Is this where we should be living?

Weds. July 30th.  Mesa Verde to Taos.

Posted by Neil for a change...

Really bad night.  45 degrees, four of us huddled in two cot beds.  Quite an adventure!  Perhaps we have to accept that we are not really equipped for camping with one two man tent and one sleeping bag.  The Civic size limitation, but a small price to pay for great gas mileage.  And we were so grimy and sleepy, it was all the more delightful when we checked into the wonderful Indian Hills Inn (2 minutes walk from the Taos Plaza- a real deal!) and found clean sheets, hot shower, good internet connection, electricity for charging our appliances, and (sadly) TV for the kids!  Motels just are much more practical when moving along at a clip as we are... but we will give the camping one more try when we get to the flat part of the country!

The monkeys didn't want to leave the Mesa, but we certainly did!

Wasn't tempted... somewhat ironic find though!

The bottom stretch of Colorado is absolutely gorgeous- Alpine valleys, and these lovely old barns.  But so green that I suspect it might be cold in the Winter!

Plentiful food supplies for hunter-gatherers...

and great views!

Big skies...

and very different concerns from suburban NJ...

Carson National Park in New Mexico.  Flag at half-mast for two fire-fighters killed in California last week.

As we dropped down into New Mexico, we went back to desert scrub, but with the benefit of these beautiful wildflowers.

Fifteen miles out of Taos we visited  an Earthship!  These houses are self-sufficient (ie. off the grid) and low Environmental impact.  You can see here the adobe walls peppered with bottles and cans for decoration/ structural support.  

The houses are built with old tires, which makes for really thick walls, are stable interior temperatures, and lots of solar panels to generate a lot of energy from a really plentiful NM resource!

This is not a Roman bathtub, but the central cistern for storing run-off water.  NM only gets 8-12" of rain a year, but by careful processing (using the water four times) these houses can manage with that.

The kids were of differing opinions, but I was sold on the project.  One day I'd love to build my own house, away from it all, using some of these methods.  Can't be worse than living in an old house where something always needs fixing (sorry Trish and Jake, currently inhabiting "the Blue House"!)

We crossed the Rio Grande again (Texas seems a lifetime ago) on a fine steel 30's bridge...

I held on tight to the kids...

and rewarded them for their patience with something cold from the very alternative ice cream bus woman.  Getting very mellow in with the happy people in Taos!  Then dinner in the Plaza, deep cleansing, and an early night!

Driving round and round 4 corners

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Canyon de Chelly, Arizona - Mesa Verde, Colorado

We had coffee at "The Changing Woman" cafe with our California friends before we left - it was a bit hard for the kids to say goodbye. They have missed their friends dearly and it was good for them to have some company for 48 hours. While I am at it, a big thank you to those friends and family out there who do write to them; it makes a big difference (and it helps us give them meaning to what they are doing and seeing... thank you!).

We were going to take the scenic Monument Valley route, but why go out of our way when we saw mesas like this just the same?

We followed this truck, jeep, motorcycle, pop-up camper for 30 miles. We speculated why anyone would need all this gear...
Yes, it's Four Corners, folks! Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. It had to be done...and it was on route... (kids were feeling it)

Even Neil got into the spirit of this (Eleni, not so much...) 

Our glam girl singing in the backseat

Oh yeah, baby!
Alex singing - Is it OK that he knows almost all the words to Bohemian Rhapsody?

And then, somewhere around 1 PM, we arrived at Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde was inhabited by Native Americans 1, 400 years ago. Originally the Ancestral Puebloans lived above these cliffs, but in the late 1190s to 1270s they built communities into the sandstone and shale. they lived here for less than 100 years, and then for reasons that can only be speculated upon (drought, crop failure, enemies, overuse of land, over population), they left and traveled south. This site is the first man made National Monument to be preserved in the USA. 

We set up our site at the campsite (and forgot to consider the elevation. So much for that learning curve. That is a different story)

The Spruce Tree House walk...
Eleni in WOW mode!
A Kiva (we all climbed in one!). These are gathering places, ceremonial or religious rooms that were beneath the ground.

Where fire was last year and soon you will see photos of where it was this year...
The canyon where the famous Cliff Palace is (you can just see it in the top left corner)

Here is the current day fire - you can barely make out the water plane in the smoke. This was a canyon over from the Cliff Palace
Eleni and her notes!
Cliff Palace
The fire wasn't close enough for us to evacuate, yet...but it did change our plans to stay another day (oh, and the altitude!). At least it wasn't because we almost ran out of gas...

Alex and I went to hear the Ranger talk at 9 PM, but were far more impressed with the stars! 

And there you go.

"The most sacred place on Earth"

Monday, July 28, 2008

Joseph Campbell said Canyon de Chelly was "the most sacred place on Earth." 

We decided to try the White House hike with the kids - It was 1 and 1/4 mile down and then 1 and 1/4 mile up. Daunting signs like this and the fact that it was a 800 foot drop (OK, sloping drop) made us reconsider our plan several times early on, but we went for it anyway!

Here is what we saw as we entered the canyon! You can see the river bed here and off to the right were fields of corn (There are parts of the canyon marked off because Navajos live here)
One of our many breaks in the rare shade.
Heading into the meadow
A scream from Eleni here! "Look guys! It's the meadow! Now we can see the donkey!"

