We woke up in Sedona to a beautiful view of the surrounding rocks with the morning light making the red rocks even prettier against the surrounding dusting of snow. The Monument Valley view we would see later in the day would be even better though.

Want to jump straight to a video of our day? Click here or scroll down to the bottom of the page.

We had over 200 miles and about 4 hours of driving ahead of us so we left early in the morning to give ourselves some time in Monument Valley to explore before the sun set.

Driving through Arizona is relatively uneventful but the landscape offered more than the dead flat, featureless desert that we were expecting. There are still hills and rises, huge Cacti (Cactuses?), and the snow, ice and a few erratic drivers kept us interested all the way through to Monument Valley.

Rather than check in at our hotel, we wanted to make the most of the remaining daylight and drove straight over to our first attraction to see in this crazy landscape.

Mexican Hat

It took us a bit of finding given our GPS directed us to the town, Mexican Hat and had no idea of an attraction we’d like to see but we made it there in the end. It doesn’t take a very active imagination to see why this rock formation was dubbed after the famous Sombrero.

Of course, we couldn’t help trying to pose for some cheesy pics “wearing” the hat too.

Dayna was reading the Martian and felt it was quite appropriate timing given the surrounding landscape seemed straight out of Mars at times. We were constantly asking each other how the heck this is all formed.

How is Monument Valley Formed?

From our (limited, uneducated and probably incorrect) understanding, the land used to be flat and happily sat above all of these rock formations. Over time the softer sandstone was eroded away and only bits that maintained a stronger capstone bit of rock on top withstood the test of time.

Please let me know if I am completely wrong and you can explain it better than that though because I’d really like to know!

That Famous Monument Valley View

On the way back from Mexican Hat we had to stop off at that famous vista in front of which Tom Hanks stopped his run in the Forrest Gump movie.

Our timing was off that day as the sun sets behind the mesas and the colour and detail was blown out by the bright sun we were staring straight into.

We returned the next day and played a bit of chicken with traffic and our tripod to try and get a few photos. Traffic isn’t extremely heavy on this lonely stretch of road (America is, after all, a pretty empty place outside of a few packed cities) so we didn’t have to wait too long.

Unlike Forrest, we did not feel like runnin’ and didn’t pose for one of those photos (unlike me 8 years ago on a trip across the country).

The View Hotel in Monument Valley

As the sun was starting to get low and we only had one sunset in town, we dashed back from enjoying the views to quickly check in to our hotel.

Accommodation options are pretty limited in Monument Valley and we opted to pay a little extra and stay within the actual Navajo Tribal Park. The only place you can do this is at The View Hotel.

The main thing we wanted was a good view of the Buttes and Mesas of Monument Valley and the View Hotel definitely delivers that. We were pretty impressed by our first view from our room.

The sun sets behind the hotel, on the opposite side of the hotel to the main features in the landscape so until it sneaks behind it there is warm light thrown on to the red rocks of the buttes and mesas; it was so pretty we braved the cold outside to stand and watch it.

We paid a little extra to get a good view of the night sky as well so Dayna could try taking some photos of the stars. I would say it wasn’t just for the photos and it was actually so we could have a romantic night star gazing but it was far too cold for that outside!

We were out by the border of Arizona and Utah and there is not a lot of civilization built up nearby so the stars shone nice and bright.

It is very rare that a view is so good that we make it awake for dawn (especially when it is negative 10 degrees celsius outside) but this was one of those times.

We continued our road trip vlogs (Day 1 in Sedona is on Youtube here if you missed it) and caught some awesome timelapses if you watch until the end. Check it out below.

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