Church Rock
Navajos have a name for beauty—they call it Nizhoni. People of this town of around 1,100 live surrounded by beauty year-round in the heart of Navajo country, a short distance from Gallup (less than 10 miles due east on I-40) and close to the ancient canyon walls of Red Rock State Park.
The park is known as a balloonist’s paradise. The first weekend of December each year, more than 200 hot-air balloons from across the Southwest and around the world float along the park’s canyon in the Annual Red Rock Balloon Rally. It could be called a photographer’s paradise, too, not only for the balloon event but also for the canyon walls that come to life in the sun’s blaze like rainbow-colored giants. The red rocks are cemented sands of a fossilized beach, colored by dissolved iron seeping down form more recent volcanic activity, worn smooth by Anasazi residents who carved handholds in the walls to reach the mesa tops.
Movie producers once filmed Western epics in the region. But people of today’s Church Rock, where winds caress red rocks and the Southwest’s skies open to a starry sky unobstructed by big city glare, know that life in their corner of the world is epic every day.