were appearing at the view points meant it was time for Len and I to call it a morning and to continue the journey.
We were not going to be lacking for photography opportunities that day. The day’s plans included spending some time in Monument Valley, and camping in the Valley of the Gods.
It also meant that we were going to be driving through some amazing landscapes. Even if we didn’t decide to stop for photographs, it was going to be a wonderfully visual drive. That much became evident as we drove down from the Canyon de Chelly rim to Chinle, finally getting a good look at the landscape we had passed in darkness the night before. We were ready to continue our journey.
But first we had to take care of business . . . the business of eating. It had been a long morning full of photography, and both of us were starving. Since we were behind schedule (an odd thing to say when there really is no “schedule,” but appropriate when you know there are wonderful opportunities out there that you don’t want to miss), I decided not to try and find a unique place to eat in Chinle and settled on stopping at a Denny’s I knew was on our way out of town (since we’d passed it the night before). It was breakfast and breakfast is about the only thing worth eating at Denny’s.
However, Denny’s had its moment of panic. At one point, Len started that “something’s missing” patting of pockets and booth seats that we’ve all experienced. “What’s up?” “I can’t find my sunglasses. Where in the world did I put them?” Well . . .
. . . we found them. I think Len might have been a bit overwhelmed by Canyon de Chelly.
The drive to Monument Valley was stunning, with constantly changing landscapes to keep both of us engaged. And while we didn’t stop to take photographs, that didn’t keep us from enjoying it and being in awe with each new formation that appeared before us.
At Monument Valley we started off at the welcome center and it’s well know view of the valley. I didn’t even bring my regular cameras with us, but no worries, even an iPhone shot of it is amazing.
Like Canyon de Chelly, I’m sure the best way to see it (and photograph it) is through a personal guide that can take you places others can’t go. Since we couldn’t do that (time was not on our side), we did the next best thing and descended the loop road that us normal folks can take.
Again, we were in no “rush” and stopped whenever either of us felt like it was worth stopping at - photograph or not.
After several stops, we pulled over at a location I’d photographed at before. I just enjoy the juxtaposition of the dry creek bed, the towers and the distant cliffs. And after I’d made several images and was about to head back to the car, Len said, “Hey Dan, check out the ponies.” Well, that just made me pull out my gear again.
I spent much of my time at Monument Valley not photographing, instead contemplating the landscape. Perhaps I’ll return yet again with image making in mind, but I was still getting into the road trip mood and I was simply enjoying what the landscape had to offer.
It was a very short drive from Monument Valley to Valley of the Gods, our stopping point for the day. That even included the fill-up in Mexican Hat. We drove around the valley a bit scouting out a camping spot. I’d hoped to nab one particular site we’d seen on our last trip there, but even from miles away I could tell it was occupied (as were others I knew from that previous trip). At one point we realized that more and more sites were taken, so we turned around and found one of the several sites we thought might be ok as a fall-back when we’d passed them up. I’d say this was a mighty fine fall-back campsite.
Unfortunately the skies were becoming increasingly overcast and, despite our hopes, a brilliant sunset failed to show its face. Still, the desert likes to tease you and if you don’t look carefully, you miss what it has to offer. It gave us a few minutes of lovely light before the clouds decided to snuff it all out.
It was good to be sleeping out in the desert again.