Rocking Four States At Once in the Navajo Nation

Up in the morning looking for a drive-through car wash.  We definitely owed it to Big Red after taking her down that dirt road to Chaco Canyon.  Apparently drive-throughs are not a thing in this part of the country.  Maybe it's because of this being a drought area, but they did have the self-spray washes.  I don't know which one uses more water.  Anyway, we didn't find one in town, so we headed to a town called Shiprock, named after the rock named Shiprock that is just outside of town.

This rock was easily seen from outside of town on the main road.  I think we were on US 64, but I've been asleep since then, so . . .  It was visible through Bruce's window, so the shots aren't the best.  For those who don't know, when we're traveling, I take pictures through the windows while we're driving.  Bruce will often slow down when he sees me taking pictures, but unless we're the only traffic on the road or there are pull-outs on that road, he can't stop just because I want a picture.  So, the foreground may be a little blurry.

Anyway, when we got to Shiprock, we headed to the rock.  I kept taking pictures on the way to get the different faces.  It's a huge and lovely formation!

Down another dirt road, we finally came face to face with the rock and with this sign.

I respect the First Nations people, so we didn't go past that sign.  I did like the rock wall to the side of Shiprock.  It will likely be falling soon.

I got a final shot of the back of the rock through the back window as we headed to the Four Corners Monument.

The Four Corners Monument is one of those things we read about in elementary school - at least in my little school in Kentucky.  I remember two of them that I always wanted to see.  Tierra del Fuego and the Four Corners.  I was in Tierra del Fuego (Ushuaia/End of the World) a couple of years ago, when I went to Antarctica.  The Four Corners monument has been significantly out of the way with few roads in every time we've come by here before.  But, going up through Farmington made it much less of a side trip, so this was it.  I knew it wasn't the big thing that I remembered from my childhood geography books, but it was neat to see.  If you go, keep in mind that it is in the Navajo Nation, and they charge an admission fee.  Currently, the Navajo Nation fee is $8 per person.  

This is pretty much it.  Flags surrounding the monument and sales booths encircling the entire site.  Each set of booths is in a different state.  We got something from Colorado and Utah.

The monument has this central circle and each of the four states with their state seals.

Bruce's feet in all four states at once.

It's not a really busy place, but people come in and out at a consistent pace.  This was the best shot I could get without other people.

A few shots along the road on the way to the next location.  The landscape is starting to get interesting!

This set of formations looked like a face to me.

The smaller of these formations looked like it was flipping the bird!

The drive into the Navajo National Monument was paved, an the view from the first pull-out was beautiful.

We went into the visitor center to get a map and information, as we usually do when entering a national property.  Usually, we encounter park rangers who are happy to tell us about their area of interest.  This park was very different.  There were a few people milling around the gift shop and a park ranger sitting behind a desk not engaging with anyone.  When I asked if there was a map, he just pulled one out and placed it on the counter, not saying anything.  I looked at the map for a minute and asked if there were any cliff dwellings we could see without any large hikes, he just said, "No."  So we walked behind the visitor center, thinking we'd get just a few pictures.

Some rocks with dinosaur tracks from the area have been moved up to the visitor center.

There is a miniature of a sweathouse.  Hot stones are placed inside and the naked bather enters before a blanket is placed over the opening to keep the heat in.  After sweating for a period of time, the bather gets out and either gets a rinse with fresh water (in the rainy season) or dries off with nearby sand.

This is a hogan, previously a common Navajo home (but bigger).  These are still around, though they're not used as homes so much anymore.  But, certain curing ceremonies (I don't know which) can only be conducted in a hogan, so most communities still have at least one.

We started down a paved trail that was labeled "easy".  Once we got started on it, we learned that, though it was paved, it was very steep.  Bruce and I both have trouble with "up".  We have difficulty breathing when going uphill.  This visitor center was at 7200 feet, so that compounded the problems.  So, we hiked down a little bit until we saw an alcove in the cliff, similar to the alcoves the people built their dwellings in.  In another trip through, we'll be going to Mesa Verde National Park, where the cliff dwellings are supposed to be more easily viewed, so we decided to turn back to save some spoons for other activities.

The way out of the park was not paved.  Bruce said he was beginning to see a pattern!

Right before finding the paved road, we had to go down this very steep, curvy grade on the narrow, part gravel/part powdery sand road with a steep cliff off the side.  There were some poles loosely strung up as a barrier, but you could see where many vehicles had already used them.

We finally pulled into Page, Arizona.  We stopped at a Shell station, the first place we saw since the Navajo National Monument.  It had a sign on the door that said EBT cards were not accepted because they were food stamps.  I was terribly underimpressed by that, so we just used their bathroom and left.  Purchases were made in town.

In keeping with our tradition of choosing restaurants by name, we chose the Gone West Family Restaurant for dinner.  It wasn't just a kitchy name, but had the decor to match!

We walked in to see a large room with many tables, two of which were occupied.  There was a sign asking us to wait to be seated.  There were three people sitting on a sofa at the side, looking like people waiting to be seated.  There was a man behind a counter on the other side of the room.  He was looking straight at us.  After waiting a while, I put on my glasses so I could see him better and made a gester to indicate that we were, in fact, wanting a table.  He made no response.  A woman came out of the back room, looked at us and turned her back.  I waited a bit to just see if she was going to do something else, or just turned her back on the people waiting to be seated.  She didn't move.  At that point, Bruce and I decided the food couldn't be good enough to account for the level of service that had already been displayed, so we went next door to the Chinese buffet that was delicious!

