A visit to Monument Valley by Steve and Jan Adair proved to be stunning, overwhelming, and a photographer’s dream.
By Skip Tate, Associate Editor
November 2021
Each summer, Yellowstone National Park hires hundreds of workers to help maintain the park and accommodate the thousands of visitors who flock there for vacation. For the past four years Steve Adair, F479672, has been one of those employees. He works in the general store in Mammoth Hot Springs, a small shop built in 1895 that offers food, drinks, ice cream, and souvenirs. He and his wife, Jan, live in their RV for five months, and it makes for a wonderful way to spend their summers. While he’s working the cash register or stocking supplies, Jan grabs her camera and spends the days in the woods, photographing the animals, flowers, and all the natural beauty the park has to offer.
The red sandstone mesas and buttes that give Monument Valley its name have become an iconic backdrop for movies, as well as an idyllic point of focus for photographers such as Jan Adair, who visited the site with her husband, Steve, while they were on their way to Yellowstone National Park this summer.
With their permanent home being in Leesburg, Florida, the trip to Yellowstone each April is a three-week excursion, so they try to take a different route each year and make it a mini adventure. This year, their chosen path took them through Monument Valley, the massive plateau that stretches across the Arizona-Utah border. Over the course of millions of years, wind and water have eroded the landscape, leaving large rock formations that jut from the ground like rough-cut sculptures. The landscape is both stunning and overwhelming, with the red sandstone monuments contrasting beautifully with the blue sky, both of which seem to extend forever in every direction.
The earliest known people to live in the area were Ancestral Puebloans, who settled there around 1200 A.D. Some of their art and building structures still exist, preserved by the arid climate. Today, the valley falls within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation and is maintained by Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation.
The red sandstone mesas and buttes that give Monument Valley its name have become an iconic backdrop for movies, as well as an idyllic point of focus for photographers such as Jan Adair, who visited the site with her husband, Steve, while they were on their way to Yellowstone National Park this summer.
While a 14-mile dirt road offers a wide-angle view of the area, the Navajo offer narrated Jeep tours through the valley that provide a greater history of the area and bring visitors up close to the buttes and mesas. Some outfits even offer horseback tours.
“When we booked our trip, I had hoped that Monument Valley would open up, but due to [COVID-19], it was still closed,” Jan said. “It was still beautiful to see the area. I was able to find a Navajo guide that showed us many of the highlights in the area of interest to a photographer.”
Many people are familiar with the monuments from photographs or the movies. The monuments are so iconic they’ve become the backdrop for a number of films, from John Wayne’s Stagecoach to the scene in Forrest Gump when he decides to stop running.
The red sandstone mesas and buttes that give Monument Valley its name have become an iconic backdrop for movies, as well as an idyllic point of focus for photographers such as Jan Adair, who visited the site with her husband, Steve, while they were on their way to Yellowstone National Park this summer.
The Adairs have explored many other areas as well. “When we are not doing the Yellowstone thing, we enjoy trips in the RV to many of the Florida beaches and Disney World,” Jan said. “Additionally, we have traveled in the RV from Florida to New England and to Southern California. We have done two trips with Fantasy RV Tours, one for the Rose Parade and one for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. We have traveled in everything from a monstrously big fifth-wheel, a Type A motorhome, and now a pull-behind trailer.
“We have really put some miles on the road in an RV, and totally enjoy every inch of the way.”