Month: July 2009

The residents of Seligman, AZ, and other tiny towns that dot the map along Route 66 are a lot like the residents of Radiator Springs in Disney’s movie, Cars. They are dedicated to renovating and revising old tourist stops in hopes that if they build it we come. These are places where ghosts of prosperity walk the streets in poignant anticipation of whatever comes next.

Initially, I had dreamed about a mule trip into the Grand Canyon, Brady-Bunch style, but with 2 coasts to see and just 31 days to do, Bobby and Cindy getting lost would certainly put a kink in our itinerary. We had places to be, darn it!

The sun was just starting to rise, but the rest of the Cawley clan was fast asleep. So I sneaked out into the quiet morning for a few moments alone, and I snapped some pictures. There was a peaceful calm, that took my breath away. And nothing was moving…except me and the sun and a stray dog, who reminded me in some odd way of our old Rocky. (RIP) I watched the shadows change as the sun peaked over the mesas and buttes in the east. For a few moments, everything turned slightly golden. When the show was over, I headed to the laundromat to wash red dirt and several, shower-free days of adventure out of our clothes. Then it was time to add one more bumper sticker to the back of our own trusty stagecoach and move on.

So do temperatures over 110 degrees (yes, even with no humidity). So by the time we had crossed the awesome loneliness of the local landscape into Monument Valley, we were greatly diminished as a group. So much so, that we feared Goulding’s Lodge, which sat as an oasis in endless miles of red sand and rock formations, was nothing more than a mirage. As the story goes Harry Goulding brought movie director, John Ford, to his trading post in Monument Valley to see the landscapes here, and the rest is movie making history. The lodge was developed to support the filming of Westerns like Stage Coach, and John Wayne’s cabin is preserved onsite. “How do you find these places?” Troy asked, and I have to say I was pretty impressed with myself for a minute. It was a really neat place. That’s why, when I entered the office to check in and was told there was no reservation for us, I almost cried. The problem was quickly resolved however when I learned that our reservation was for a Goulding’s Campground cabin…just up the road. And wow, what a cool cabin that was–refrigerated and comfortable, with a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping loft–all for a bargain price of $92. (Lodge prices are considerably higher.) The cabin was so comfortable that it was very difficult to get motivated to catch the last backcountry tour into Monument Valley Tribal Park, but we wolfed down a snack, and headed back out into the oppressive heat to board a non-air-conditioned vehicle for a tour of the desert. Really…we did. It did not go well at first….the audio equipment in the truck was faulty, and our guide, Anna, was extremely soft-spoken. Plus, it was hot…so hot that when you splashed water from your water bottle on your face, it evaporated immediately. So hot, that I am certain that no matter what the folks on Mythbusters might say, you could fry an egg on the red rocks. Our first stop was a tourist mock-up of a hogan, a traditional Navajo home, and a demonstration of blanket weaving and hair braiding by an older Navajo woman, who agreed to have her photo taken. Due to lack of audio, I would say we didn’t get a lot out of that portion of the tour. And Anna (the guide, not the daughter) later admitted that not many of the 200,000 Navajo still live in these basic shelters, which offered shade, but no air-conditioning. And it was getting hotter…. By the time we reached the next stop for a photo op at “mittens” (two rock formations that look like mittens), the Cawley family was becoming increasingly, um, Goth, in our outlook and demeanor, but there was no turning back. We still had three hours of desert touring ahead of us. Perhaps, it was that the audio improved, or the sun started to ease up (a tiny bit) or that a breeze blew regularly across the open-air vehicle as it bounced over the sand paths of the park, but for whatever reason our attitudes improved greatly as we traveled through one of the most spectacular landscapes I’ve ever seen. There aren’t really words for it–for the sheer size of the buttes and mesas, the changing colors, the wild horses running across unpopulated sands and the shadows cast on cool coves as the sun began to set. The pictures will have to try to tell that story…. When we got back, we showered quickly and had a relaxing dinner, including Navajo tacos on fry bread at Goulding’s Stagecoach Restaurant, where we watched the buttes disappear into darkness. Then it was back to our cool cabin, where the kids giggled maniacally in the loft for several minutes before fading off to sleep, hopefully dreaming of red dragons and lumbering elephants in a hot and magical land.

