A distinctly multicultural day

8/10/2016

I left for Canyon de Chelly in the morning and went to Justin’s Horse Tours for a horseback tour of the canyon. There were a dozen or so Europeans in the parking lot when I pulled up, and they were immediately all over Jane. Talk about instant celebrity! Not a single angle was left unphotographed. Good thing that Jane’s working on her “grungy road warrior” look.

"When Europeans Attack!" 

Anyways, my guide was late and we ended up getting started on a two-hour ride at 9:45. No problemo, as I had to be back by noon to get on the road to hit Flagstaff by 2PM (it’s a 3 hour drive, but that pesky time change thing would finally work in my favor). We hopped on our horses and I found out that I’d be getting a private tour, which was awesome! My little pony’s name was Coco.

We headed up the canyon and saw some really awesome stuff. The views were great and there were some really interesting pictographs to check out. Further up the canyon, there was a cool ruin. The weather was perfect – partly cloudy and not too warm – and the horses were well-behaved. It was pretty muddy though as a result of recent rainstorms that had washed a lot of sediment down the canyon. Not an issue as the horses were surefooted even in the clay.

A cool notch in the rock about 20 feet off the ground - lots of neat pictographs!

Not sure what the guy is doing lying down

We were moving so slowly that another horse tour passed us... oops

See that little notch in the rock about halfway up the picture? Look what's inside...

How the heck did those people get up there to draw these pictures, and why??

Awesome dwellings off the ground. They think that perhaps the canyon used to be filled up to that level (making the dwellings actually on ground level), but that erosion had removed a lot of sediment and brought ground level down to present levels.

Yep, there's me.

My guide, Dennis, had grown up in the canyon in the 70’s and remembered well the transition from more traditional Navajo lifestyles to more “mainstream” habits. Apparently, most of the families have moved out of the canyon into nearby Chinle, which gives them better access to food, water, housing, schools, and hospitals. But some still follow the old ways, at least for part of the year. We passed by a lot of fenced off portions of the canyon in which herds of horses grazed, and saw some nice little houses perched in areas high enough to not be washed away by flash floods. Dennis also told me about his experiences as the president of the local Navajo rodeo association – hard to believe that this man, who was in his late 60’s, was still riding bulls and organizing rodeos to boot! Very cool stuff.

We got caught up in chatting and ended up going over our ride time by a whopping 45 minutes! Oops. We got back to the paddocks at 12:45 and I was a little worried that I would be way too late to Flagstaff to meet up with my friend. Fortunately, I own a muscle car with a healthy American V8 in it…

Jane lying in wait among the trees

Coming into Flagstaff I hit the worst rainstorm I have ever been in. Considering that I used to live in Wilmington, NC (known for being very monsoon-y), that’s saying something! The rain went from a sprinkle to a full deluge in about 5 feet flat, causing everyone on the road to slam on their brakes and try to avoid fishtailing in the incredible amount of water suddenly on the road. A bit hair-raising, but Jane’s tires are meant for rain and she handled it no problem. And because I am not originally from a desert state, I have no issues driving in the rain… so we passed everyone else and eventually got out the other side.

Yep, I can see a storm coming alright...

Once in Flagstaff I headed to Galaxy Diner to meet up with Geoffrey, his friend Christine, and two New Zealanders whom they’d met along the way. It’s always funny to me how I can meet someone know only through the Internet and feel like I’ve known them for forever. It’s easy to fall into conversation like old friends that way. So we had some diner food, I had a root beer float, and we chatted about Route 66 travel and cars and future stops and weird things you see on the road. Afterwards we said our goodbyes to the New Zealanders and I took Geoffrey for a ride in Jane. 

Surprisingly, she was on her best behavior and did none of the weird things that she is prone to doing when other people are in the car. We chalked it up to him being a fellow Mustang driver with appropriate levels of reverence for Her Majesty Jane (ha!). He was very, very impressed by her sound (and for good reason – she was sounding pretty good that day). So here’s a couple videos that he took! Apologies for the poor quality, but they were uploaded on a slow connection.

We also found a good spot for a mini photo-shoot, though he was running low on time and Jane was a dusty, dirty mess after hightailing it through the dustbowl of Arizona and then getting rained on.

I returned Geoffrey to his car and said my goodbyes to him and Christine – they were headed on to Needles, CA for the night and I couldn’t delay them any further. But it was really awesome to get to meet them! I just wish that we could have visited for longer. Maybe next time they’re in the States I’ll be on the road again at the same time.

I took off in the direction of Gallup and enjoyed some quality sunny early afternoon Arizona driving. Ther'es just something about driving this stretch of highway late in the day that's just supremely peaceful. Something about the way the light falls across the endless plains and the way the clouds gather on the horizon. It is truly a feeling of having all of the space you could ever need in the world. Always makes me take a few really deep breaths just to appreciate the nice crisp clean air (which is, of course, tinged with more than a little muscle car exhaust). Guess it's really not that clean, but it feels cleaner somehow.

 

I only made it as far as Holbrook before deciding that I really needed some hamburgers. So I pulled up at the Holbrook KOA and got started on the Hattori special, which my Dad taught me back in 2014 on my first trip. It’s simple – get some aluminum foil, slice up a potato, a carrot, and half an onion, and acquire a hamburger patty or two. Spread some vegetable oil on a sizeable strip of tin foil, layer the potatoes over the foil, sprinkle them with salt, add the hamburgers, sprinkle with more salt and some pepper, add the carrots and onions, and sprinkle THEM with a bit of salt and pepper. Then wrap the whole thing up into a packet, stick it on your grill, and cook it until it smells awesome. That’s all there is to it! Delicious.

It's been a fun day and it is good to kick back and relax now. There's no better sight at the end of a long day than this one: