Wupatki and the Grand Canyon

I feel badly for my city kids sometimes....often, actually.

During the Tennessee summers of my childhood, I swam in a creek down our dirt lane, explored acres of woods, picked wildflowers, ran through buzzing fields with dogs, picked plump blackberries in Mr. Spann's field while his cows stared, and laid on top of hay bales with my siblings, slowly toasting in the heat while the smell of fresh, green things permeated my hair.

Ah, the life! En mi corazon...I am a country girl. (That's part grammatically-incorrect Spanish/part English, but that's how I think it in my head.)

Don't feel too sorry for my kids, though. They've seen nice city parks and crop islands in the suburbs. They get together with friends far more often than I ever did. We have taken memorable family trips to California, New Mexico, Idaho, Virginia and Hawaii. They have splashed in the Pacific Ocean, surveyed the Sandia Mountains, waded in the Payette River, seen the battlefield of Gettysburg and, incredibly, have shared the sand with sea turtles on a North Shore beach thanks to their Uncle Steve.

You can't take them with you.

But Nature is not their habitat. The concrete jungle with its token, manipulated plants is. And we do not have a cabin "up North". We cannot ship our kids to a relative's farm in the country for a few weeks every year. We have no - I repeat - zero camping equipment. Yet this summer with nary a family trip on the horizon, we had to do something for our city kids who do not know what they are habitually missing.

For days I searched the web with bloodshot eyes, scouring locations and cabins and National Parks' websites, looking for a deal at the ideal spot, and then it hit me as I laid in bed one night: the Grand Canyon.

Only one hitch. My husband has a traveling philosophy: been there, done that. If you have ever been there and done that then you are exempt from ever having to see or do it again. We have a collection of magnets on our fridge, a proud list of our "have beens". We had been to the Grand Canyon with my sister Vinca's family nine years ago, but Berto and Ana were too young to remember, and Ella and Daniel were not born yet. Native Arizonans all, they had not truly been there and done that. Plus, we forgot the magnet. My husband kindly agreed to go for the kids' sake.

And for mine.

Because not too far from the Canyon is another place, one that has been on my list of "to see" for years: Wupatki National Monument. Not only is it fun to say, but it has remnants of several Native American pueblos. I requested we go, and Matthew obliged.

I then exclaimed, "I forgot this yearning I have deep inside of me to see Native American ruins!"

To which statement Berto retorted while rolling his eyes, "Mama, not even Native Americans go see Native American ruins!"

On Matthew's suggestion we invited dear friends, some of my favorite people in the world, to join us. We packed a picnic lunch bursting with fresh fruit that always tastes glorious after a hot hike, and we caravaned north to see Sunset Crater and Wupatki before our family ventured on to the Canyon the next day.

Cool breezes, persistent smell of pine, tall fire-red and yellow wildflowers and gray volcanic rock welcomed us as we began our first hike at Sunset Crater, a volcano that erupted 900 years ago. Per my habit, I hugged a pine and got army ants on my arms. Ah, nature's varied gifts!

I've never liked gray as a color, but Mother Nature wears it well.

The Native Americans viewed that ancient volcanic eruption as a cleansing, renewal. "Now that," I said to my friend Geraldine, "is optimism!"

Wupatki is on the same scenic loop as Sunset Crater, and scenic is an understatement. The high desert is gorgeous, its many and subtle shades of green in stark contrast with the red earth and sandstone. It will knock you out.

Wukoki Pueblo

Geraldine and I were in awe, but I was pulled back down to earth by the need to tell my kids to stay off the walls and not risk their lives on tiny ledges.

We drove on to Wupatki Pueblo, the largest with a community gathering space, a ball court and numerous rooms.

Wupatki

I found a lavender flower growing in a room there.

Berto found preserved tarantulas in the visitor's center. I've always hoped to see one in the wild.

But the greatest thing I discovered was the blow hole near the enormous ball court. It had a grate bolted over it, but it blew cool air up into your face and hair from very deep underground. The Native Americans believed it was the breath of the Great Spirit. To me it was the true scent of Mother Nature without the perfume of vegetation. It was dank, but I loved it. It reminded me of deep, lonely caverns.

