Canyon de Chelly

After a 6 or so hour drive we made it to Chinle, Arizona. A very desolate spot on an Indian Reservation! (I felt even more grateful that I live in Price Utah!) We went to a place called Canyon de Chelly(pronounced Shay) National Monument.

The Canyon de Chelly has a few hikes and viewpoints. Because it was near sunset we did not have as much time as we had hoped for to do some of the really neat hikes!

It was a tad-bit breezy hence the arms in the shirts!! But a beautiful night in Arizona otherwise!

One of our favorite things to see was this monument called Spider Rock. We caught it at a perfect time of night with the sunset just resting upon the top.

Speaking of sunset, this was a pretty awesome pose of Ty right at sunset!

The kids just loved hiking along the rocks whenever we stopped and got out of the car!! They could have cared less about what we saw and just wanted to climb on all the rocks!

For some reason it made me really nervous to have Caleb climb on the rocks! I guess I was worried he was going to fall off of one of them! But it's a good thing he has such a great big sister to hold his hand and take good care of him!

Mara has become just as good a hiker as her brothers! I worried at first when she was young that she wouldn't be able to keep up or have the same hiking desires as the boys but she is amazing!

This little buddy of ours is a pro hiker and rock climber!

It's not very often I get to hold all three hands at the same time! They usually want to run up the trail or climb on the rocks! So I'll take this family together time whenever I can get it!!

Ok FUNNY story: Ty really had to go to the bathroom as we were driving around and hiking through Canyon de Chelly so we saw this campground and figured they would have some sort of bathroom for Ty! Boy did they ever! Not like ones I have ever seen (or want to see again)!! First of all the campground was total white trash! AND you could RENT hogans and TPs for the night! Kind of like in Oregon you can rent Yurts well these were Indian housing!! So the bathroom is a few pieces of plywood nailed together and an OLD camper potty which has been placed over a hole in the ground!! There isn't even a door! I debated whether or not to let Ty use it but what other choice did we have?! To flush you had to use a rusty old tin ladle and a bucket of water! I don't know why this left such an impression on me but I guess it's because I was so grateful we weren't camping there for the night! Instead we could enjoy a great night of sleep at the Best Western!! (*Nate on the other hand was kind of disappointed and really wanted to spend the night in the Hogan!!)