Rock Of Ages

The past few days we have been exploring the Anasazi ruins of Wupatki and Mesa Verde National Monuments. I was quite impressed with the ancients stone laying abilities. Not only are the stones laid with a great technical proficiency but there is a true artistic sensibility to them also.

Even a playfulness in some cases it would seem. They just built around anything they couldn't move and would even throw in an odd colored rock here and there to break up the pattern.

This particular wall is at Wupatki and I just loved how they flushed up their wall with the line of the natural stone foundation so perfectly. It's like the laid stonework just grows out of the earth.
Just beautiful.

This is at Canyon De Shelly, pronounced like Canyon De Shea. A absolutely beautiful place but with horrible history. I felt odd here. This was the start of the Canyon del Muertos (Canyon of the Dead). I believe so named because this is the area where Kit Carson and his men slaughtered so many Navajo as he was trying to drive them from their land. He finally did drive them off to another state, then, the federal government decided the land wasn't worth anything anyway and so they let the remaining Navajos come back. Seems the logic and efficiency of our government hasn't changed much over time.

And this is the ever famous Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. It was impressive but this is the closest you can get unless you pay the park rangers $50 a head. You can walk through a couple of the other sites by yourself though. You will also hear a lot of French and German being spoken at these sites as those countries seem to have an almsot cultish obsession with our ancient southwest. I found that very curious but the phenomenon is large enough that it has even been written about. Who knew?

We also made a trip through the Navajo and Hopi Reservations an a quest for me to find Honan, the Badger. The Hopi reservation is smack in the center of the Navajos so I had to go through them to get to the Hopi. It was very interesting though and the Hopi are very kind and friendly. The Navajo a little less so but we had a great time. We finally stumbled upon a little store on Second Mesa and met a wonderful Hopi lady and her husband, an Anglo. We talked with them and browsed their store for over an hour I bet. As the Hopi do not like photographs to be taken, I have no pictures but I have recorded the experience in my heart as they say we should. I will introduce you all to Honan the Badger when I return home.

Tonight we are in Durango, CO and will head out for Aztec and possibly Chaco Canyon tomorrow. From there I'm not sure. We are getting tired and missing home a little at this point but are still having a great time and seeing so many wondrous things. Oh, we finally got to try Indian fry bread; it is very good. Something like our southern funnel cakes if dunked in honey.