The monsoons are treating Arizona to some spectacular lightning displays. It’s the middle of summer.
Native American Lands – Day 2
We are on a guided tour through the Ute Reservation in Southwest Colorado and are immediately surprised by the amount of broken pottery we are shown. That these small fragments of cultural treasure are lying here for us to witness is lucky for us. Thank you to everyone else who has ever visited and withstood the desire to walk away with a souvenir shard.
Pictographs are easily spotted in nearly all directions.
While the rock formations are of great interest, too.
But it is the fragments of dwellings that draw us in.
An old visitor center that operated from 1971 to 1981 is near the foot of Chimney Rock.
From one reservation, we headed to another south of us. The Zuni Reservation is in northwest New Mexico. We were looking for some food but found art and fell deeply in love with Zuni art.
At the time, we couldn’t afford a piece from the collection we were checking out, and I regret it.
Our drive back to Phoenix is filled with beautiful landscapes and dramatic skies.
Native American Lands – Day 1
Our lives should have stories; while this one is cheesier, it was ours. While many places along Route 66 are simply gone, there are a couple of stretches where images of an era gone by are clinging to life, such as in Seligman, Winslow, and here in Holbrook. Someday, this place too may join the fate of many of the other original Wigwam locations and be bulldozed, but we’ll know firsthand what it was like to sleep in a concrete Tee Pee on one of America’s most famous old highways.
Fitting in with our nostalgic overnight we just had to stop in a cafe for breakfast, and a great breakfast it was.
Heading into the lands of Native America.
The landscape is beautiful, but it’s also obvious that it gets little rainfall. Along the way, we stopped at the Hubbell Trading Post listed as a National Historic Site.
After this dust storm blew across the landscape, we were offered a bit of rain, but just a little.
Over in the southwest corner of Colorado, not far from the Four Corners region where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico all share a common border spot is the Mesa Verde National Park. For almost 10,000 years, the native people of North America have inhabited this area. Today, there are over 4,300 archaeological sites in this park, though only a few are easily visited.
These cliff dwellings are probably the largest draw for visitors to Mesa Verde.
Our time here is too brief as it is in so many of our travels while we are out here trying to get oriented to the lands of America.
Native American Lands – Day 0
Finally had the opportunity to sleep in a Wigwam here in Holbrook, Arizona. This is only one of three Wigwam properties that still exist. Built-in 1950 on old Route 66, it is an icon that has always attracted our attention when we’ve driven by it. Heading up to Colorado, we decided to shave some miles off our trip by driving the 186 miles (300 km) here to the Wigwam Motel, as this was as good an excuse as any to book a night. Bragging rights alone make this bit of Americana worth every penny.
Los Angeles
Two weeks later and here we are in Los Angeles again. For a while, the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica was a serious draw for movies, food, books, and street life. At some point, Mark Shimer joined us; come to think of it, this was probably the weekend we convinced Caroline to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain, and with knees quivering, she rode Superman – and liked it!
No matter when and where, my wife will always try to get her shoes off for a walk in the water, add some golden sunset, and it all lends itself to a perfect day.
Los Angeles
These burning hay bales near Blythe, California, are the only reminder that the weekend was spent in Los Angeles. No other photos were taken, and my memory is not good enough to figure out any of the details.
Maybe we took in a movie; maybe this was the weekend we stopped in at Disneyland for half a day, visited a museum, met with the family, or visited Little India or one of the other ethnic centers in Los Angeles; who knows?