Sad sad sad to have the hit the road back home. California is like another country, a much better laid back more tolerant one than the Crapfest we were about to have to endure. Ned Can I Play Joyner drove back with me; Nick stayed in Cali to visit family. Once we drove over the Sierra Nevadas and hit the south end of Lake Tahoe in Nevada it was crapfest on steroids- casinos, shopping malls, huge glaring neon signs, attractions for fat middle class idiot Americans and their equally fat stupid kids, and traffic traffic traffic and more traffic.
We headed south, on our way to mystical Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona. Nevada has a stark emptiness punctuated by its horrible horrible towns where you can gamble, legally hire a prostitute, and get married all in one convenient location. And of course eat at a chain restaurant and sleep in a chain hotel. In contrast to California, it's like Nevada has outlawed any and all local businesses. Depressing and boozhie as fuck. 
Canyon de Chelly was in stark contrast. A national monument in the heart of the Navajo Nation Reservation, crapfest was nowhere to be seen. There was no entry fee, the only Rangers we saw were at the visitor center, and the majority of people exploring the canyon were Navajo. Navajo have been farming and raising sheep in the canyon for as long as they've been in the area, and much of the canyon is closed off to tourists because there are active farms and sacred sites throughout the canyon floor. Mystical is the word that comes to mind.