Monument Valley by DOYLE
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
By DOYLE
Our family visited the Navajo Nation last week. It's a group of Native Americans who live in a tribal park in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. We visited Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. We visited because we wanted to learn and because it's cool.
Monument Valley looks weird. It's very different from where I live in Connecticut. Monument Valley has few trees and the dirt is red. The dirt is red for the same reason our blood is red -- because there is iron in it.
There are giant rocks made of sandstone. The rocks make good echoes. I yelled, "Who's the king of Siam?" and I heard six echoes!
I learned that Navajo houses were made of clay and wood. They are called hogans. From the outside it looks like a pile of dirt. Inside we could see wooden logs.
Here is a traditional Navajo hogan (pronounced hoe-GAN).
Our guide, Mr. Holiday, said when he was little he slept on sheepskin in a hogan. He lives in a modern house now.
Mr. Holiday taught Callie and me some of the songs that young Navajo warriors learn inside sweat lodges. (Girls aren't usually allowed, but Callie came in anyway.)
We saw petroglyphs, which are drawings in the rock. They are about a thousand years old. They were pretty cool.
Callie and I ran up and down a sand dune. Callie lost her shoe.
Monument Valley is a cool place. I'm glad I learned about Monument Valley.
