September 20, 2008

September 20, 2008

From Canyon de Chelly, we head south stopping briefly at Hubbell Trading Post Historical Site. I am glad it was not out of our way. Aimee and I weren’t impressed. On the site sits a trading post from 1876 that Lorenzo Hubbell built to barter with the new Navajo Reservation. Hubbell exchanged handmade Indian crafts for necessities the Navajo needed. The Visitor Center has no exhibits, only a short blurb about the trading post on a Canyon de Chelly film. The trading post still survives and is now home to a gift shop selling Navajo crafts.

From the trading post we head southwest thru arid scrubland eventually running into pine forest country. We stopped at the Mogollan Rim Visitor Center but it was closed for renovation. Undeterred we got a few shots from the rim overlooking the forest below. I believe the Mogollan Rim is the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. In the parking lot we got a recommendation to stay at a campground five miles away off the highway near Woods Lake Canyon. It was a great choice. Despite being in Arizona only an hour from very hot Phoenix, we are in the middle of a pleasantly cool, pine forest.