After looking at the Arizona map and reading the guide books and the Forum, I have a tentative route:
fly into Phoenix, arrive late morning
head north, stop at Montezuma Castle, go to Sedona and hotel;
next day, head east - Walnut Canyon, Rock Art Ranch, Petrified National Forest, stay ?Winslow?
next: head north, Hubbell Trading Post, Canyon de Chelly, stay Chinle?
next: Monument Valley, Navajo National Monument, Stay?
next: Page/Antelope Canyon (a late day tour); what else in that area?
next: south to Cameron, enter Grand Canyon from east entrance, stay at one of the hotels in GC
stop at Wupatki Nat'l Monument on way south, stay one more night in Sedona
leave the next day from Phoenix (avoiding one-way car rental)

I haven't gone back over the many helpful recommendations above concerning the approximate amounts of time to allot to some of these attractions and will try to do that over this coming weekend. We do not enjoy racing from one place to another just to have "done" it, and can usually find miscellaneous unplanned things to do/see wherever we are, so if we have "leftover" time on any given day, that would probably be ok. But I'd appreciate input from anyone on the tentative plan so far. Thanks very much for all your help.

For Monument Valley, you can stay at The View or...the place more or less across the highway from the visitor center. :-) The name escapes me at the moment.

There are several motels in Kayenta as well - we stayed at the Wetherill Inn.
http://www.wetherill-inn.com

Lee Ann

I suggest staying at La Posada in Winslow. Read about it here: http://laposada.org

If you do, investigate other dining possibilities as the food at the hotel restaurant was just average and service less than great. In any case, Winslow isn't the culinary capital of the universe, I suspect, but looking for a place to eat is as good an excuse for scoping out the town as any.

"Page/Antelope Canyon (a late day tour); what else in that area?"

Try to get a tour as close to noon to get the best light for the Upper Antelope Slots canyon tour.

Lake Powell has short to all day boat tours.

Horseshoe Bend hike is only 1 1/2 mile round trip hike. http://www.nps.gov/glca/planyourvisi...oe%20Bend2.pdf

You can take a tour of the Glen Canyon Dam.

Swimming spots at Lake Powell.

You can rent all kinds of water crafts.

Utahtea

Hi LeeAnn - I checked out The View after seeing other comments here; it looks beautiful and aptly named, but they're a little coy about room rates. I looked at the Wetherill Inn and couldn't get the reservations page to load, so I don't know their rates either, but will probably give them both a call to get an estimate of cost. The View might well be our splurge hotel for the trip.

MmePerdu, La Posada is on my radar and looks like a fun place to stay; I'm also going to look farther east (past Rock Art Ranch) to see if there's anyplace near Chambers. I totally agree with you that scoping out the town with a goal of finding a great place to eat is a worthwhile activity.

UtahTea - Your suggestion of the Horseshoe Bend hike is perfect and has been added to our itinerary! I had looked at the websites of various tour companies for Antelope Canyon and noticed interesting and subtle differences. One, in particular, mentioned tours at different times of day and that the 3 pm tour was likely to have fewer people packed into the narrow spaces, since the avid photographers want to be there when the dramatic shafts of light are present. I'm willing to trade loss of light shafts for fewer people, so going for the Horseshoe Bend hike in the morning will be a perfect accompaniment to the late afternoon Antelope tour. thanks so much for suggesting it.

We've decided to postpone the trip until May of 2016 for various reasons so I have plenty of time to polish our plans, but I really like having a general outline of what we hope to do, and thank you all for your advice. I really appreciate it.
Gail