Goodbye Monument Valley

Several years ago we watched a TV special that depicted a team of photographers from National Geographic that had been sent in search of surfing hippos. Seems that a group of hippos were known to walk out into the surf and lacking a better description, play or surf in the water. I remember this team had been setup on this particular beach known by the locals for having hippos on the beach and in the surf; they camped out there for several days with no hippos in sight. The team being on a limited timeframe looked like they would be forced to pack it in and leave without being able to see a single hippo. Just as they were calling it quits the hippos were spotted walking down the beach and into the crashing surf. Needless to say the crew was ecstatic.

What does this have to do with our stay in Monument Valley?

We remember that show every time we go in search of great landscape images. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to get great light and other conditions from the start other times we have to wait and in rare occasions we've had to pack it in.

We arrived in Monument Valley Monday night and were greeted with howling wind and blowing dust. Tuesday morning we woke to snow and cold and Wednesday was little better with no clouds in sight. We noticed clouds forming to the east of us later last night and were hopeful that we'd have something a little better than what we experienced the past two mornings. We woke this morning to heave cloud cover and a beautiful colorful sunrise - our hippos showed up.

Thanks for letting us share our experience in Monument Valley


Sandy & Don


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