In Country

  

Cat de Chelly.  Not part of this story,
but a Navajo ambassador never the less.

 The Navajo Nation is a quasi-autonomous political entity that encompasses a large parcel of land in the northeastern corner of Arizona.  It is so big in fact, that the Automobile Association of America publishes a map called "Indian Country" which girds the entire Four Corners region of the western United States.  A very cool paper map, by the way, that could never be replaced by a smartphone app.  At least not for anyone over the age of 35.


The Navajo Reservation includes several famous geographic landmarks that would be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a John Wayne Western.  Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly (pronounced 'shea') are two of the better known regions.  If you want to get your Clint Eastwood on, you must visit these iconic locations.  Just don't insult a Navajo woman selling her wares on the rim of the canyon.  Or BYO a  bottle of red wine to the local Holiday Inn Restaurant in Chinle, AZ.  Both will earn you a berating you won't soon forget.  If a Navajo woman chided Kit Carsen in 1864 like she scolded me, the Native Americans might still own most of the southwest.  I am exaggerating for effect of course, and the circumstance of the 19th century Native Americans was no laughing matter.  But I am still wincing from the chastening I received at the hands of a proud Navajo woman along the rim of Canyon de Chelly.  Especially since I only did what I thought was expected.  Leading me to lick my wounded pride by chanting my favorite mantra, "why does this shit always happen to me"?

Single Dad, artist, and Navajo historian extraordinaire,  Antonio

You see, at every viewpoint parking area there are a handful of Navajos selling Native American sandstone paintings, pottery, and jewelry.  It is like a crafts fair of Native American wares where you get to talk with the artists and hear their stories.  And while you are listening to Antonio tell you how he is a single Dad eking out a living selling modern interpretations of the petroglyphic art of his Anasazi forebears you are thinking, "what should I really offer this dude for his $25.00 sandstone painting"?   And, "Didn't I see that at the visitor center gift shop for less"?  There is no benchmark to determine the actual value except what the gullible tourist five minutes before me paid Antonio for his  souvenir.

World travelers like to crow about how they out-haggled a subsistence villager living in some remote Himalayan Valley and bragging, "you see this hand carved yak ivory tusk on my coffee table?  I paid only $10.00 for it!  Poor nomadic schnook".
Well you know what?  He is poor!  And he needs the lucre more than you need it.  He could have done more with the $20.00 you beat him out of, by feeding his family for three solid months, than you.  You, on the other hand, will piss away the $20.00 on one meal at a TGI Fridays back in America.  On this day, however, Antonio, pictured above, was more than willing to offer me a windy day special without much effort on my part.  It seems he had only two sandstone paintings left, the weather was deteriorating, and he wanted to close out his stock and leave for the day.  Two for the price of one and I could take a photograph with him as well (this normally requires an additional tip).  Sold! and on to the next "stall" where I had my eye on a beautiful turned ceramic pot with engraved petroglyphic designs.  The Navajo woman artisan had a potter's wheel in her van and she was turning her bowls on the spot.  This made the whole experience seem rather intimate.

So emboldened by the ease with which I had bargained with Antonio, and how amenable I had found the other male artisans, I offered her $15.00 for the finely detailed $25.00 crock.  Well, oh.......my.........god!  She did not look favorably upon this fiscal insult (I don't blame her either.  I just assumed one is supposed to bargain).  She proceeded to chastise me up and down about how much work it was and how she even had to dig the clay out of the earth herself (being Native American they know their natural resources), and that carving the decorative elements alone involved over 3 hours of labor.  She also assailed me with histrionic eye rolling toward my ignorant hubris.  I knew she was not going to back down because she still had a full stock of pots on her table while most of the other vendors had sold a lot of their items judging from their depleted display tables.  Either that or she knew I was an easy mark and I really wanted the bowl.  In any case the $25.00 really was quite reasonable.

So I sheepishly handed over the cash and accepted the crock from her even as she harrumphed in taking my money.  I am not exaggerating the encounter.  In fact, Tammy and I noticed that all the male artisans were more than willing to cajole us, while all of the female ones seemed to treat us with much more assertiveness and sternness.  Exactly what one would expect in a  matriarchal society like the Navajo, where lineages are tied to the bride's family, not the groom's (matrilocal as opposed to patrilocal).  Which really isn't very insightful, interesting or revolutionary but I tell this story just so I can vent about getting a stern lecture and being made to feel bad about an interaction that plays out a million times a day across the globe in bazaars throughout the world.