After exploring Wupatki we went on to the box canyon ruins and Lomaki Pueblo. When Adolfo, Geraldine's husband, suggested we could all live in these dwellings by a gorge, they taking one ruin and we another, I agreed. It's nice to dream about existing in such a lovely, lonely landscape, completely dependent on our own will to survive and vulnerable to the whims of Mother Nature.

Box Canyon Ruins

Box Canyon

Lomaki Pueblo in the distance

But such a life doesn't exist here anymore. It's a national monument, preserved for us and future generations, and thank God for that.

And thank God for my darling husband who is always willing to take a hike among Native American ruins just to please his wife.

As for the Grand Canyon? It is what it is, an incomprehensibly huge and beautiful hole in the ground crowded with people. You wish you could free fall and then rise up from its depths on beating wings like an eagle, going off to explore secluded, mysterious places. We walked away from the crowds on the paved path, venturing to stand near the edge several times, clasping Ella and Daniel's hands as we peered across this great divide. Berto, Ana and I did a little rock climbing there, descending onto a big finger ledge. While we scrambled up boulders, an enormous orange butterfly alighted first on Ana and then on me. People pay to go to butterfly wonderlands for just such an experience, and we found it amid the surreal scenery of the Grand Canyon.

Truly, amazing things happen when you get out in nature.

The Red Rocks of Sedona...Red of Road Trip Hell

This post explains my insane and constant yearning to explore Native American ruins, my ambiguous feelings about Sedona, and my fear of small town roundabouts.

These are the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona. Pretty, aren't they?

But we had no intention of viewing them on Labor Day. Nor did we intend to go 15 mph down the curvy US 89 A, passing the camera back and forth in an attempt to catch all their glory through the bug-bespattered glass of our car windows. It happened because of bad choices and worse luck.

On a dark and stormy night...no, just kidding! It was a warm and cloudy desert morning, and we were leaving Albuquerque early (but not early enough as it so happens), blazing our way west on the I-40 and thumbing our city noses at the historic Route 66 near Gallup, and all its superior scenery.

I had high hopes for the trip home, because the destination was only home, and Matthew had promised we could stop off at the Homolovi Ruins just east of Winslow, Arizona. Nothing makes my heart pitter-patter like a good Native American puebloan ruin unless there just happens to be an archaeological dig happening at the time we visit.

The kids had high hopes that we would afterwards stop at a park in Flagstaff and run around in the clear mountain air like city folk do-gawking at every flower and hummingbird and kissing trees and small animals as we pass.

Our hopes were too high. This I now know. If we had anticipated nothing more than stinky gas station restrooms, plain sandwiches thrown at us in the car for lunch and stale chips scraped off the van floor and assigned likenesses to various presidential profiles, we would have had a fair day. I shake my head sadly at our impossibly high hopes.

Let me set the scene. There was a teething baby in the car - a sweet-natured baby but a teething one nonetheless. There was a young boy with an often and urgent need to go potty, and a little girl whose best dream was to play in a park on the way home. And there was a preschooler with candy from a birthday party.

I was at times smooshed between my baby and my son in the rear seat, and at other times risking my life and an embarrassing traffic ticket by stumbling over various obstacles and abandoning ladylike posture to climb into the front seat beside my husband. And when I was in that front seat, I turned into the road trip Nazi, shushing every little request for food or water or Scooby-Doo videos in an attempt to keep the baby asleep as long as possible. Meanwhile, Saint Matthew was driving the car.

Fate gave us an early handout at The Petrified Forest National Park before it spent the rest of the time laughing faintly but persistently in our ears.You see, we had to take that turnoff because a. the baby woke up so b. I agreed to finally allow the car to stop moving for a potty break.

Matthew filled up, and I took the kids to the restroom. Afterward, I snuck into the visitor's center with the kids when Matthew wasn't looking. At the Information Desk stood a thin dark-skinned man in a spiffy forest ranger uniform, a long black braid down his back.

"Where do we see some petrified wood?" I whispered, glancing over my shoulder.

The ranger examined me a moment and then decided to answer my idiotic question. His voice had an unusual lilting quality to it, as if he had lately been speaking an ancient Native American dialect.

