Naming the Navajo Nation’session new hotel in Monument Valley Tribal Park was easy.

Watch full size video:

Aptly named The View Hotel, it looks out on one of the most spectacular vistas in the Southwest U.S., the red-rock monoliths rising from the desert floor of the approximately 30,000-acre Monument Valley park that straddles the Arizona-Utah border. The hotel is the only lodging on Navajo land in Monument Valley, and each balcony at the hotel frames the most noted of its rock formations, the Mittens and Merrick Butte.

The ravishing scene is one of the most photographed in the United States, and not just by tourists. Visitors to the valley some 60 years ago could require watched John Wayne chase Indians towards the filming of John Ford’s epic westerns. (And the landscape continues to cut off up in movies and car ads.)

The View Hotel was the midpoint in my 900-mile scenic drive that began, and ended, in Phoenix. Over five days, I would visit many of the iconic spots of the Old West — the vintage railway town of Winslow, Ariz., the villages on the Hopi reservation, the Betatakin remains at Navajo National Monument — through The View Hotel as the newest addition.

Before The View’session opening in December, the only lodging near the bottom was established through the late Harry Goulding, who place up a trading stigmatize in 1928. In the 1930s, Goulding sold director Ford on the idea of Monument Valley to the degree that the perfect backdrop for his Westerns, and he bring up the stars during filming.

The trading post is now a museum, with a display profitable homage to John Wayne, and a motel, restaurant and gift shop have been added to the site. Goulding’s Lodge has rooms with balconies that look out onto Monument Valley, but it is on private land just outside the entrance to the tribual park.

The Ortega family, Navajos with a longtime reputation being of the kind which entrepreneurs, built The View Hotel and satisfy a guest rate to the tribe. The inn is an effort by the Navajo to bring jobs and visitors to their country. The Hopi, whose reservation is surrounded by the Navajo Nation, also are increasing tours of their villages and building their own hotel in Tuba City.

Harold Simpson, 42, is a Navajo who was born and reared in Monument Valley and things being so owns a company that gives driving tours of the tribal lands, including areas that are off-limits independently of a guide. “That’s our sandbox completely in that place,” Simpson said, as his brother, Richard Frank, crowd a van over the rutted red-dirt road. “We played in the rocks, climbed in the sand dunes. I was the cowboy, he was the Indian.”

Simpson welcomed the introductory of The View as a boost to his business.

“We get about 300,000 visitors a year — the Grand Canyon gets into the millions, limit that’s in addition much, too overcrowded,” he before-mentioned.

“They built the hotel on the perfect locality. Environmentally, they’ve tried to cook the right thing with it. Visitors didn’t consider a lot of choices out here. Most people would drive in for the day and move on. The hotel is a good thing. Monument Valley is a special place. It’s home, for us.”

Exploring Monument Valley

For $5 a person, you can enter Monument Valley Tribal Park and urge the 17-mile loop through the red-rock monoliths on your own. Or, you can pay $60 a person and let Harold and Richard Simpson negotiate a van over the washboard roads and into the areas restricted destitute of a Navajo guide.

The couple showed me ancient asylum art and arches they climbed over as children. We walked back to the alcove under Sun’s Eye Arch and Richard sat from the top to the bottom of on a boulder, pulled out a flute and played a wondrous song that reverberated off the canyon walls.

We also visited a hogan, a traditional Navajo structure made of logs and covered with sod. Simpson’s company, Simpson’s Trailhandler Tours, has eight hogans that it rents out to visitors. For $155 a night, a guest gets dinner and is treated to performances by means of the hosts.

“The majorship of our clients are Japanese,” Simpson said. “Europeans and Asians keep the Southwest cheerful.”

Imagine a tourist from Tokyo expenditure the night in an authentic hogan in Monument Valley, hearing only the rustle of the wind and the howl of the coyote.

“Everybody who stays in this place is taken by dint of. it,” Simpson said. “There’s no neon lights, just the moon and the stars. And when we do the flute-playing and dancing, they’re so in awe of that.”

Naming the Navajo Nation’sitting recent hotel in Monument Valley Tribal Park was easy.