Which does bring me to another point about the pleasures of domestic travel.  The Navajo People share many American sensibilities with the rest of the nation but they also have a different zeitgeist and cultural outlook.  So in the Navajo Nation one can enjoy a sort of cultural tourism without venturing too far from home.  As for the BYO kerfuffle at the Holiday Inn?  The Navajo Nation is a dry country climate-wise and libation-wise.  So don't put yourself in a position to be admonished by the waitress.  It is not fun being scolded by your mother while on vacation.

Incriminate or Exonerate

I took a hike a few weeks ago in a state park on the outskirts of Scottsdale Arizona.  It cost me forty-six dollars.  And I am not including the gas money to get there, nor the approximately dollar fifty-nine for a PB&J on flatbread and some carrot bites I ate at the summit.  Maybe not a summit.  It was more like the top of one of the giant termite hills you see on Animal Planet shows about insects.  Except instead of termites, I was simultaneously attacked by fire ants, jumping cacti needles and the occasional dung beetle mistaking my beer hangover farts for an olfactory dinner invitation.  I am, however, including the forty dollars that was stolen right out of my wallet by an evil (or not) mountain biker, who, for some unknown reason, left me with a single dollar.

The part that really stings is the fact that I had wanted to hike a different trail, clear on the other side of Scottsdale.  If you are from New Jersey you might not get the implication of my words.  Clear on the other side of Scottsdale is not like clear on the other side of Cherry Hill.  It's more like Exits 1 through 4 on the NJ Turnpike. Cherry Hill might be sprawling, and Route 70 might be one giant parking lot, but there is plenty more desert in the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area than there is abandoned farmland in NJ.  When you look at an AAA map of Arizona, one inch does not equal ten miles.  One inch equals thirty miles.  With the same traffic as Cherry Hill.  But without the Wawas.

Now, on this particular Friday everyone else in Scottsdale, AZ had decided to take the same hike as well.  I don't know how to explain this so you can visualize it, but the trail head parking situation was about as accommodating and welcoming as the beach access in Loveladies, NJ.  Unless you get there by 6 AM or own a mansion on the beach, you ain't gettin' in.  So after cruising the parking area for fifteen minutes, hoping the thirty-three other cars doing the same thing would miss someone pulling out, I decided to abort and do what I should have done in the first place, which was to drive out of town, fifty minutes, to the nearest state park.  And, as it turns out, my instincts had been correct because the only people in this park were me and that mountain biker.

Why do I say this?  Because during the seven mile drive from the unmanned entrance station to the trail head, I saw no other cars, and only one bicyclist.  And there were no cars at the trail head parking area either.  I say unmanned  entrance station because that is where my troubles began.  I am ashamed to admit this, but after driving almost an hour to this park I initially balked at the $6.00 entry fee posted on the aforementioned unmanned  entry station kiosk.  If you have ever pulled into a national park campground after hours you know what I am talking about.  The honor system.  You are expected to have exact change, to place that exact change into an envelope with your car make and model and license plate number clearly written, with the imaginary pen you hope someone left in the rental car glove box, on the outside.  And if you do find that pen, it is most likely bone dry of ink and half melted anyway from the desert heat.  And then you are to place that envelope in the little slot at the top of the cast iron pipe with the little door and Master Lock at the bottom.  So the ranger can collect your money later during his rounds.  But before you drop the envelope in the slot, you must not forget to tear the little ticket off the envelope with the corresponding ID number and place it prominently on your dashboard.  The driver's side only.  Lest the over worked ranger miss seeing it while you drive past going 15 mph over the park road speed limit.