"Well, we have some out there for viewing, but here's a map of the park," he said, pointing to the large picture on the wall five inches from my face. "There are several hiking trails."

"Oh, we couldn't possibly get out of the car," I said with a shifty glance around me.

"Are you headed to Flagstaff?" He asked. I nodded. "Then you just take the 180 instead. It's only 45 minutes longer."

"And can you see the Painted Desert from there?" I asked innocently.

Again I got that strange unfathomable look. "Yes," he answered slowly, "and the largest pieces of petrified wood are here," he added, pointing to a spot on the map near some public restrooms.

"That's five feet from where we are!" I said excitedly.

"No, we're here," he answered, moving his finger a good several inches. "That's on the other side of the park."

Oh, my husband won't drive that far off the freeway," I told him. "It's a chronic road trip problem."

I studied the map wistfully, and then I saw a marker that made my heart skip - Puerco Pueblo!

"Is this a Native American ruin?" I asked. "I love ruins!"

"Yes," he answered, glancing anxiously toward other tourists poised with equally stupid questions. Then he pulled out a pamphlet from beneath the Information Desk. "There's a map there," he said, pointing to the back of it and then deserting me.

I hustled the kids out into the bright sunshine and beat it out to where large logs of petrified wood lay in a courtyard, glistening in the sun with their jewel-toned ribbons of color. The kids started pounding them. Then I saw Matthew approaching.

"I forgot the camera," I told him. "You want me to go get it?"

"No, it's time to go."

"Ahwww," said me and the kids.

"Honey, there's a Native American ruin here!" I said as we walked. "Let's go see it."

"Is that your stop?" he asked bluntly.

We piled into the car, and Matthew backed out of the parking space.

"Why can't we see both?" I tried desperately. "Two Native American ruins! And the Painted Desert!"

"No," said Matthew. "It's this or Homolovi, but not both. So which is it? Better be quick."

It was too much pressure. I had contemplated Homolovi since the evening before. The site was a complete unknown to me; I couldn't remember reading anything about it. The mystery of it drew me like a magnet. Yet, here we were in the Petrified Forest near the Painted Desert-our first time ever in all the trips made to Albuquerque that we had actually stopped on this spot to use the National Parks Services bathrooms. What should I do?

It didn't matter; it was too late. Matthew had turned left away from the entrance to the park.

"Is that where you pay?" I asked, looking to the right where cars were lined up.

"Yep," Matthew answered. We were pulling out onto I-40.

I felt instant remorse that I didn't take the opportunity to see petrified wood in a colorful desert and a ruin to boot. But I still had Homolovi. It might be great, or it might be...well, a handful of stones scattered around. I spent the next hour imagining what I might find there...until we finally saw the sign.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's closed."


I looked up.What looked like a giant rectangle of red tape cut diagonally across the brown park services sign that read Homolovi Ruins, and it said in capital letters: CLOSED.

Fate smacked me in the face and laughed hysterically in my ear. Why do you think the baby woke up and everyone needed to use the restroom at the Petrified Forest? it mocked. You had your chance, silly girl.

I had no response to that, so I threw a tantrum.

"No, nooo! Why...why?" I moaned, pulling my hair with intermittent pauses to shake my fist in the air. Then I threw the Petrified Forest pamphlet on the ground and turned on Matthew.

"Why did you make me choose?" I wailed. "If you had just said it was okay to see them both, then it wouldn't have mattered!"

"I gave you a choice, and you made your decision," he replied.

"I know I made my decision, but I had it in my head we were going to see Homolovi. And now it's closed, and we won't see anything at all. And it's so hard to get you to stop; you never want to go anywhere!"

"I did agree to stop," said Matthew, finally irritated. "I told you we could go to Homolovi, and you had your choice between that and The Petrified Forest."

I railed some more, but it doesn't matter. It didn't help repair my dashed hopes that lay all over I-40.

The baby fell asleep. I climbed into the front seat, my bottom and feet in the air for a few minutes before I could right myself. Then I pulled out the map again to look for something, anything left to me, and while I looked at Homolovi marked by the highway, I had a flashback to another trip home from Albuquerque. I had pleaded, half-jokingly, for Matthew to stop at this ruin just off the highway, and when we had approached it, he had said in mock sadness, "Ahh, it's closed. Look at that."