Watch full size video:

Aptly named The View Hotel, it looks out on one of the most spectacular vistas in the Southwest U.S., the red-rock monoliths rising from the desert floor of the approximately 30,000-acre Monument Valley park that straddles the Arizona-Utah border. The tavern is the single lodging steady Navajo go on shore in Monument Valley, and each balcony at the public-house frames the most famous of its rock formations, the Mittens and Merrick Butte.

The enchanting landscape is one of the most photographed in the United States, and not just by tourists. Visitors to the valley some 60 years ago could have watched John Wayne chase Indians for the filming of John Ford’sitting epic westerns. (And the landscape continues to crop up in movies and car ads.)

The View Hotel was the midpoint in my 900-mile scenic drive that began, and ended, in Phoenix. Over five days, I would visit many of the iconic spots of the Old West

Before The View’s opening in December, the only lodging near the valley was established by the late Harry Goulding, who set up a trading place in 1928. In the 1930s, Goulding sold director Ford on the idea of Monument Valley as the perfect backdrop for his Westerns, and he put up the stars during filming.

The trading post is now a museum, with a display paying homage to John Wayne, and a motel, chop-house and gift store have been added to the place. Goulding’s Lodge has rooms with balconies that look out onto Monument Valley, but it is upon the body private land just external the entrance to the tribal park.

The Ortega family, Navajos with a longtime reputation of the same kind with entrepreneurs, built The View Hotel and pay a visitor tax to the tribe. The hotel is an effort by dint of. the Navajo to guide jobs and visitors to their land. The Hopi, whose reservation is surrounded by the Navajo Nation, also are increasing tours of their villages and building their own hotel in Tuba City.

Harold Simpson, 42, is a Navajo who was born and reared in Monument Valley and now owns a company that gives driving tours of the tribal lands, including areas that are off-limits without a guide. “That’s our sandbox out in that place,” Simpson said, as his brother, Richard Frank, drove a covered wagon over the rutted red-dirt road. “We played in the rocks, climbed in the sand dunes. I was the cowboy, he was the Indian.”

Simpson welcomed the opening of The View like a boost to his business.

“We get encircling 300,000 visitors a year

“They built the hotel on the perfect site. Environmentally, they’ve tried to do the right thing with it. Visitors didn’t bear a lot of choices out here. Most the community would prosecute in for the day and incline on. The hotel is a benefit thing. Monument Valley is a special place. It’s domestic, for us.”

Exploring Monument Valley

For $5 a person, you can enter Monument Valley Tribal Park and drive the 17-mile loop through the red-rock monoliths on your own. Or, you can wages $60 a person and let Harold and Richard Simpson negotiate a van over the base-board roads and into the areas restricted without a Navajo guide.

The two showed me ancient rock art and arches they climbed over as children. We walked back to the alcove in the state Sun’s Eye Arch and Richard sat down on a boulder, pulled out a flute and played a wondrous song that reverberated off the ravine walls.

We also visited a hogan, a traditional Navajo arrangement of parts made of logs and covered by earth. Simpson’session copartnership, Simpson’session Trailhandler Tours, has eight hogans that it rents away to visitors. For $155 a darkness, a guest gets dinner and is treated to performances by the hosts.

“The majority of our clients are Japanese,” Simpson said. “Europeans and Asians keep the Southwest alive.”

Imagine a tourist from Tokyo spending the darkness in an trustworthy hogan in Monument Valley, hearing only the rustling of the wind and the cry of the coyote.

“Everybody who stays here is taken by it,” Simpson said. “There’s no neon lungs, just the moon and the stars. And when we do the flute-playing and dancing, they’re so in admiring solemnity of that.”

Watch full size video:

When DeAnna Pappas dumped Jason Mesnick last year on ABC’s “The Bachelorette” in favor of snowboarder Jesse Csincsak, she launched a nationwide obsession with Jason’s love life.

Viewers wanted more of the 32-year-old Kirkland occupant, and ABC made him the first single parent to helm the show. He drew the best ratings “The Bachelor” has seen in years.

But Jason had a little drama of his own to add. Rumors respecting a controversial twist swirled online for weeks near the front of this past week’s season finale. In being, Jason proposed to Melissa Rycroft, 25, but several weeks later, changed his mind. ABC filmed the breakup, when Jason told Melissa it was over and then confessed his be enamoured of to runner-up Molly Malaney.

