This fast weekend ride will take us up through Payson to the I-40 on Friday afternoon late.  We'll have dinner and spend the night in Holbrook at the Best Western Adobe Inn.  We have a block of 10 rooms on hold under GM Roadster at $60+ tax. The hotel phone number is (928) 524-3948 and you must call before Sept. 5 to insure this great rate. 

We will be departing after an early breakfast in order to arrive at the historic Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado in time for the semi-annual rug and art auction. Hubbell is a National Historic Site and is the longest continuously operating trading post in the United States.  It also provides an excellent source of extremely high quality Native American crafts and is particularly renowned for its "rug room". It is also possible to tour the original home of the Hubbell family.  

The Friends of Hubbell Auction provides an opportunity for the public to buy directly from the artists while ensuring that the craftsmen get a fair price for their work. (The minimum bid for each piece is what Hubbell would have paid the artist.) Lunch can be purchased from the food vendors set up by the trading post.  If tradition holds, there will also be ample table vendors offering amazing jewelry and other crafts. We will leave Ganado mid-afternoon and head to Window Rock for a photo op under the famous hole.  

Window Rock is the capital of the Navajo Nation and is home to the Navajo Arts and Craft Center and Museum.  After a brief stop there, we will head north along the western edge of New Mexico - but still on the reservation- in order to follow Canyon de Chelly into Chinle from the east. If daylight allows, we can make a couple of stops at canyon overlooks to whet your appetite for the next morning's adventure.  We will have dinner and spend the night at the Holiday Inn in Chinle. We have a block of 10 rooms under the name of GM Roadster for $79 + tax.  To book, please call 866-306-5449 before Sept 5 or the rooms will be released and the price not guarenteed.

Sunday morning we will take a half-day SUV tour of Canyon de Chelly (pronounced "Shey") with the required Navajo guide. We have negotiated a reduced rate of $45 per person for the 3 hour trip. At the beginning of the canyon, the walls are only a few meters high, but they rise sharply after a short distance so that there is only one possible entrance for vehicles, next to the river. A sandy track leads alongside the wash to the scattered settlements and ancient cliff dwellings and pictographs. The canyon floor remains green and fertile all year round; this, together with the protection offered by the rocky walls and the beauty of the landscape explain why the valley has been inhabited for so long - from primitive peoples 2000 years ago, through the Anasazi civilization of the twelfth century which occupied a large area of the Southwest before suddenly disappearing, to the Navajo who have lived here for the last 300 years.

After lunch at the National Park Service Thunderbird Lodge cafeteria, we will head straight back to Phoenix by the fastest route - arriving sometime after 6:00 pm.  Costs for hotels and the tour will be posted shortly.  You decide how much you spend at the auction.