Ok, here is where the faint of heart need to either skip the next photo or brave it...the answer to the question, "how did Eleni get down the canyon?" is featured in the next photo. Yes, donkey pooh!
Top right hand corner. I can't tell you how many deposits we counted to keep her going...
The canyon floor! We were feeling mighty proud of ourselves at this point (we had not yet considered the return trip). It took us about an hour to get here.

The White House - ancient Anasazi dwellings

On the route back, Eleni and I took cover in a cave. The hike up was long and arduous, but Alex and Eleni did it all by themselves! No help or "uppys!" (pick me up!) What helped us out...gum, of course!

We met some sheep on the way up!

Overall, one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of our journey. And while it did not touch any of us as particularly sacred (as Joseph Campbell's quote implies), but we were definitely in awe. This is a place I would like to return to someday.

We didn't eat here, but it's a pretty ironic sign to find in the middle of Chinle, Navajo Nation (the town next to the Canyon)
On our way home, we made one more stop to see Spider Rock.

Legend has it that Spider Rock is where Spider Woman originated - she taught many of the Native American tribes to weave.

This spot is very close to where the famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) Kit Carson forced the Navajos to surrender in 1864. The Navajos' raids on American settlers were seen as a threat and the Navajos were rounded up and forced to make "the Long Walk" as Prisoners of War to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. Finally, in 1868, after many complaints from the Navajos of the horrible conditions there, the Navajos were allowed to return to their homeland.

This is where we stayed for two nights - it's a large hogan with eight sides. It is the real thing - it belonged to the Navajo Grandparents of our campground owner, Howard. It's over 100 years old! The floor is just the red dirt you can see on the outside - we were covered in it each morning! But, we enjoyed it thoroughly and it certainly helped put our consumer society in perspective if this space housed a family!

Many Navajos (their real name is Dine) still live in these and you can see them clustered together along with trailers as many still live in their family groups. 

Can you see the CDC monkeys?

After our hike and our lunch, we returned to the campsite. Alex and Eleni's friends from California were waiting for them and the four had a good 5 hour romp! They created a store called the Beetle Boys and tried to sell art work and cacti pieces (that had already fallen off) to people at the campsite. I think they made 50 cents each (from parents...and one kindly neighbor). We toasted smores again and enjoyed the company of an adventurous California family.

Cherry Pie in a Hopi Reservation

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Alex’s first words this morning, “Why can’t we go to Michigan?” He has been involved in the route planning and this is his latest dream.

Tuba City is named after Tuuvi, a Hopi Indian who converted and became a Mormon. Perhaps it was a similar story to Pine Springs. We had breakfast at the local, Kate’s. We were definitely out of place there, but we’re getting comfortable in our awkwardness. It was by far one of the best meals on this trip….great coffee and haveros rancheros.

We bought gas here!

We passed a sign last night that advertised dinosaur tracks. How could we pass up this chance? So we retraced our route for 5 miles and saw tracks, claws, and bones.

Eleni’s latest refrain, “I want to be a cowgirl!”

We left Tuba City for the greater wide open spaces where you can see the sky for a full 360 degrees. We passed fields of corn supported by springs in the canyons, men walking along on the road all by themselves hitch-hiking (the only place in the USA where we’ve seen people walking on the side of 2 lane highways), and a school bus stop in the middle of seemingly nowhere.

The Hopi Reservation is right in the middle of the Navajo Reservation. You cannot take photo of the land, people, or even the in the museum.

It takes around ten minutes to walk around the museum. Neil and I were taken by the turn of the century photographs, and the kids were mostly interested in the replication of the ancient Pueblo buildings and the kachina "dolls" (the Hopi’s special protectors). Neil took the kids for a while so that I could look around some more and I fell into a lengthy conversation with Mike, who was sitting at the desk guarding the museum. In line with respecting their privacy I won’t relate our whole discussion, but I think it’s fitting to mention that Mike was in the Marines and served for 3 and ½ years in Vietnam. I related the fact that my Dad served in the Marines, and I think that that fact opened the door to our half hour conversation. 

The other thing that I'll share here because it will help set the scene for where we are and the controversial issues at hand, is that Mike joined the Bureau of Indian Affairs when the major land claim clash between the Hopi and the Navajo intensified in the 70s (this has only been officially settled 2 years ago and some Navajo are referring to this as the second relocation). Mike’s first job was to find the USA sanctioned borders from the 1880s. After his first day, he returned to the BIA and told them he couldn’t find any posts. And so it continued. Eventually, he only found one of the posts, and it was unlike any one that he had been trained to find. Border markers are usually brass plated and entrenched deep in the earth, but on this border the US government only used cedar logs with the numbers burnt on them. According to Mike, the Navajo had clearly encroached on Hopi territory. He was trained as a Ranger and he had to carry a gun with him because of the strains between the two tribes. Once the border was surveyed, he helped with putting up the fence. The workers would put the fence up during the day and then the Navajo side would tear it and take it down that night or the next day. Tension ran high; he was almost killed by some Navajos one day, but he told them, “I didn’t decide to do this, this is the Federal Government’s doing. This is just my job.”

I left the museum and found my family eating cherry pie and ice-cream in the restarunt. Ironic?

Further down the road we stopped at Hubbell's Trading Post, one of the original and certainly most authentic remaining examples. 

Above the door
We saw lots of stray dogs in Navajo Nation. This one limped...

We drove further, passed through the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, and found our next home close by. This is the sunset we watched.

The kids found friends and played hide-and-seek for over an hour in the cactus and sagebrush terrain! 

We were even invited for smores for an after dinner treat! Sorry for the list like sequence here, but we're on borrowed time and energy usage as it is!