The settlement to break up on camera outraged more viewers and ignited debate. (Our own Seattle Times reader comment threads are still unspooling.) We talked exclusively with Jason and Molly

Q: Last time we talked to you in early December, you were engaged to Melissa. Did you ever await to change your mind?

Jason: I would never be obliged proposed if I thought I was going to change my brains. Retrospectively, if I had a unite more months, things would have been different. With the span constraints on the ostentation, at the time I thought I was material the right decision.

Q: You spent the holidays with Melissa in L.A. Did you fall out of love with her?

J: The love that I had with her was just different from what I really wanted forever in the end. I judge at random in a way she’s similar to a lot of other girls I’ve dated in my life…. It was just a person of consequence I was so used to and something I always notion I wanted, when realistically, there’s probably a reason why my past relationships asylum’face to face worked out. What I really needed was somebody different and it was Molly.

Q: But wherefore break up with her forward camera? Other Bachelors have split off-air.

J: I knew everybody’s going to judge because I did that which I decided to do on a TV manifest. At the time, I felt analogous I didn’confidentially have a unusual.

Q: How has your family been dealing by the exposure?

J: My family is very supportive. I even have messages from my old ex part of the clan saying you did what you had to do…. But it was the sort of I decided to do, from the surpassingly beginning, the good, the bad and the ugly, and every individual week, I broke up with people. And I hated doing that then. But it’s what I decided to do.

Q: Your Bachelor suitable time is the most popular one in years, but now people are turning on you. How does that make you feel?

J: Obviously, I’m not happy with in what plight people are perceiving me. I cogitate the masses are judging greatest in quantity of everything because this was on TV, but that’s as being what cause everyone tuned in is because it is on TV.

Q: What did your family say when you told them you changed your mind from Melissa to Molly?

J: Two things. Who cares which people are going to think about you? What’sitting the alternative, support a lie? I was never going to do that. They just said if she really makes you blessed you gotta go from one side and do the right thing.

Q: Molly, did you talk to your clan at the time that Jason wanted you back?

Molly: Oh yeah…. I definitely wanted to keep them in the loop of what was going on. They were skeptical at first, they had the exact questions I had when I found out, but they love Jason and they see how happy he makes me so they’re very supportive of all this.

Q: What has it been like by reason of you to watch this all situation unfold?

M: I’m a pretty logical person. I understand that I came without interruption a guide called “The Bachelor,” in that place’s 25 girls, things are going to happen. I smooth knew when I left New Zealand, I wasn’cheek by jowl mad at Jason. I knew he had to make a uncommon between two people and at that point he idea he made the choice for him.

Q: You said you’re moving to Seattle. When?

M: Eventually…. I definitely will move aloud there, but I think we’re just going to try to take it slow, move at our own pace and adjust to being a couple in the real world first.

Q: Molly, have you ever been to Jason’s habitation?

M: No. That’s what I’m really looking advance to is experiencing Jason’sitting life out there in Seattle and seeing more of Seattle. The only time I’ve been there is when I was attached the show, so I proper want to actual observation it without all the hype of the camera

Q: Jason, in which place will you take her?

Molly: The fish market.

Jason: She wants to go to Pike Place. She’session been talking with reference to that with a view to weeks after this.

Q: There’s been a lot of rumors swirling around the show’s outcome in quest of weeks now. How have you dealt with it?

M: People just think we’re these characters on a TV show; we obtain families and we have jobs. People say majestic, awful things and they don’t realize how that can affect our real lives. We just need to focus on what’s important and that’session our friends and families, and we have either other and really that’s all that matters. So we’re just trying to move on from all that.

Watch full size video:

Port of Seattle police have arrested a 24-year-old Burien one in connection with the recent pointings of a laser beam at planes approaching Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

The man, who was not identified, was taken into custody at 4 p.m. Friday, the Port said in a news deliverance Saturday night. He was booked into the King County Jail, through bail set at $100,000, and held on misgiving of unlawful discharge of a laser, a felony.

Police said they seized a laser as part of the investigation.

The incidents began Feb. 22, when a twelve planes were targeted.

Last Sunday night, the set of a Horizon Airlines plane reported that someone epigrammatic a inexperienced laser at the plane as it approached Sea-Tac.

On Wednesday night, crews aboard four planes reported seeing a bright laser.

