April 9 – “Peace Pipe”

We started off on our next day’s grand adventure by driving through another hundred miles or so of … nothingness.  Well, I mean … wilderness, maybe?  Not the tree-laden kind, though.  Just prairie-looking, hay-ish stuff.  But we did manage to catch some sights.  We saw a wild burro.  We saw some horses – not wild, we saw several hawks on the prowl.  Well, “on the fly” I guess would be the more accurate terminology.

 

Right before we turned onto the last road to our destination (At least we thought it would be the last road.  This, for those of you reading early in the morning, is a bit of dramatic foreshadowing), we caught a glimpse of what we were sure at the time was a white fox.  He darted across the street in front of us.  Then he stopped on the other side, turned and made eye contact with me.  Oh, I fumbled for the camera, but it was no use.  He ambled off into the underbrush.  We have since reconsidered our conclusion.  Not the white part.  There is no doubt about that.  But we later asked a Ranger about it – and Park Rangers see all and know all, of course.  She thought it was more likely a coyote.  A white coyote or an albino fox.  Never heard of either one.  And that leads to the obvious third possibility.  This creature was but another attempt at alien invasion that went terribly wrong … for the alien.  He simply chose the wrong body to inhabit, and got stuck living alone in the wilderness, giving tourists the occasional thrill-sighting. 

 

And then … short cut!  Only we didn’t know it at the start.  We were just dutifully following Siri’s instructions.  And they were leading us straight up a dirt mountain road full of ruts.  Top possible speed?  Maybe 12 mph.  This, my friends, was a Coon Dog Cemetery-worthy road, to be sure.  This road alternated between hard ruts and rocky natural-ness and plain old reddish dirt.  We thought about turning around several times, but the road was too narrow.  So narrow, in fact that we prayed we would not meet another car coming downhill.  So we determined … embrace the shortcut.  Onward!  Oh, we finally reached the top and pulled into the Park’s parking lot.  And there were numerous other vehicles there.  One big difference between theirs and ours, though.  Theirs were all clean as a whistle.  Ours was covered in that reddish dirt.  We had discovered a surprise from the Navajo, delivered through that ever-lovin’ prankster whose voice comes through our car speaker system – Siri George.  See, there was one other road into the park.  Paved perfectly from top to bottom.  “Hope you enjoyed your one hour, 10-mile shortcut experience!  Love, Siri George.”

 

Once we finally arrived, we grabbed Chris’ stamp, of course.  Then we did two hikes.  The first brought us to a viewing platform where, with the assistance of binoculars or the big zoom lens on our camera, we could see the site across the canyon where some more of those cliff dwellers dwelt (Or Ant-people, as Allen Dammeyer so adeptly identified their cousins who we saw on that other hill … somewhere).  We met a couple from Minnesota on their way back home.  We lent them our binoculars for a look at the ruins.  Nice folks, for Minnesotans (Just kidding, Gary Blessman). 

 

That hike, itself, was fairly easy, so we decided to chance the more strenuous one as well.  It was described by the signage as “steep.”  The hike down was pretty … er, steep … but it was downhill, so also pretty easy.  From the viewing platform we could see the big picture of the canyon from near the canyon floor.  Impressive.  That’s where we found the aforementioned Ranger who gave us her opinion about the alien white fox/coyote creature.  She was in the process of assessing the parts of the trail that needed repair.  Lots of repair.  Not encouraging. 

 

After that discussion, we started back up.  The return trip was … steep.  Really steep.  Steeper than we remembered going down.  It was reminiscent of our near-death hiking experience in Bryce Canyon.  Not as evil as Bryce, but it did its job, to be sure.  That is, if its job was to force us to stop numerous times on the way back up to allow heart rates to stabilize and lungs to refill with oxygen.  Oh, in case you were wondering … we made it.  No paramedic calls necessary. 

 

Whew.  Now, to top off the day, I had an extremely positive moment in the visitor center.  I finally found a raven.  I’ve been looking for one since we first set foot in Utah.  Don’t get me wrong.  They have been everywhere.  But this was the first one that got close enough to hear my proposal about joining us.  And he agreed on the spot.  Still pondering a name for that critter. 

 

Last night we went out for supper, intent on sampling some of the Aztec, New Mexico, local cuisine.  We located a café called … Aztec.  Quaint.  Can’t go wrong with the basics, I guess.  Chris read an online review that said, “Great place for locals, but not so much for travelers.”  Ah, a challenge.  After hearing that, there was no other place I wanted to go.  As we approached the front door, I saw on the ground what looked like the outside of a pen when you pull out the innards.  But that’s not what caught my eye.  Wired to the pen casing was a beautiful gold ring with several different-colored stones on it (I’m no good at identified those precious stones things.  Not so good at identifying colors, either.  Hence, “different-colored stones”).  It looked pretty expensive, so I picked it up and turned it in to the ladies inside.  Little did I know … (That’s more foreshadowing.  You guys more awake now?) …

 

Later, as we were deciding what to eat, the lady who owns the café approached us rather tentatively with … a wet paper towel.  She hastily explained that it had been soaked in the solution of sanitizer that she makes her employees use.  Then she continued, “What you brought in was someone’s … uh … peace pipe.  I’m so sorry.  Here, use this right now, and then you might want to also go in the bathroom and wash your hands.  I don’t know how strongly you feel about such things, but it will make me feel better.”  Chris agreed.  Strongly.  Needless to say, I washed my hands.  Sadly, I don’t suppose I’ll ever get to meet the owner of the … uh … “Peace Pipe.”

 

Psalms 24:10 says, “Who is he, the King of glory?  The Lord Almighty – he is the King of glory.”

 

Father, thank you for the impromptu lesson on Navajo “customs.”  And thanks for the concern the lady at the café showed to me.  Amen.