Thursday, April 7
The skies
cleared up last night and Kim was stargazing again. He’s still not getting all the equipment to
work like it should, which is frustrating him…but he continues to learn along
the way. Tonight there’s a big wind
blowing the clouds, so he’s busy packing up his telescope paraphernalia. Tomorrow we’re moving on, so whatever we can pack
up tonight lessens the load tomorrow.
**8:30 p.m. Kim goes out to the truck and comes in saying that it’s calm
and clear now. L
----------
Slept in again
today, not intending to but my body clock didn’t wake me as usual when the sunlight
was coming through the ceiling vent window. Maybe because I was burrowed under
the covers. J I
already know that we’re going to have a real issue getting acclimated back to
Michigan time. Day was sunny and warm,
so after a quick bowl of Cheerios, we hit the road.
----------
Today, we picked
out a general area to ride but beyond that we were open to wherever the road
took us. And the first place it took us
was past the exit we needed! Exits off
the highway aren’t real plentiful in this area but we managed to get back to
exit 292 without going too far out of our way.
Just part of the ride or so I told myself. Anyway, we headed north on SR 77, which is a
well maintained, but not heavily traveled road.
About 30 miles in, we crossed onto the Navajo Reservation. Because we didn’t have any timetable except
to be back at camp before dark, we just wandered with only a vague idea of
where we were going. There were plenty
of roads but only a few were paved, so we had to be mindful of how far the next
paved intersection was…if not we could find ourselves going miles farther than
we intended in a direction that wasn’t leading back to our camp.
----------
All the open
country we rode through today, we didn’t see any wildlife! Not a pronghorn, not a mule deer, not even a
gopher scurrying across the road. How is
that possible?!
----------
It was interesting
to me that there were no housing developments on the reservation. Or at least
that none that we saw. There were homes
back off the road…most were solitary homes at the end of a long, long driveway. If there were several in the same area, it
was definitely not a development like we see back home. And the houses were modest, nothing
fancy. I guess I expected people to be
living in little community groupings but that’s not what we saw, with the
exception of the Hopi Indian Agency community in Keams Canyon. There are two churches,
post office, gas station with an attached café and grocery store and multiple
houses in the area. But it was a small
area. A gentleman at the post office
told us that the gas station was the last one for about 85 miles (Tuba City,
AZ). After having lunch at the café, we turned back
the way we came for about 10 miles to take another route back to Holbrook. We passed several of the gas station/café/grocery
store combination. There might be larger
towns on the reservation but not where we were riding.
----------
Along one section
of the highway on the reservation, there were many shelters with an open front
and a bench. It reminded me of a bus
stop shelter. These shelters were all at
the end of long driveways and several had vehicles parked nearby. So I wonder if this is some kind of reservation
transit/car pool system. I wouldn’t
think it was for the school bus because most kids would just drive their
vehicles to school instead leaving them by the road while taking the bus.
----------
As we crossed
into the Navajo Nation on SR 77 today, the mile markers on the right side of the road
were in miles and the markers on the left side were in kilometers. I haven’t been able to find out why.
----------
I thought today
would be all about the scenery, but then we stopped at a gas station and met
Sonia and Popcorn. That’s right, the guy’s
name was Popcorn. At the station, Kim
went inside and I just waited on the bike. Across the parking lot, I could see a couple
sharing a bag of Cheetos. One of them
started saying something at two men by the gas pumps…couldn’t hear what was
being said, but I could see that the speaker was being ignored. The couple stood up and, of course, came in
my direction. They stopped to talk to me…first
she mentioned how tired Louie looked and then it was just general ‘where you
from, where you going’ stuff. Yes, I
could tell they were both a bit inebriated.
When Kim came out, they again asked where we were from…when Kim said
Michigan, the guy became animated and held his hand up, with fingers apart and
asked where. J As I was showing them where on the mitten, Kim
was saying that it was close to the bridge to the Upper Peninsula. This is the direction of the conversation:
Oh, up there, then
you’re Canadian. Do you speak French?
No, we’re not Canadian but Canada is close
to Michigan and you’re right, some Canadians do speak French.
How about Creole? Do
you know Creole? Creole is like French, right?
You mean, Creole like Louisiana Creole?
Yeah, yeah, what do
you know about Louisiana?
Then, as Popcorn
started talking to Kim about his Creole/Navajo background, Sonia started talking
to me about her heritage.
Seven sixteenths
Navajo…seven sixteenths. Do you know what
that means?
Well, seven sixteenths is almost half. Are you half Navajo?
Yes, seven
sixteenths Navajo. But what does this
mean? Does this mean I’m full Navajo? Or
am I Mexican? What does this seven sixteenths mean?
At this point, I’m
just not sure how to respond, but it didn’t matter as she got sidetracked by
the Cheetos. When Kim asked if I was
ready to ride, she wiped her hand on her pants to shake my hand. Not any ol’
handshake though…it had 4 parts to it and when the handshake was done, she said
‘This is for the seven
sixteenths. Yes, seven sixteenths.’
That’s when we found out her name was Sonia and his name was Popcorn. She then high fived Louie. When we started
the bikes up, they were startled but impressed with the sound and stood there
watching us circle the pumps back out to side road. As we’re waiting to pull out onto the highway,
Kim said “Crank it up, that’ll give ‘em a thrill.” So we ripped through the gears as we headed
up the hill, imagining the smiles on their faces.
----------
Talked some more
tonight with the woman on the Harley trike.
She’s a retired nurse, recently widowed, and besides embarking on this
solo trip, is trying her hand at writing fiction. Hasn’t gotten anything published but that hasn’t
stopped her from writing. She’s on a
journey all right. J
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE JOURNEY !!!
ReplyDelete