Tuba City, Arizona

We headed out of Zion National Park a day early and ended up in Tuba City, Arizona as a way point on to Canyon de Chelly.

The drive between Zion and Tuba City is long and there is little chance to find diesel. In fact, we went close to 90 miles without seeing a gas station and limped into Tuba City on fumes. It is worth noting, though, that an excellent lunch can be had at the Cliff at Cliff Dwellers, the last place for gas before the 90 miles to Tuba City. From Cliff Dwellers the ride goes through the wonderful Vermillion Cliffs and over the Colorado River gorge.

Tuba City seemed to have nothing to recommend itself but a commercial campground offerring cable and hot showers. That was enough of a draw for us! Tuba City is Hopi country smack in the middle of the Navajo Nation. The campground hosts told us that a major parade would be happening the next day and that crowds would gather before sun up. She said that the crowds would be so large we had the choice of leaving early or not being able to get our rigs out of the campsite. Or, she said, we could leave late after the parade had ended. We opted to leave early. Real early. We had not realized there was a time change so when we thought we were leaving at 6 a.m. to beat the crowds lining up we were actually leaving at 5 a.m. No wonder there were no crowds! The ride out was on an endless ribbon of road heading east with streams of headlights coming at us presumably to get to the parade early.

The highlight of the trip was the three Mesas. At the Second Mesa we had a fine breakfast, the only place to eat in miles. And on the eastern most First Mesa we found a jeweler open and we dropped some big bucks on wonderful Hopi rings and bracelets. And then we were on our way to Canyon de Chelly.