Southwest Journal

4/22/07 Update to the Supai Zip Code. This time I wrote it down, 86435. It was very windy with snow showers today. We caught a couple of ranger programs. We learned that one of the biggest hazards to condor babies is small sparkling trash. Either the adult condors are imitating ravens by picking up trash or the ravens are putting the trash in condor nesting areas. Either way the condor babies are eating the trash with fatal consequences. Too sad.

4/24/07 Yesterday it snowed enough to coat the trees with white and stick on the dirt. We drove to the showers and then went back to the Trailer Village and took the shuttle bus to El Tovar and had a lovely Anniversary dinner. As per usual Wm got more presents for me. I got a DVD of Orpeu Negro and Polartec Slippers. I got Wm a nice shirt he wanted. Today we drove to Navaho National Monument. We drove past the Elephants Feet which are two huge rock formations that do look like elephant’s legs and feet. As we were leaving Tuba City school was getting out. One school bus got on our tail and passed us at over 70 MPH. They have a long way to drive so I guess they just floor it so they get home in time for dinner. I was reminded of the Simpson’s bus driver, Otto. We are camping in a free camp site at the National Monument. Went for a walk after dinner to see how the clay makes odd small hummocks after a rain and also found a large area of slick rock and an overlook to watch the sunset. Dad befriended a bunch of Namibians while I was cooking dinner. They were touring the US in some rented RV’s and he helped light their oven for them.

4/26/07 Still here at the Navajo National Monument. Can’t beat free camping. The weather has moderated and dad is sunning and resting. We attended a ranger talk on the 24^th where the ranger stated that at age 5 a child would be fully able to care for themselves. At 11-13 they would marry and begin to raise a family. From 15-35 they would be full adults in the community. At 40 if they had survived they would be an ancient one and there would not be many of them per village. The main reason for the short life span was smoke. They built campfires in the winter in the house and the smoke would vent out through a hole in the ceiling, making the room very smoky. Think lung damage. Also of course any major trauma, such as a broken leg, or any major illness, such as pneumonia, would have been fatal. There are cave dwellings here at the monument. We walked out to the overlook. They were only occupied for about 30 years or 2 generations. As these people were Ancestral Pueblo People they were farmers who depended on rainfall. They had a 20 year drought about the time they left. The descendents of these people, formerly called, Anasazi (a Navajo word for ancient ones), are the Hopi and other pueblo people. But the monument is in the Navajo Reservation. There is a certain conflict here. The Navajo only came to these lands in the 1500’s from Canada. In the 1600’s they began to raise domestic animals, mainly sheep. Although the US cavalry saw fit to interfere with their “cattleman” vs “sodbuster” feuds with the Pueblo Indians in the tragic long march of 1864, the Navajo have been fairly peaceful and more prolific than Pueblo Indians, vastly outnumbering them to this day. We decided that the Navajo’s advantage must have been the sheep, providing food, clothing, and fuel for fires, whereas the dry land farming of the Pueblo Indians would have provided a less secure existence.

4/27/07 As we left and turned toward Kayenta a big rig pulled in behind us with big metal teeth for a grill. Wm was doing 65 and had to go a bit faster to keep him from eating us. We are now in Monument Valley. Because we wanted power and showers we are staying in Gouldings. This place has an interesting story. Harry Goulding came through here in 1921 and really liked Monument Valley. He was according to various stories a sheep herder and trader or a sheep inspector. The particular land he wanted was officially part of the Paiute Reservation, although Navajo lived here. Conveniently in 1923 the Utah legislature moved the Paiutes. Since the land was now public domain, Goulding filed on a square mile. The Paiutes and Mormons later had some sort of war and there are only a few scattered bits of Paiute land in AZ and UT. Although the Gouldings had a hard simple life here for a long time, they eventually made a Trading Post/Tourist destination and Movie location out of the place. A number of John Wayne movies were made here.