Welcoming Whinnies in the Epicenter of Southwest First Nations People

 We got up fairly early and headed to the tourist area of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  The area is lovely.  There is lots of statuary, which is always good for me.

There is a little park and green space that's cute.

Many carvers/sculptors have shops in the area.

I love the benches with children reading.

The adobe architecture is all over the tourist area and kind of spattered around the rest of town.

The big draw for me was in the Loretto Chapel.  This church was decommissioned long ago, but if you pay your admission fee of $5 per person, you can still buy and light prayer candles inside.  The confessional is just for show, though.

The draw is this staircase.  It's called the Miraculous Staircase and there are significant mysteries surrounding it.  The most well known is that it is a spiral staircase with two complete spirals and no nails or other visible means of support.  There are also questions about the woods used and who built it.  Legend says that after the church was built, the only access to the second-floor choir loft was by ladder.  After prayers and purchasing sacraments to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, a man appeared with a donkey and tools and built the staircase.  After completion, the man disappeared and could not be found to be paid, even after placing ads in the local paper.  Regardless of the truthfulness of the legends, it's a very lovely staircase.

This is a picture of a picture of a choir actually using the staircase.

After finishing in the chapel, we headed on down the road to the west.  Our next stop was Chaco Canyon and the Chaco Culture National Historic Park.  You will not stumble onto this place by accident!  It is waaaaaay back into the canyon!

Soon after turning onto the numbered country road, the welcoming committee came out to see us.

Bruce was under the mistaken impression that I stopped putting him on dirt roads when we left South America.  Oh, how wrong he was!  It didn't take long before we left the county maintenance area.

We passed by the Horse Thief Campground.  We initially thought it just said, "Welcome Horse Thieves"!

And we crossed a huge wash.  Apparently, you can't get into or out of the park when it storms.

We saw more wildlife as we drove on by.  Bruce and I joked that it probably wouldn't take long for me to make friends with much of these wild animals!

We finally got to the park and paved roads!  This picture is of a formation in the canyon, but you can see the pavement on the edge!

The visitor's center had an awesome map with a relief of the canyon.

The park is dedicated to the Chaco culture, the ancient culture that is believed to be ancestral to most if not all of the local Native cultures.  These are believed to be the First Nation.  They apparently had a very well defined and  complex area.  Trade is known to have occured as far as central Mexico.  The buildings that have been excavated were huge.  The site we toured is the largest one and the best preserved.  Back in the 800-1100s, this was one of the larges great houses.  It was at least 4 stories and had over 600 rooms plus 40 kivas (a circular men's ceremonial room).  Kivas are still used by the Hopi.  This was a massive site.

This is a Kiva

On the way out, we were bid a fond farewell.  I know we could be friends if I spent more time in the area!

With the sweetest of goodbyes, we headed on up to Farmington, NM, for the night.

Head West (Again), Old Geezers!

Time to leave Hot Springs and head west.  We're not young men, but we still headed west.  This was mostly two days of driving.  No stops were planned, but . . .  

Ft. Smith, Arkansas, has some nice murals.

Okema, Oklahoma, is rather proud of being the birthplace of Woody Guthrie.  Not many people are drawn to him anymore, apparently.  The town was extremely run down.  Woody Guthrie Park was in pretty good shape, though (except the busted out window in the building on the left).

We also slid by Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City.  For some unknown reason, they felt a lighthouse was needed on this relatively small lake.  The lake is 3.8 square miles and 29 feet deep.  I can't imagine the need for a lighthouse!  But, there it sits!

There are some things we want to do in Amarillo, but those will wait for a different trip.  But, while we were driving past, we decided to revisit the Cadillac Ranch.  The last time we stopped by, it was snowy and slushy, and the field was a muddy mess.  I was also in a CAM walking boot.  So, we just took pictures from the fence and went ahead.  This time, it was a sunny day with boring, cloudless skies, but the path to the cars was dry.  The cars, themselves, were in a puddle, so they couldn't be reached to paint.  Some differences from the last time is that people were spray painting the street and the Jersey barriers.  Some people were even spray painting the ground!  There was a guy outside the gate selling pendants, magnets, and other things made with paint chips preserved in resin.  While walking around, Bruce happened upon a huge, rock-sized paint chip and put it in his pocket.  Part of that chip will be going in my shadow box.  I might shave some off and do some of my own magnets or pins or something!

Some people have started a locks of love type thing on the fence, but one person put their shoes over the fence.

Even the garbage cans have been tagged!

This paint is peeling off and cracking away.

This paint just slid down to the ground.

We thought about seeing if the Slug Bugs were still around, but learned they were on the other side of Amarillo, and we didn't want to drive back through town just to come back where we were.  So we continued west until we caught sight of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico.  

We pulled into Santa Fe for the night.  Next to our hotel was the Flying Tortilla restaurant.  That sounded like a name we had to try.  Bruce had the New Mexican Tortilla Burger, and I had the Sopapillas Rellenas.  They were good choices!  Bruce said he liked the green chili better than the red, so he regretted going Christmas.  I thought they were both great!

The adventure starts in earnest tomorrow!