About an hour later, I came into a small town called Chinle, the town where Canyon de Chelly and Spider Rock is located in Apache County. Chinle is relatively nondescript, but comparatively has far more infrastructure and dense living than anything I had seen in the proceeding 3 hours. I noted the Subway Restaurant with “free wifi”, a random Church’s Chicken, a few hotels and places of worship, and all of the other amenities you’d expect in a small town, all of the historical relevance most small towns could never have.

The Canyon de Chelly Welcome Center in Chinle, AZ

Even though I wanted to enjoy, no, savor my time at Canyon de Chelly, I knew I had to move quickly in order to make the additional hour or so up to Monument Valley, an iconic park notable for its deep red butte rocks that are likely some of the first images most people conjure up of old Western films, just past the Arizona border and into Utah. Time in mind, I stopped into the park service station and got some quick and very helpful information on how to make it to Spider Rock.