"It's been closed for a while," I said, dazed. "I just forgot. We should have seen Petrified Forest-we were already there."

The only thing left was Wupatki Ruins just north of Flagstaff. But we would have to drive 40+ miles up to it and backtrack again. Even I couldn't ask Matthew to do that. Besides, even though I had seen pictures of those beautiful ruins, you have to hike to get the best view of them, and you can't even enter some of them unless you pay for a guided tour.

While I was contemplating this, the sign for the Meteor Crater popped up.

"You want to go there?" asked Matthew. "If you want to go, I'll take you. Really this time."

Yes, because there was another time when we had pulled off on that gravel road to find some restrooms and eat lunch, and since we were already there, Matthew had agreed to see how far it was to the Meteor Crater. After driving fifty feet, however, he had turned the car around. "It's too far. We better get back on the road," he'd said.

But it was poor consolation. I watched the exit get closer and closer. Matthew would have to change lanes. I couldn't decide; it wasn't what I had wanted...

"Well?" said Matthew. "Tell me now. It's right there."

"Uhhhh...."I responded.

And then a semi sped up between us and the necessary lane change, and we passed the exit.

"I couldn't decide," I said mournfully, looking back.

"Are we at the meteor?" Berto, our son, piped in at this point.

"No!" I snapped. "If we were at the meteor, there'd be a big hole in the ground, and I'd say, 'Look, kids, there's a big hole in the ground.' Do you see a big hole in the ground?"

Berto looked around just to be safe, and Matthew gave me a reproving look.

I was obviously on the doorstep of road trip hell.

And Ella was asleep. This upset me more, because she had asked for lunch before the Closed Homolovi Ruins exit, and I had told her to wait-we'd be eating when we stopped. Now she was asleep with only Tostitos and candy in her belly. I threw everyone else their sandwich.

"Here," I said. "We're not stopping."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And we weren't, because the friends we were supposed to meet at a park in Flagstaff never called us back. No running barefoot through the grass, doing cartwheels in the sun and kissing squirrels and butterflies as they flitted past.


"Look, you want to stop at Montezuma's Well?" said my generous husband. "That's still on the way."

"We'd have to go down through Sedona," I said, not sure if we should push our luck.

"I'm pretty sure there's an exit off the 17," said Matthew.

"But you have to go back north," I replied. "It's easier just to wind down through Sedona and take the exit off the 89."

Never mind that I had no clue what exit that was and whether it was near Cottonwood or Clarkdale. The map in my hands didn't list Native American sights, stupid thing.

"I've got to stop somewhere for gas," said Matthew. "Am I stopping in Flagstaff?"

We were almost there, and the baby was still asleep. I hesitated. For no reason did I want to wake my sweet baby who spent his alert moments crying and reaching out his arms pitifully to me from his car seat. Still, should we really go down through Sedona? Dare we tempt the road trip gods again? I only vaguely remembered the trip we'd taken to see Montezuma's Castle and Tuzigoot for my birthday a few years before. The Well was somewhere around there. It was the one thing we'd missed that day.

"Listen, I promise I'll take you to The Petrified Forest next trip to Albuquerque."

"Really?" I said, my voice lifting in renewed hope. "Thank you."

"Okay, so is that good then? Or do you still want to see Montezuma's Well?"

"I still want to see the Well," I blurted. "Daniel's asleep, and it's easier than taking a separate trip, isn't it? Then we could stop in Sedona for gas instead."

I could almost see Matthew steeling himself, and I felt a twinge of anxiety; I had made the call that would make or break the trip.

Five minutes later we navigated a major intersection with 89 A that had no stop lights, only two stop signs but plenty of impatient cars. The scenery once we hit that road was beautiful, all lush trees and some other greenery that resembled what we city folk term "weeds", but pretty, very pretty in a country setting. We soon came on the famous Red Rocks of Sedona. We had plenty of time to view them, too, because the speed limit quickly dropped to 30 mpr. Then the lines disappeared in the middle of the road, and we traveled downhill smack up against those red rocks that created sharp turns. The speed limit dropped to 15 mpr, and holiday traffic became heavy.

