Arizona

We left Boulder City on Saturday, 9/28 and headed for Arizona to visit with Bob’s brother Jim and his wife, Alice.  Bob’s cousin Dennis and his wife Elaine (who live near Vegas) drove down as well.  

We passed Lake Mead on the way:

Jim and Alice have been living in the western US since the 70’s and we have seen very little of them over the years.  They live “off the grid” about 30 miles east of Kingman, Arizona.  You get off of Interstate 40 and meet them in a field off the highway so that you can follow them in via 7 miles of rough, twisting, steep dirt roads.  

Jim and Alice live on a ranch where they have all kinds of animals, many rescued -- burros, peacocks, parrots, chickens, dogs, cats, and a desert tortoise to name a few.  They use solar panels and a generator for electricity and are pretty independent.  When it rains hard or snows, they may be confined on their ranch for a week or more but they are prepared for that and are fine.

We had decided to tow our camper up to the ranch, despite some trepidation about the rough ride and steep hills.  Jim led us through the “easy” route, which was longer but didn’t have hills that were quite so steep. There were cows, horses, etc, just roaming loose to add to the excitement.  It still was nerve-wracking getting up there but, by going very slowly (except for the uphills which we had to charge up) we managed to get the camper there with no major damage.  

Dennis and Elaine went the “hard” way and got stuck on one of the hills on their way – and they have 4 wheel drive!

In any case, we all made it to the house and the partying began.  We had a great time – enjoyed seeing the animals:

After lunch, we did some target shooting.  This was my first time shooting a gun – I hit the target on my first shot (beginners’ luck)!  Dennis cracked us up, with paper towels stuck in his ears, pretending to shoot over his shoulder and asking the guys to hit the target shooting between his legs:

The girls quickly tired of guns and went on to some serious wine drinking.  

Poppy enjoyed being here – she was interested in all the animals and liked being able to walk around without being on a leash.  Watch this video of her with one of the 9 cats living in the house:

That is patience!

Dinner preparation was a joint effort...

and we sat on the deck and ate, told stories and laughed.  We stayed out there until after dark. It got pretty cold (in the 30’s) and we snuggled up in blankets and Jim built a fire in their firepit to help us stay warm.

The dog on my lap is named Mighty Mouse.  He is a charmer.

We stayed two nights at Jim and Alice's and spent a lot of time looking at old pictures and reminiscing, but on Monday morning we had to leave.   Had a fantastic time there!

 We were pretty nervous about hauling the camper out over those roads.  We decided to go the “hard” but shorter way.  Jim led us in his 4 wheel drive truck.  In spite of trying to go slow, the roads really shook up the camper and twice our truck was unable to make it up a steep hill and Jim had to hitch his truck to ours and tow us up the rest of the way.

 We finally made it out to the parking area.  When I opened the door to the camper, there was stuff all over the floors.  Keep in mind that I lived on a sailboat for many years and knew how to stow to go to sea in rough weather – this was worse than that!  Luckily, nothing was broken and no harm was done.  I quickly picked up the stuff and got it put away, we said good-bye to Jim and Alice and headed east.

We were heading for the Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “Shay”) – a canyon in northeastern Arizona that someone had told Bob about but he can’t remember who (it’s hell getting old).  In any case we couldn't quite make it there in one day, so we stopped for the night in Tuba City, Arizona at an RV park owned by a Quality Inn.  The park was behind the hotel. We liked this town and campground so much that we ended up staying two nights so we could see the sights.  Tuba City is on Navajo land and almost all the people we met in stores, gas stations, museums and the campground were Navajo.  They were friendly and helpful and we really enjoyed our time here.  Our next door neighbor at the campground had reservations at the Grand Canyon for the next day but the government shut-down started that day and he was out of luck.  We were luckier – Canyon de Chelly is a national monument but it is owned by the Navajo’s and they do the tours and they were still operating.

Right next to the hotel was a Navajo museum 

and we visited that as well as the Code  Talkers museum.  The Code Talkers were Navajos that were recruited into the Marines during World War II to pass information on the radio in their native language.  The Japanese could never crack "the code".  There have been movies and documentaries made about them.  Both museums were really interesting.

I have to mention that we were totally time confused at this point.  When we went from Nevada to Arizona, we went from Pacific to Mountain time.  But Arizona doesn’t use Daylight Savings Time so the actual time stayed the same.  The Navajos, however, do use Daylight Savings time so when we went into Tuba City, we lost an hour.  We kept changing our watches trying to stay with the local time but Poppy had the worst of it.  She believes she has to eat every 12 hours on the dot and got pretty indignant when we didn’t want to get up at 5 AM to feed her.