We were ready for a four-hour ride when we packed our stinky clothes and our stinkier selves into the minivan and bid good-bye to the cool yurt (and the cool temperatures) in Mancos State Park. We were headed west…toward Monument Valley, Utah, with a planned pitstop for a photo op at Four Corners Monument–the one spot in the United States where four states (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah) intersect. But first, we had to enter the Twilight Zone. Ne, ne, ne ne- ne ne ne ne… You see, the trip took us here… View One Month Off in a larger map Out of Colorado which adheres to Daylight Savings Time, then back in time to Arizona, which doesn’t, except for the portion of the Navajo Nation, which does, then it was on to Utah, which also does. Our cell phones registered time changes every half hour or so, so by the time we got to Monument Valley, we had mostly given up on trying to figure it all out. Our consensus of Four Corners Monument as a family was that the four states could have found a nicer place to meet, preferably somewhere with air-conditioning, or at least a spot of shade to escape the 110 degree temperatures. The monument itself is basically a concrete slab, laid down in a white hot parking lot, in the middle of a rocky desert, in the middle of nowhere. Picture the moon, under a heat lamp. Yet, when we arrived we lined up behind twenty other cars, full of families from all over the world, waiting to pay their $3 per person fee to enter. Then it was out of the climate-controlled cabin of our minivan, and into the hostile terrain, to wait our turn in line for 20 minutes or so. Being Navajo Territory, we were on the same time zone as Utah–even when you walked around platform to Arizona. In fact, it felt as if time had stopped altogether. Did I mention it was hot? While we waited, I tried to convince the kids it was fun. “Hey, why don’t you take a walk around the monument and see how long it takes you to walk through four states?” My suggestions were met with polite scowls, instead of the out-right mutiny being waged against the father behind us, who was quietly pleading with his Goth teenage daughter to at least stick around for the photo. Not that I could blame her for her anger. With all that black, attracting the heat, she must have been positively combustible. When it was our turn, and we stepped out into our moment in the sun, we were less enthusiastic than I had imagined during the planning stages of the trip, but still my children and my husband (kind as they are) obliged me by doing a few stupid human tricks across four state lines. I brought a jump rope for Katie, and a baseball and gloves for Troy and Emmett, and Anna used her superhuman flexibility to draw a few comments from the crowds. Here are the photos, plus one that the father of the Goth girl took of all of us, while waiting his turn. Then, after an obligatory stop at the Navajo Flea Market and a jewelry purchase, we were back on our way.

Mancos State Park campground with its 30-some campsites,  cool mountain air and comfortable, well-equipped yurts (including futon beds, a fridge and a microwave) lacked only one luxury amenity—a shower. Not to worry, though, we fancied the lack of bathing to be part of the true pioneer experience, complete with the echoes of howling coyotes at dusk and dawn. Plus it was only two nights…and we had lots of baby wipes.  The price was right for  comfortable digs, just 15 minutes from the entrance to Mesa Verde State Park, too – $60 a night. Mesa Verde is the former home of the Native Americans, formerly known as Anazasi. Ranger Dan, the tour guide who led us through the Cliff Palace ruins explained that the Navajo word”Anasazi” translates roughly to “ancient ones” or even “ancient enemies” and is a less-than-accurate way to refer to the people who built these amazing dwellings and inhabited the four corners area of the United States about 900 years ago— years before the Navajo settled nearby and way before Christopher Columbus was even a twinkle in his mother’s eye. So now, we latecomers call these industrious early settlers “Ancient Puebloans” to distinguish them from the Puebloan people they eventually joined to form groups in placed like Mexico, New Mexico and Arizona. (Hope I got that right.) This journey certainly has inspired me to learn more about American history. To see the ingenious dwellings that these native people built without benefit of modern machines is humbling and amazing and to think they scaled these cliffs daily to make their way to the mesa tops where they farmed without rivers or running water is almost unimaginable. During our day in Mesa Verde, we learned about kivas—circular ceremonial spaces incorporated throughout each collection of dwellings. Ranger Dan explained these underground spots were also used regularly for socializing and relaxing (kind of like a holy rec room). They eventually abandoned these awesome dwellings for reasons no one knows—possibly a drought, possibly other depleted resources, possibly some cultural incentive to move on The most interesting thing I took from his talk, however, was that early people probably didn’t distinguish subject from object as we modern folks do. In other words, a worthless, inanimate rock to us was part of living earth to them, just like our living bodies are collections of rocks/bones, minerals, etc. The whole world was alive to them, he said, complete with crying streams, angry storms and sympathetic stones. In the afternoon, we took another guided adventure of “Balcony House.” The tour of this smaller dwelling is not for the faint of heart (like me). It included climbing a 32-foot ladder, squirming through an 18-inch wide tunnel, and a steep ascent up a cliff face assisted by a swinging chain railing. All the kids ranked this potentially perilous experience as one of the highlights of the trip to date—although surprisingly Anna learned she has a fear of heights, and Balcony House is an adventure she will always remember, but likely not repeat.

We hope you live a hundred years. We hope you see a hundred steers.  Happy Birthday, dear Emmett! Happy Birthday to you! Ya know what Emmett got for his 13th Birthday? A nine-hour car ride. Yippee!!!! The day would have started out a bit better if the folks at Elkins Ranch, in Palo Duro Canyon in Texas hadn’t cancelled the Cowboy Breakfast, due to lack of participation. Turns out Emmett’s  Birthday Breakfast hoedown was not to be, but turns out things worked out okay anyway. Emmett can always remember that his 13th Birthday started out with a bit of vandalism. Our first stop was Cadillac Ranch, where we spent some time adding our own graffiti to the ten Cadillacs, buried nose down in the middle of a cow pasture. (No one was arrested, as this “public art” display is not only allowed, but encouraged.) We looked for Uncle Joe Cray’s mark in bottom of the third car down, and we think we scored…but who knows. Then after what seemed like an endless two-day drive through New Mexico and a simple campfire dinner at Mancos State Park, Emmett ended his 13th Birthday watching a million stars twinkle in an endless, Colorado sky—each one offering a wish for more adventures tomorrow.