But the first instinct, of course, is to stand there for ten minutes looking up and down the empty access highway looking for any sign of a ranger who could possibly catch you sneaking in with out paying the six dollar entry fee anyway.  And simultaneously engage in an internal debate about whether or not sneaking into a deserted state park is a victimless crime.  I, however, am not the criminal in this story.  Popular opinion aside, atheists do have a strong moral compass, so I paid the fee.  But in order to comply with all the rules I had to first find a pen and walk around to the front of my rental vehicle to copy down the license plate number.  And in so doing, I absentmindedly placed my wallet on the hood of the car while writing down the required info.  Need I spell it out any further?  It was not until I got out of the car six miles later and scratched my ass over my wallet pocket that I realized my stupid mistake.  I remembered I had seen only one other human being in the park and I hoped I could find my wallet lying in the middle of the road before either he, or a hungry rattlesnake, got to it first.

So while ironically speeding 50 mph on a 25 mph park road, I carefully scanned the highway for any unnatural looking debris as I headed back toward the entrance station.  And there, at mile marker 3, I saw my precious, lying directly on the double yellow line.  I picked it up, saw my license and credit card safely tucked inside, kissed it to God (even atheists obey tradition), and stuffed it back into my pocket without further ado.  I turned the car around and proceeded back to the trail head to at least get my hike in.  It was now three hours since I first headed out for a quick, free hike, fifteen minutes from my hotel.  Beating the afternoon heat was no longer an option.  Contrary to what you might read in a book on stress reduction, a bit of mindless physical exertion, especially in the blazing sun in the Sonoran Desert, does not necessarily make you feel better.  Especially if the only view from the high point is suburban sprawl, western style, interspersed with rocks, Sagebrush, a Starbucks, more rocks, a Red Robin, and the intermittent Saguaro cactus.  And it is 98 degrees in the shade.  But it is a dry heat.

Fast forward two hours to the Starbucks for a cup of iced coffee.  When I go to pay there is exactly one, one dollar bill in my wallet.  Now, as you may know, I suffer from a mild form of OCD and I am always fully aware of the number, order, denomination, and condition of the bills in my wallet.  Especially while traveling in foreign domestic states like Arizona.  If I have four singles in my wallet and one of them is torn, I make note of this because I will pay with that one first.  Sadly, this is not a joke.  So I was quite certain I had two Andrew Jacksons left after paying the six dollar entry fee for the above mentioned shitty hike.  My conclusion?  That lone mountain biker found my wallet, grabbed the forty bucks, leaving the dollar to allay his guilt a little, and tossed it back into the middle of the road.  So here is the question; Is he a greedy opportunist or a thoughtful samaritan?  He could have left the whole wallet and never taken anything, reasoning the owner would come back looking for it.  He could have taken the whole thing home and tried to contact the owner, hoping for a $5.00 reward.  He could have brought it to the ranger station, but he was on a bicycle and that would entail riding back 4 miles in the desert sun.  Or, worst case, he could have stolen my credit card as well.  It's lucky for me he ended up grabbing the cash and leaving the rest since I was flying home the next day, and being without any ID would have been a hassle.  But he did take my $40.00.   What would you have done?

We the People, not, We the Theocrats

In this age of PCness do they still put Bibles in hotel room drawers?  As I think about it I have not come across one in a while.  Although I haven't traveled all that much lately.  I do believe that when I was in Utah several years back there was a Book of Mormon along with a King James in the nightstand drawer.  And in a Cherry Hill, NJ hotel, I once found a Torah.  I'm kidding.  I only found a Chinese restaurant take out menu.
                                                                                    
Here is what I would like to find in my hotel room drawer: copies of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America.  What could be more PC than that?  And more comforting.  To know my rights here on Earth are inalienable is what concerns me for the moment.  It is the one thing we Americans all  have in common.  Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists (no need to capitalize), Animists, Hindus, and others.  Listed in no particular order of relevance, importance, popularity, veracity, or net global worth.    If we were indeed founded as a Judeo-Christian Nation as more and more Americans seem to believe then why bother with a Constitution at all?  If Theology and Canonical Law are the primary sources of our morality and God's Law surpasses that of Man's Law then the only logical thing to do would have been to have a western version of  Sharia Law.  Why did James Madison, John Jay, John Adams, et al, not make it perfectly clear that the New and Old Testaments trump all?  Let me think, let me think..............Oh yes, the First Amendment specifically intones against that.  I am not arguing that there may or may not be a source of ethical and moral values greater than our own rule book.  I am only refuting this idea that the Framers intended for the Bible to be our day to day rule book, which you must  believe if we were founded as a specifically Christian nation.  For the Bible is the  Christian (and Jewish) rule book.