On Wednesday, we left Tuba City and headed for Chinle, AZ which is the town where the Canyon de Chelly begins.   The Visitors Center for the Canyon was closed because of the government shutdown so we couldn’t get any flyers or maps about the Canyon but the overlooks were all open.  We had read about it online so pretty much knew what we were doing.  You can drive along both sides of the canyon and visit the overlooks – some are right beside the road and others involve a short hike.  To go down into the canyon, you must hire a Navajo guide.  There are many to choose from – we had read about many online and booked a tour for Thursday morning.

We had made reservations at Spider Rock campground on the south rim road and we went there first and set up.  We were kind of disappointed in the place – one of our few poor choices of the trip.  It was run down and poorly maintained.  We had no hookups (which we knew ahead of time) but the water fill, showers and wifi that had been advertised on their website didn't really pan out.  It didn't matter too much because we were there to see the canyon.

That afternoon, we set out to visit all the overlooks on the South Rim.  The canyon was just spectacularly beautiful.  With our binoculars and zoom on our camera, we could see some of the Anasazi ruins that we would be seeing up close tomorrow on our tour.  There were local Navajo artists at all the overlooks, selling their artwork and we bought a few souvenirs.  Here are some pictures from the overlooks:

Our last stop was Spider Rock Overlook – the two tall towers of rock in this picture are Spider Rock. 

We met a young man named Ben at Spider Rock who was there visiting the local high schools, recruiting for a college.  He stood on the wall to take a panoramic picture with a 900 foot drop in front of him. Scared me to death but I had to take his picture.

Ben sent me one of the panoramic picture he took of Spider Rock with his iPhone.

The next morning it was 37 degrees when we got up.  We dressed in layers and went to meet our Navajo guide in Chinle – knowing it would warm up as the day went on.    Our guide was Ben Teller, a wonderful man in his 70’s who had been born and raised in the Canyon and still lives there.  Many Navajos still live in the canyon and make their living either being guides for tourists or raising sheep or cattle.  We squeezed into the jeep with another couple and headed out for the canyon floor.   The canyon floor was rough but we went slowly – there weren't really roads -- everyone just drove where they wanted to go.  Ben was a great guide – he told us lots of stories about the history of the canyon and his childhood there.  He started giving tours in the 40’s with a horse and wagon.  He also told us the terrible stories about the atrocities perpetrated on the Navajos by the US Army, led by Kit Carson, during the 1860’s.

We saw many different Anasazi ruins.  The two pictures below are just one example -- from a distance and up close.  You can get an idea from the distant shot how high they are in the cliffs.

The name Anasazi, according to Ben, means “ancient ones”.  No one really knows who built these ruins but they know a lot about their culture from all the relics and bones that were left there.   It’s believed that the Anasazis lived in the canyon roughly from 900 to 1400 AD.  They were followed by the Pueblos and Hopis who then moved on to different areas and the Navajos moved in and stayed.  The Canyon was made a National Park in 1931 to prevent people from stealing the artifacts from the ruins.  Near the ruins there are often pictographs drawn on the walls.  Archaeologists don’t know exactly what they mean but they are obviously a form of communication.

These are some examples of pictographs we saw:

Toward the end of the tour, Ben took us to his home near the Antelope Ruins – the only ruins that are at ground level.  The last pictograph above is from these ruins and you can see why they are called the "Antelope Ruins".

Ben has a little concession going on there that is used by all the tour guides.  His children and grandchildren sell snacks and drinks as well as Navajo pottery and jewelry.  

Bob took this picture from Ben's place out into the canyon.  He was impressed by the American flag flying in spite of the difficult history of the Navajos with the US Government and Ben's personal knowledge of that history.  

We slowly headed back to Chinle, stopping to see a few more interesting sites on our way back through the canyon.  Ben never made us feel rushed.  We could take our time shooting as many pictures as we wanted everywhere we stopped.  Bob and I took 125 pictures on the tour – it was really hard picking a few to post in the blog!  We were so glad we had decided to do the tour of the Canyon.

During the last part of the tour it was getting really windy and when we got back to our campground, the wind was really howling.  It was too hot to close our windows and the red dust blew through the screens and coated everything in the camper, including us.  No showers at the campground and not enough water to take showers in the camper.  Luckily we were moving on the next morning.