Road to Gallup - Part 3: El Rancho Hotel

Picture of the Day for 10/28/2013. After much meandering, we arrived in Gallup! Based on the recommendation of our chatty storekeeper friend, we had lunch at the historic El Rancho Hotel which, in its heyday, was home to big-name movie stars while they were filming westerns in the area. John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, etc. The walls of the 2nd floor of the hotel are completely lined with autographed photos from the stars. This is such a fabulous place! It looks unchanged from the 1940s and 1950s. We spent a fun couple of hours eating and exploring there. 



















After lunch, we spent some time driving around the city since my nephew Rob is serving his LDS mission there and we wanted to get a feel for the place. Unfortunately, that's all we had time to do since we wanted to make Monument Valley before nightfall. Yeah, that didn't happen considering the vast distance we had to drive through the Navajo reservation. I'm afraid Monument Valley and the Four Corners will have to wait for another trip. It's too bad it didn't stay light longer since the landscape is so beautiful. At sunset we drove through a red rock canyon that had turned pink in the waning light. It was ethereal and other-worldly and wonderful.