After leaving Petrified Forest, we traveled northward still, onto a place called Canyon de Chelley National Monument, pronounced Canyon de "Shay". What a beautiful place this was! I had never heard of it before, so we were very lucky to have stumbled across it. We arrived late in the day, and it was a little overcase, so the pictures weren't great. But it was a spectacular sight. Really beautiful. Words can't describe it. Navajo indians currently live in the area, but there are many ruins down in the canyons belonging to the Anasazi people who abandoned this place in about 1300 AD. They had lived in the area for nearly 2,000 years.
A first glimpse of the canyon...really big and beautiful.
Another huge expanse...
The wedge-shaped rock is called "The Rock that Lightening Struck" by the Navajo.
Here are some ruins built right into a crack in this sheer rock face (very small).
The ruins up close.
Here's another set of ruins built into the canyon wall.
An overlook on the North fork showing ruins in the shade.
A closer look at the ruins
Closer still...
Finally, a look at Spider Rock...really impressive!
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