Arizona (part 2)

Reservation land is a lot like I imagined it would be hot, bright, and a little desolate. It does hold enough surprises to be considered beautiful, even breathtaking at times, but it did not make for the most comfortable road trip conditions.

The day was a total scorcher inside our car. We made the mistake of trying a traditional Navajo breakfast, a corned beef and hash brown burrito. After a few hours of driving everyone was a little sick and really tired, tired of traveling, tired of being hot, just tired of being tired. The car had become our undersized home on wheels for the last few weeks and we were all beyond ready to vacate the premises.

By the time we pulled up to the Ranger's station I was half asleep, my eyelids so heavy after spending the past four hours squinting behind my sunglasses. To say the day was sunny would be a vast understatement. The Ranger took our toll handing us our week pass and we were off to see one of the great wonders of our continent, The Painted Desert. 

We pulled the car into the first stop, planning on taking the hiking trail that was marked on the map. We should have known from the general bear-like grumpiness of everyone in the car that the hike would not be happening. 

From the moment our feet touched the pavement someone was either yelling or crying, parents included. That fact only made more miserable by the outstanding, awe-inspiring beauty of our surroundings. The Desert was filled with gorgeous tri-colored red sand dunes. The vastness of the sky made me want to plop down on my back and stare for hours. 

I have never had the sky give me chills before until I saw the sky over the desert. It is a unique kind of beauty that always seems to steal your ability to breathe for a moment. Vistas like this should be sacred spaces where talking full voiced is not encouraged so everyone can worship in their own way. 

The people visiting on September 14th sadly did not get any type of a sacred experience. Instead they were (un)lucky enough to partake in a symphony of whaling children, grumbling dad, yapping dogs and a mom who's menacing words, although directed at my children, stopped more than a few gaped mouth pedestrians in their tracks. Needless to say, we soon packed back up into the car and headed down the road. . 

Being the stubborn people we tend to be, Brent and I are both the babies of our families, we decided to fit in a few more stops. The second place we parked the car went a lot like the first stop, at first. Then, like the flip of a light switch, the girls decided to be happy. Kids.

They grabbed each other's hands and skipped to the overlook climbing on the side step and gazing out like mini explorers. By about the third "they are just the cutest things" from random passerbys my bad attitude finally faded away. I gabbed onto Brent's hand and I swear we began channeling the Brady Bunch.

Brent and I try to pretend that we control the family but it is an obvious lie, if the kids ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. We were all sitting on the ledge trying to decide if we wanted to get a hotel and come again the next day or just go home when Brent spotted a sand funnel.

It was far enough away for us to be safe but close enough to be totally awesome. We watched until it fizzled out, then I grabbed my phone to make a reservation, the decision had been made. We hopped back into the car and decided to cash in on the high spirits of everyone by trying a walking trail. There was a path to some ruins at Puerco Pueblo that fit the bill so we headed that way. 

The ruins were well, ruins. To be honest, they paled in comparison having seen the White House Ruins the day before.They just didn't capture our attention as much as they might have. We did see our first petroglyphs at this stop and they were beyond cool

They were so great that we decided that we had to add one more stop to the day to visit Newspaper Rock.

The name really gives the look of the location away. It has several large boulders covered in petroglyphs. One of our first reactions after the initial amazement was humor over the rudimentary drawings.

I realize I probably would not draw much better if my tools were rock on stone, but it is funny to consider what the original artist would have thought if they knew their stick figures would one day end up a National Monument.

It is interesting that in our world anything very old immediately becomes prized, whether it is beautiful or not. We seem to be innately fascinated by anything that survives the test of time, maybe hoping it will give up it's secret for survival. 

On that note I will leave you for now until day two, where we visited the most ancient and resilient artifacts I have ever laid hands on in the Petrified Forest. 

Much love <3

Arizona (part 1)

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” 

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

We went to visit this lovely lady a couple of weekends ago.

She is working on the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona. When we started this adventure we each had our own little bucket list. Brent and my list were a little more on the adult emotional side of what we dream about for our family. Mattie really wanted to see volcanoes and dinosaurs. All Zadie wanted was to see Indians. I am pretty sure she had this picture in her mind of beaded head dresses and spears and nothing we said was going to change that image. Going to the reservation was the easiest way to check off her bucket list and to finally convince her that Indians are average joes just like us! :) Plus, we got to hang with someone we adore which totally helped all of us with our homesick blues.

I was so excited to see my friend that i didn't think to much about what we would do when we got to Arizona. She said we were going to go on a really cool hike and she was not lying!

 When we drove up to this place I had NO IDEA what to expect.

The visitor's center was pretty sweet. They had two Indian structures that you could look at and walk inside which the girls loved. One is still used for religious ceremonies on the reservation.

And we saw so many of these structures, hogans, on the reservation. They are the traditional Navajo Indian dwelling. 

Driving to the canyon was really strange. It is hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that this beautiful places are in the middle of this little nondescript town. 

We got out of our car and started to walk down a path and we were met with the most gorgeous view. We were standing on dirt and stone but staring down into a lush beautiful valley. It was a surreal experience, far more stunning than these pictures show.

We started our trek to the bottom of the canyon walking on cool stone steps, stumbling through dark tunnels, and hiding in little caves along the way. The hike was around 3 miles round trip and Zadie did the whole thing! That may not sound that hard but you have to factor in that the end of the hike is straight up out of the canyon. I was hurting so I know her little legs had to be so tired too! Mattie crashed in the ergo on Brent's back. She has gotten really good about taking little power naps on our hikes and waking up ready to go conquer the world again!

The bottom of the canyon was like.... WOW! It was green even though the river was completely dried up. It was so crazy to look up and see these huge stone walls climbing to the sky. It was a breathtaking view.

We had several people on the hike confuse Candice for the girl's mom. We were cracking up. I didn't blame them, my blond babies do look like they could come from her!

Can you see the cat face???

There were really cool ruins built into the side of the canyon walls and on the canyon floor called the White House Ruins. They are said to have been occupied between 1040 and 1275 AD. I felt like I was in one of my old History text books. We were all dying to walk around the ruins in the nook on the wall. I wonder what is would have felt like to live and raise my kids so high off the ground... talk about upping the stress factors!

We also visited Spider Rock while we were in the area. Cool fact, part of the new Lone Ranger movie was filmed in Canyon de Chelly and Spider Rock. I haven't seen it yet but now I am going to have to make it happen!

We are going to have to add binoculars to the girls' Christmas list this year. They were in love with Candice's pair!

The views were so incredible that I feel like my brain had a hard time processing it all. Everything we looked at was so vast, the sky, the canyon, the rocks... It was hard to take everything in. But I would not say it was overwhelming. It was grounding in the way that it makes it impossible not realize what a tiny part we are in the intricate system of our world. It is good to be reminded how ancient our planet is and how we, as humans, are just one stage of the earth's long life. It makes you want to take yourself less serious, which is always a good thing in my book! 

We were going to stick around the reservation and explore the next day, but we didn't realize the Navajo nation is over 27 thousand miles big. That would have taken us a little longer than a day... ;) So we explored some Navajo trading posts and we headed to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. The pictures from that adventure are coming your way soon! Until then, we are sending you guys all our love.

The Browns <3