By the time we arrive, the Anasazi Inn Café, just outside Kayenta, is packed with the local lunch crowd. Shirley has a delicious mutton stew, and I eat the beef soup—made that morning—and we share an order of Navajo fry bread, a puffy dough that is fried in oil. I eat so much of the bread on the trip, I probably put on about 10 pounds.

Reenergized by our lunch, we drive to Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, near the Utah border. We've arranged to meet a Navajo guide, Richard Frank, for a tour of Monument Valley organized by his company, Simpson's Trailhandler Tours. Visitors can take a self-guided drive around the valley—best known as the setting for many John Wayne movies and Marlboro commercials—but Richard shows us the restricted area that outsiders can only visit with a Navajo guide. He points to a sacred alcove where he sometimes chants and plays his flute, and he tells us stories about his childhood.

NAVAJO NATION See both hardship and incredible beauty while touring the Arizona portion of the Navajo homeland. Photos by reader Kara Lucchesi of San Diego, Calif. • Launch the slide show

After several hours, Richard takes us to meet his brother, Harold Simpson, at his family's hogan, a traditional Navajo house with eight sides that's built out of logs and packed with mud on the outside. The brothers rent out their Navajo Traditional Hogan to visitors for the night. Richard and Harold make a fire for us and cook Navajo tacos, a delicious take on the Mexican dish that substitutes fry bread for the tortillas. As the moon rises, Harold starts chanting and drumming, and another man, Byron, surprises us by coming out of the hogan dressed in powwow regalia. He invites me to dance with him by the fire, and even though I don't know the steps, I almost feel Native American. Shirley is giggling so much, she forgets to take my picture!

Richard helps us get set up in the hogan, stoking the woodstove while we spread mats and sleeping bags on the sand floor. Lying on my back in the firelight, I look up at the logs framing the inside of the structure and think about building one. I'm envious of Shirley—she has her own hogan, which her family uses for special occasions.

Lodging

• Navajo Traditional Hogan, Monument Valley, 435/727-3362, trailhandlertours.com, $155 per person

Food

• Anasazi Inn Café Hwy. 160, 10 miles west of Kayenta, 928/697-3793, anasaziinn.com, mutton stew $6

Activities

• Antelope Canyon Tours 22 S. Lake Powell Blvd., Page, 928/645-9102, antelopecanyon.com, $32
• Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park Rte. 42, four miles east of Hwy. 163, 435/727-5874, navajonationparks.org/htm/monumentvalley.htm, $5
• Simpson's Trailhandler Tours Monument Valley, 435/727-3362, trailhandlertours.com, $86