After leaving the Grand Canyon on the morning of July 4th, we set forth on an approximately 8-hour drive to Moab, Utah. We chose the route that took us through Monument Valley, which is just north of the Utah/Arizona border near U.S. Highway 163. The drive is gorgeous, taking us through numerous ecosystems and significant terrain changes.

Monument Valley itself is full of buttes that tower as high as 1000′ above the valley floor. It was made famous in dozens of western movies, from John Ford westerns in the 1930s to Back to the Future III to Disney’s The Lone Ranger in 2013. It’s now the quintessential sign of “The Wild Wild West”. Many might know the view in the photo above to be the point where Forrest Gump decided he didn’t feel like running anymore.

Enjoy some photos from the drive.