October 1, 2012

CAROLE AND I HAVE LONG BEEN FANS OF JOHN FORD, particularly his westerns. Today, we drove through Monument Valley where he filmed seven of his most famous westerns, including Stagecoach and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Monument Valley is located in both Arizona and Utah, near the Four Corners. John Ford's first western shot in the valley was Stagecoach, a film that made John Wayne famous and won two Oscars. When Wayne saw the valley for the first time, he supposedly said: "So this is where God decided to locate the West."

Monument Valley is not a national park, but is owned and run by the Navajo. After paying a nominal ten dollar entrance fee, we proceeded to the visitors' center to obtain a map for a self-guided tour. We had done our homework and knew that there was a 17 mile drive along a rough, unpaved road which made a loop through the valley. Many visitors prefer to hire someone to drive them through the valley, but we trusted the Durango to take us through.

On our way to obtain a map, we found ourselves in a room dedicated to the famous Code Talkers of WWII. The contents of the room were interesting. In addition to information about the Code Talkers, the room displayed  a brief history of WWII. Starting with the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor and ending with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the various signs and photos gave a brief summary of the war and showed how the Code Talkers were first formed and how they operated.

It was difficult to concentrate in the room, however. A large, obnoxious group of foreigners decided to use the room to yell at each other. For some reason, they showed little interest in the information displayed in the room. When they left, I said to Carole: " You would think that they would have had some interest in learning why they were not able to break the code."

After we obtained the map, we took off on our drive. The speed limit was 15 miles an hour, but the road was so bad that we only got up to 15 miles an hour for short stretches. As we anticipated, the views were incredible.

I could picture Ben Johnson racing his horse Laddie away from pursuing Indians in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.  It was somewhat more difficult picturing John Wayne riding through the valley in The Searchers, a movie supposedly set in Texas.