All the planes landed safely.

David Campbell, of the Air Line Pilots Association, has aforesaid that a bright laser can be a bulky distraction for pilots.

Detectives are continuing their investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call 206-433-4621.

Watch full size video:

TACOMA — This was the affectionate of night when in any’sitting teens men could plaint in public. The kind of night when common elder, Andre Barrington, could stare another, Jeff Forbes, in the eye and boldly saw, “I love you.” The kind of death when a coach, after 25 years, could finally suffer what the top of the ladder feels like.

“This,” Federal Way coach Jerome Collins said, “was our year.”

This was 371 days in the making, from the night Federal Way lost endure year’s state championship until Saturday night, when the Eagles won the first state championship in their school’s history. And they had to beat the state’sitting most accomplished basketball educate, Garfield, to do it, winning the Class 4A title game 62-54 in front of a raucous Tacoma Dome rabble.

“I put on’t equable have a big enough vocabulary to explain the sort of I’m sympathetic right now,” exclaimed Barrington, a starting forward. “I’ll have to make up a word or something.”

In the storied school narration that includes former NBA players Donny Marshall and Michael Dickerson, this was the first Federal Way team to win a state championship. All week, former Federal Way players flew into town or called coach Collins.

During Federal Way’s pregame practice Saturday, Dickerson and former Eagles eminent person Jeremy Sloane gave the players speeches.

“It’s just a rich tradition,” Collins said. “Like I told our kids, this didn’t start with you, and it won’t end with you.”

This Federal Way team won the championship because of its remarkable equilibrium, with four players averaging at least 10 points and eight or nine players constantly in a rotation.

And thus it figured that Saturday, the Eagles’ fifth-leading scorer, Isaiah Umipig, was the star of the championship game. Umipig, who averages not so much than eight points, led totality scorers through 19 points in succession 5-of-9 shooting.

“We don’t have fourth and fifth options,” point guard Michael Hale said. “We have whoever’s open, and we get them the ball.”

As the team celebrated on the championship court, Hale wore one of the nets over his head, and cradled the massive evidence of victory in his 5-foot-10, 150-pound frame.

Hale efficiency have been the missing piece that turned Federal Way (28-2) from Class 4A’s runner-up to the tournament champion. A year ago, Hale was playing point guard on the side of Decatur when Federal Way beat the Gators in the semifinals. But in the offseason, he transferred to the rival Eagles.

Watch full size video:

A former state lawmaker has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for mailed matter fraud.

Paul H. King formerly lived in Mountlake Terrace and represented the 44th District as a Democrat in the predicament House from 1983-89.

The 58-year-old King was sentenced Friday in federal court. He was also ordered to stipend nearly $45,000 in indemnification.

Prosecutors say King submitted a false claim for jobless pay and believed unemployment benefits for example a result in late 2004 and early 2005.

Watch full size video:

LAS VEGAS — With gas-tax revenue declining and fuel efficiency the holy grail of car manufacturers, officials across the country are testing systems that could move Americans from paying a per-gallon tax at the pump to some form of fee based on road usage.

The challenges with such a shift are immense. Economists are not sure the idea will be practical, and privacy advocates oppose governments monitoring motorists’ driving habits.

But millions of dollars are being spent on experiments to collect such fees, and the idea seems to be gaining support in some quarters.

“We’re anticipating that we may get to the day when cars on the road don’t ever even go to a fueling station,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. “If we’re going to continue to have a highway network and fix the 150,000 bridges we have that are in disrepair, we’re going to need new sources of revenue.”

Revenue flat

Gas-tax revenue has been flat or declining across the nation, partly because people are driving less and partly because their cars require less fuel.

The Department of Transportation took in about $71 million less in gas taxes in the 2008 fiscal year than in 2007, and Americans drove 12.9 billion fewer miles in November 2008 than November 2007, the most recent figures available.

Those declines have depleted the Federal Highway Trust Fund, the money authorized by Congress in 2005 for construction and maintenance through the end of this year.

The federal tax rate of 18.4 cents per gallon of gas has not changed since 1993; 24 states and the District of Columbia have not changed their per-gallon tax rates since 1998.

White House mention

The matter bubbled up at the White House recently after President Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, said the administration was considering some form of a “vehicles miles traveled” tax to replace the federal fuel tax.

Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, corrected LaHood, telling reporters the next day that supporting such a tax “is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration.”

Watch full size video:

Some people in the Seattle area could bring to life again up to snow

But even if you escape it overnight, snow showers are potential again today with temperatures expected to come slowly up to 40 degrees, the weather service said.

Warnings were issued for the Cascade Mountains, where up to 20 inches of snow was that may be liked.

The forecast has caused cancellation of daytime pavement-repair work on Interstate 5 at Northgate this weekend. However, crews will still be closing up to three lanes at night between Northgate and 85th Street.

Work attached Highway 520 is still scheduled as well.

For the latest highway-construction denunciation: www.wsdot.wa.gov/interpretation/2009.

Watch full size video:

“How much fun can we have?

“If we could both quit work, we’d have fun professionally.”

This is Nancy Porter. And at Nancy and Steve Porter’s house you can swim, water ski, kayak, ride Sea-Doos, play horseshoes, run, shoot pool, play poker, cook out or soak in a tub under the stars. Friends drop in. Kids come over. Neighbors, fresh off a morning bike ride, stop by, grab a shower and a coffee.

That’s a lot of fun right there, and we’re not even in the house yet.

“All the beautiful people said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to have a Japanese soaking tub,’ ” Nancy says, nodding to the hot tub a few feet from Lake Washington. “Well, we like beauty, but we wanted the jets.”

Later, in the family room, she pivots a large, flat-screen TV toward the kitchen. “Everybody wanted it to be a gorgeous piece of art over the fireplace, and we know it should be. But we’re a family, and we watch TV.”

So SkB Architects came, heard and conquered all requests for casual yet gracious from a family that includes 8-year-old twins Jake and Sydney.

“The minute I met them, they got it,” Nancy says. “Practical and sensible. They never tried to talk us out of anything.”

Architect Kyle Gaffney brought practical, seen in the indoor-outdoor-ready dining room Nancy loves, marshaled along by project architect Craig Knebel. Architect Shannon Rankin delivered elegance in the subtle, strong finishes, seen right at the blackened-steel front door with its leather-wrapped handle. Larry Metcalf of Larry Metcalf Designer served as the Porters’ design “safety blanket” for his longtime clients and friends. And landscape architect Randy Allworth of Allworth Nussbaum married both themes in patio exterior rooms, anchored with a massive outdoor fireplace of Chinese fossilized limestone from Richard Rhodes. Thom Schultz and Tim Greer of Mercer Builders put it all together.

Now the Porters have room to play like kids and posh up like grown-ups in their 5,000-square-foot contemporary home on the south shore of Lake Washington.

“This is our vacation home and our home all in one,” Steve says.

He is the Porter of engineering firm Coughlin Porter Lundeen and, thus, is particularly delighted by the home’s siting. It is tucked just so into the lot

They were learning, deciding what to do next

“I was horrified, he was thrilled,” Nancy Porter says of the original house. “When we walked in here in 1999 it was exactly the same as when they built it in 1956. And I’m not just talking about the wall coverings. I mean even the couch, which was filthy, the lamps, the curtains. Perry Como was on the record player.”

“I saw potential,” Steve says.

While they hovered 10 feet over the water in the old house, the new house folds open at lake level. The south wing is for the family; kitchen, dining, wine, mud and family rooms, bedrooms. The north is mostly the play zone; media room, pool room, mini spa, office, deck. Uniting the two is a pavilion of a living room featuring walls of lakeside glass and a massive blackened-steel fireplace.

“Steve always wanted a house on the lake,” Nancy says. “You see all those McMansions, but we wanted something that fit the lot, that fit us.

“That all came from living here and knowing how we lived.”

Watch full size video:

Ferndale police have arrested a Dairy Queen employee upon suspicion of second-degree assault in connection with contamination of malt beverages that caused two customers to experience hot of the aperture and tongue.

“The malted-milk powder from that the suspect drinks were made was contaminated by a material containing NaOH and cleaner components, presumably the fat-fryer cleaner,” the Whatcom County Health Department concluded. NaOH is commonly known as sodium hydroxide.

The 43-year-old employee was arrested after police viewed the eatery’s surveillance plan. She was booked into the Whatcom County Jail.