Bluff

At the end of the day, the Clint Eastwoods, Luke McCains and cowboy Sams of my youth rode their horses towards the sunset. For sure it did not take them long to cross the Monument Valley - it did not take us long either, dozens of photo shootings included. 

At end of the day, they must have gone back home and met some Laura Ingalls of sort, busy conquering the West.

That could well have been in Mexican Hat or in Bluff, at the end of the lonely road cutting through those dry red mountains of Utah.

The Ingalls are not there any longer but the Demings and a bunch of their friends are still there, entertaining visitors, enjoying themselves and holding the Fort.

Fort Bluff that is: maxi pancakes for breakfast, hand made cookies for a snack and a walk in traditional costumes, through the history of the West and its first heroes, living in cabins to obey the call from God.

Was it real or was it all just an illusion?

Riding Navajo land

Landing in a world of shining stars and stripes, clear blue skies, burning red rocks and temperatures approaching 100. Page, Arizona, 4 July: go out, watch the parade and keep up those values that make America great. There is no broadband in town until next year anyway.

All around Page, burning under the scorching sun, Navajo land. A sign on the road reminds drivers to think, plan, live and shop Navajo. Navajo guide Leon explains that it is all because their grandmas have been living there forever, since before the first stone of Page was placed in 1957.

And thanks to grandma sticking to her dry piece of land, today his family can provide guided tours into the stunning Antelope Canyon.

Come with me, girl, I will play music for you in the meanders of the canyon and show you how to take great pictures which you can brag about when you are back home.

Oh, and girl, do you have fireworks in your country? I'll get you a flag.

Thanks but I am leaving, gotta get to Utah tonight.

The great unconformity

Canyons, condors and coyotes, all those things soaked in during a childhood of American series and films. That's it, the Far West, the Grand Canyon, the mighty Colorado river about a mile down. No cowboys around, quite a few hikers instead, and families with kids and even dogs hopping on and off the free bus, lookout after lookout.

Girl, you are talking too much and walking too little, do you want a picture? Oh yes, please. Just here, on the trail of time, going back a billion years in Earth's history, and sorry for the local creationists. Mind the step, though, we have lost more than a billion years, right here at the great unconformity, where the age of the rocks jumps from 500 million years to almost 2 billion years.

And yet no picture can ever do justice to the depth and breadth of the sight. No wonder some fellow hikers thought better stopping for a while, sitting down and letting the mind drown in its smallness.