End of February 2014
After a solid rest at Brendan's, I made it to the Superstitious area of the Superstition Mountains. The rangers were super excited to talk to someone who wanted to hike and had all sorts of good day hikes and longer hikes with great info on where water was and good rest spots along the way, and practically a binder full of notes on the local trails. But... It was pretty hot and I discovered a nice sandy beach on a lake and did some solid procrastinating and sun bathing, along with throwing Bella in time after time until she picked up that being wet is actually pretty fun. I didn't end up doing much hiking, just during the cooler morning and evening hours. There, I went up to another NF just north of Superstition and hung out and did some creek walks. I had a pamphlet on the edibles and wound up with a good amount of stuff. None of it (2 different types of cactus) had much flavor to it, but it went well in my soup and didn't kill me, so that's a plus. There were a lot of weekenders, so I used Bella, my valentine, to go up and be cute as a conversation starter. She basically got kidnapped for a day by a family with two kids that had a good time playing with her while I dove into my book.
From there I began my Hwy 40/Route 66 journey starting in Winslow, AZ, then finishing the day in Petrified Forest NP. The petrified stumps were so colorful yet my my favorite part was the petrified wood chips scattered all over the place. It looked our neighbors house with wood chips scattered all over. I dunno why but it gave me a good laugh.
That night I camped on some ranch not too far away. There were all different colors of rocks and I'm assuming petrified wood scattered all over the place.
Canyon de Chelly was the next day, It looked like a mini Grand Canyon with native ruins all over the place. It was some Monday holiday so people and the local Hopi and Navajo vendors were out with their artwork. One of the guys chatted me up and got me hooked with the meanings of the petroglyphs, their creation story, and all sorts of other stuff. Although most families have different stories of the meanings, they are all pretty similar and it was nice to actually get an explanation of the meanings. I'm kinda bummed that the visitor center explained very little, and have very uninteresting, in my opinion, displays. They mostly have lots of stories of the explorers who discovered these sites, give a very brief explanation, and tell stories and dates that don't seem to match up with what the Hopi and Navajo say. What they do have on the natives of the past seem to be a guess of what the past of the area was like. For example, there was a large migration around 1300ish AD plus or minus a hundred years or so. The NP's just say there's no clear reason why they left because there was no significant weather or environmental problems... Maybe invaders. When I brought that up with the guy and family I talked with about their culture and beliefs, they said it was the end of that world and they migrated by following the petroglyphs into the new world. I understand that stories differ within the community but it just seems like the NP's could do a little better in terms of representing the locals and their opinions on the past however different they are from the western opinion of the world.
Going on, from there I got a speeding ticket, my first ticket ever!!! I was guilty as charged of going 65 in a 55. Only like 70 bucks, and my car has been doing great in terms of no problemos (knock on wood)m and great mileage so I can't complain too much. Then I went to El Malpais National Monument which is on the Continental Divide. There was lots of lava so I detoured and did some barefoot walking in a sand wash. Lava is cool and all, and they had lots of caves, but I was just in Hawaii and I know Bella doesn't want to be walking on lava.
The highlight of what I was looking forward too for quite some time, Chaco Canyon, was next. There was a great dog friendly trail system but the high was 42 degrees that day and the wind had to have been 30mph at times. I made the most of it and powered through as much as I could but wind sucks the energy right out of you. I still got in a good amount of hiking. And anyways, I should have taken a picture of the visitor center information to prove my point. They had a section of the geology of the area, a timeline of the events of the exploration, and discovery of the area. That's it. I dunno, maybe I missed the door that goes into the room that explains all the other interesting native stories and modern speculations that have this area being a pretty important part of the ancient world. I guess they had some books for sale that would fall into that category. For my last rambling about this issue, I would just like to say there are other ways of explaining to the world what a lot of other people and cultures are interested in or fully believe. If you open you mind to these ideas it can be interesting and fun, you don't have to believe, just try to understand a different point of view other than the western mindset of first we weren't very smart and we lived in caves, then, cities, religion, wars, Jesus, the Greeks, discovering America... and now we have cars. Cars that can go about 200-300 miles a day without a certain driver going crazy, the dog needing to run around, and both of them needing to pee on some tree.
Next, I am going to take a solid two day rest in a Mississippi NF. Then I'll need a little bit of running around collecting my gear for a March 1st Appalachian Trail thru hike attempt!!!
Sent somewhere in Arkansas, maybe...
http://www.arizona-leisure.com/superstition-mountain.html
Chaco Canyon
http://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm Chaco Canyon
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