UIAD GOES TO THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST

Don’t forget to click on Archive on the left of this page to see the other posts of May and April. On your mobile phones, click the upper left-hand corner to find Archive.  Tomorrow takes us to our last month (just 18 days) of June, taking this blog to its first end, with more to follow in October! __________________________ After our splendid visit of Antelope Canyon, we'll return to our hotel in Page and leave the following morning to have another extraordinary day (Aren't they all extraordinary?) visiting  The Grand Canyon,  on June 29th! (Oh dear, our trip will soon be coming to an end.  😢) The  Grand Canyon Erosion from the Colorado River formed the Grand Canyon.  The Canyon walls are made up of different layers of rocks, each dating back to different eras millions of years ago. The Grand Canyon :  How long is it? How deep is it? How wide is it? - -The Grand Canyon is 446 km long (277 miles).  --The Grand Canyon is about ...

This 10th day of our trip, June 27th is yet another day with lots to do and see.  After Lake Powell and Horseshoe Bend in the morning and lunch in Page, we head to Antelope Canyon for an extraordinary walk inside this canyon.  I'm sure everyone has seen a photo of Antelope Canyon.   I'll give you just one.  No video.  There are so many photos and videos, but I'll give you just this one photo. To whet your appetite . However, I'm looking forward to putting the students' photos on the blog after we return to Grenoble.  But I'll tell you about the second life of this blog later.  😀 Antelope Canyon  is a slot canyon , a narrow canyon formed by the wear of water rushing through the rock .  A slot canyon is significantly deeper than it is wide . Antelope  Canyon is on Navajo land .  It is not possible to visit the Canyon independently.  It has been accessible by tour only since 1997, when the Navajo made it a Navajo Tri...

WARNING:  A LONG POST TODAY.   It's time to spend some time with the Navajo people. You can read some of it today and return to this page on another day if you like. The Navajo Nation ,  a nation within a nation, lies in three states: Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. "The Navajo Nation" means the   land,  kinship ,  language, religion, and the right of its people to govern   themselves. Members of the Nation are often known as "Navajo" but traditionally call themselves   "Diné"   (sometimes spelled in English " Dineh ") which means  "The People" in Navajo .   The land area of the reservation is  71,000 km2 (27,413 square miles) making it by far the largest Indian reservation in the United States.     According to the 2016  census , the  Navajo Nation  had  a population   of 356,890 .  Nearly half of the enrolled members of the Navajo tribe live outside the nationʼs ...

Day 40 (D-21)  Enjoy listening to this Navajo music.  Youtube/Youchoose.   Navajo children singing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEO5DzObWCk Traditional Navajo Love Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLx1SE3vTOo Navajo Flute, Flying over Monument Valley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4FSZmn7r1Y Horseshoe Bend While you listen, here's a picture of Horseshoe Bend, which is a meander of the Colorado River, located 4 miles southwest of Page.  And that too is on our list of places to see! By Vixip - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49264678 More on the Navajo tomorrow. My best, Jane

Page, Arizona  was created in  1957  to house the workers and their families during the construction of nearby  Glen Canyon Dam  on the Colorado River.  Its  44 km2 site  was  obtained in a land exchange with the Navajo Indian tribe.  The tribe was given land in New Mexico in exchange for this site that would become Page, a city at the top of Manson Mesa (a mountain summit)  at an elevation of 1300 m and 180 m above Lake Powell .  2018 population of Page :  7247 of which 57% is white and 34% Native American. Before you read about Lake Powell, maybe you would like to take a look.  My travellers have the possibility of flying over Lake Powell.   Would you like to have the experience in front of your computer screen?  So beautiful.   I repeat: travelers may prefer to wait until June.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esgjC6gpSmg Glen Canyon Dam / Lake Powell Page ha...

Monument Valley is located in the two states, Utah and Arizona.   However, it is not a National Park.  The Navajo Nation's governing body, the Tribal Council, objected to maki it a national park; it wanted to protect the valley's Indian residents and preserve scarce grazing land .  In 1958, the council voted to set aside 29,817 acres of Monument Valley as the first-ever tribal park , to be run by the Navajo on the national park model. Read more:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/behind-the-scenes-in-monument-valley-4791660/#aoTI3eXuzKwxtbhj.99 ___________________________________________________________ Arizona will be our fourth state to visit.  It's called The Copper State and it has two other nicknames but you'll need to wait until the end of this post to learn those names.   Phoenix is the capital and we already saw that this state has a  population of over 7 million. The flag of Arizona It's interesting to read that the...

QUESTIONS FOR A CHAMPION!   Do you know the answers to these questions concerning Monument Valley?   Read the questions first, then watch the video to find the answers.  No subtitles, but I think you can find most of the answers...or, if necessary, pause, repeat or slow down the speed of the recording. 1.  What's the name of the American film director who shot many films in Monument Valley? 2.  What was the name of the first movie he shot there and who was the actor to become a famous movie star after appearing in this film? 3.  How many films did this movie director make in Monument Valley? 4.  Did the American settlers come to Monument Valley?  Whose territory is it?   5.  What do they say about the landscape in a Western? 6.  Who convinced this director to come to Monument Valley to make his 1939 film there? 7.  Who were hired to play the roles of Comanches and Apaches? 8.  Why did thi...

Day 36   (D-25) marks the 9th day (Wednesday, June 26) of our travels in the USA and we'll leave Moab to head for Monument Valley.    Just imagine: we'll be in our coach going down this road! By Averette at en.wikipedia, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?      curid=4078990 Who has never seen this photo before? And this one??  Some of my students have !  It goes back to 2010 when I took a group to the Far West and I visited Monument Valley for the first time.   A fabulous place.    Unforgettable.  Amazing. Spellbinding*.  Stunning*. Majestic.  Fantastic. Captivating...   Beautiful beyond words. In English we say:  "A picture is worth a thousand words."  So, here are two more pictures: you have two thousand words!  And you won't need a dictionary!* Have a nice day. My best, Jane PS.   If this post...

Day 35 (D-26) Horses:  Music, Art and Literature of the American West Mustangs, pintos and paints are horses.  A mustang is a free-roaming horse of the American west that first descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish.  Pinto is Spanish for Paint. A song for today, I Ride an Old Paint :  I Ride an Old Paint is a traditional cowboy song, collected and published in 1927 by Carl Sandburg (a famous American poet) in his American Songbag . He described the song as one of a man in harmony with the values of the American West.  Member of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.  Many have sung this song. Listen here to Johnny Cash here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUFbDqp28so&list=RDqUFbDqp28so You can listen to Linda Ronstadt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAHGbhmGttQ Don't worry if you can't understand all the lyrics.     It's one of my favorites. ...