After our visit to Fort Verde we drove north to the head of Oak Creek Canyon so Libba could take some video footage there.  The light was a little flat for her purposes but she got some good stuff anyway.  The first Hollywood film shot in the Sedona area, in 1923, featured Oak Creek Canyon as its main location.  The film, The Call Of the Canyon, based on a Zane Grey novel, was directed by Victor Fleming.  Long thought lost, a print of it was discovered in Russian archives in 2010.

We continued north from there to the Hopi Reservation.  Hopi art was an inspiration to the artist Libba is making her documentary about.  The main settlement on the reservation is set amidst a vast empty landscape, hours away from any other town, and is a depressing place, like many Indian reservations.  We were not inclined to linger long there.

We drove west looking for a place to stay the night but had a hard time finding one.  At Tuba City, in the Navajo Indian Reservation that surrounds the Hopi lands, the most likely spot, all the motels were filled.

We had to drive to the outskirts of Flagstaff to find a Travelodge with a couple of free rooms.  It made for a long day but at the end of it we were treated to the sunset above by way of compensation.

[Photographs © 2014 Libba Marrian]

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