I agree that our morality system flows from a long tradition of western religious philosophical thought, but to specifically say we are a Christian Nation is a slap to the face of reason.  The Puritans and Calvinists, after all, might have founded a colony, but they certainly did not found a Nation.  Secularists and Religious alike did that.

Awesome Takes a Back Seat to Libation

Hellooooooooo Catskill Mountains New York!  Rumpelstiltskin here, awake after a long nap.  Slapped awake by a family member who noticed an unnatural silence at the family dinner table.  A sort of eye of the hurricane calm in a family that usually operates at a tropical storm grade level 5, or maybe it's level 1.  I forget which one is worse.

This is difficult to admit but it is not easy being clever all of the time.  Especially to an audience of nine.  On a good day.  But having been inspired by another's cleverness, I am ready to snap out of my pitiful self loathing and write words that are worthy of the Anxiety section of the Opinionator column in the NY Times or maybe even Shouts and Murmurs in the New Yorker.  For what are we without unrealistic expectations?  Even my cat understands the importance of over reaching.  He sits there staring at the empty food bowl because he knows that all my will power aside, I will eventually relent and give him a snack.  Begging for attention.  The only reason to write a blog.

Herewith my topic (As inspired by another's histrionic musings on the existential importance of a mountain vista):

So Tammy and I revisited the Grand Canyon the other week to experience it in a more intimate manner.  We had been there two decades ago during our "we must visit every national park phase" but we failed to appreciate its full grandeur owing to the weather and a certain GI condition which did not allow me to fully participate in the "If you carry it in, you must carry it out" ethos.  Unless I intended to carry a back pack full of blue bags to the exclusion of all my other gear.  In any event, we basically car crawled along the Rim Drive like all the other ersatz vista enthusiasts, barely rolling down our windows, let alone actually getting out of the car, at every pull off.  The car door window frame, after all, is the best tripod for your camera.  Pull up to Grandview Point, aim your camera out the window making sure to put the horizon exactly in the middle of the frame like every other philistine point and shoot photographer, and then its off to Zuni Point.... for another picture of the same rock formation from a vantage point one tenth of one degree to the east.

Last month our trip was different.  This time we actually backpacked to the bottom and back up to the top, unassisted by the ubiquitous mule train I might add.  Well, that last pronouncement is not entirely true.  Much like Obama's sentiment  "you didn't build that", we did indeed get an assist by all the mules, helicopters, park rangers, Chinese immigrants, and toothless gold miners that preceded us.  You see, there was beer and flush toilets at the base of the Grand Canyon.  And we  did not carry them in.  But they certainly enhanced the experience.  For after walking downhill for seven miles carrying a 35 pound pack I am not thinking about my place in the universe.  I don't care how grand the canyon is.  I just want a beer, and then a place to piss it into.  And then a good nights sleep before the nine and one half mile hike uphill the next day with a 33 pound pack.  The two pound lighter load accounted for by 2 foil pouches of chunk white tuna, a box of couscous and several handfuls of granola that we inhaled in camp.

Which brings me to my main point about what one thinks about when carrying a heavy pack up intimidating mountains:  Why  did I spend $18.95 on a titanium cup weighing 0.8 ounces, $299.00 on a 15 degree 800 fill down sleeping bag weighing only 32 ounces, and leave behind my 3 ounce package of talcum powder as an unnecessary luxury item, only to be told by the ranger that we must carry 4 liters of water per adult if we are to avoid dehydrating to death on the South Kaibob Trail by mile 4.7?  Four liters of water BTW?  8.8 pounds.  I'll take my chances with the swollen tongue.  If I have to crawl the last 2.3 miles to the Yavapai Lodge and a drinking fountain, that will beat the crap out of carrying a gallon of water next to my precious three ounce, $40.00, titanium stove.  Hell, I don't even buy spring water at the supermarket because I hate lugging the jugs to my car.  That and the BPA thing of course.

And by the way, the 16.5 miles of trail we hiked to access the Grand Canyon in all its magisterial splendor?
A handicapped accessible ramp by Catskills standards. 

A view of the handiramp.