At first I uneasily commented on the lovely scenery, unnerved by Matthew's marked silence and the knowledge of my own bad decision. But as we began getting views of gorgeous Oak Creek and all the luxury cabins and resorts nestled on its banks, my muttered expressions of false enthusiasm were interrupted by the van.

"Ku-thunk..ku-thunk," it said.

Matthew gritted his teeth.

"What's going on?" I asked nervously as we navigated the cars lined up on either side of the road.

"It doesn't like down-shifting right now," said Matthew, braking as someone pulled off (ku-thunk, said the van). "It's been doing that for a while."

Matthew braked down the steep grade often and every time the van protested - "ku-thunk!". We were moving with all the grace and speed of a slug. Meanwhile, wealthy people waved merrily at us from the spacious decks of their luxury cabins overlooking Oak Creek.
"My boss has a time share here," commented Matthew.

"I think I see him," I replied.

"Can we stop and play?" asked Ana.

"We'll see, we'll see," I responded with misgivings in my heart.

"Papa, I need to go potty," said Berto.

There was nary a gas station in sight. We traveled a few more miles, sure we would spot one. We couldn't just park along the road; you had to have an official Red Rock pass to do that. Finally, we stopped at a coffee shop. There seemed to be plenty of those around as if espresso were the bizarre mutant offspring of Oak Creek and its luxury accommodations, and the people of Sedona were doing their darndest to find all those little coffee blends good homes.

The van still needed gas, and I was waiting for my own turn to use the little girl's room. Even when we started off again and approached Main Street Sedona, we didn't see one. That major thoroughfare supported only two kinds of businesses: the coffee shop and the art house.

"How can they support this many coffee shops?" I wondered aloud.

"It's all these roundabouts," Matthew growled as we navigated another one. "They think they can trap you."

He was right. Stop lights are apparently passe in Sedona. Every fifty feet there was another roundabout to slow us down, make us dizzy and allow pedestrians to jog past us gleefully, sloshing their premium coffees and waving their latest abstract paintings at confused drivers. Matthew finally found a gas station; he just had to ride a roundabout the whole way 'round before he could get to it. Then he had to backup to the pump.

"Everybody out," he ordered. "And you," he pointed at me. "Use the restroom."

I'm not usually one to disobey orders, but I wanted to get one clear shot of the famous Red Rocks. While I was snapping the camera with Daniel in my arms, Matthew shoved the kids back into the van and parked in front of the gas station. I quickly turned to enter when a sign posted on the door halted my progress.

I looked at Matthew and pointed: Restroom Out of Order.

Road Trip Gone to Hell.

I hopped back in the car and said to Matthew, "Just get back on the 17. Forget the Well."

"Dang right," he responded, or something in that line, anyway.

Ana sat up. "Aren't we stopping at a park?" she asked for the twentieth time that hour.

"No."

"Well, can we go to one when we get home?" she whinnied like a little heartbroken mare.

"No," said Matthew sharply. "We just need to get home and relax."

"We can go to a crummy city park any old day, Ana. I wanted to see a Native American ruin," I whined.

"You mean we're not going to a park at all?" Her voice had reached the crescendo before the tears. She began to weep bitterly.

"Seriously?" demanded Matthew, jerking around in his seat. "You're going to cry about this?"

"Honey, they thought we were going to a park before we even left Albuquerque," I reminded him. "I'd be crying too."

To make everyone feel better, I proceeded to narrate everything that had gone wrong on the trip thus far. After saying "stinks" and "Native American ruin" and "park" twenty times apiece, I summed up with, "And it's just been a stinky, stinky trip!"

"Finished?" said Matthew.

I was. And soon we were on the 17 toward home going 35 mph, because, of course, every city family was heading home at exactly the same time on Labor Day like some mindless mechanical cattle. I wanted to say, "Stupid city people!", but I could not. To thy own kind be true, they say.

Not long afterwards we passed the brown sign for Montezuma's Well, but none of us had the heart to try and salvage the trip.

A Southern Girl Takes A Southwestern Turn

It happened this year. Yes, that recently. It seems very odd to me now that it took so long and that I thought it would never transpire. I fell in love with this:

And this:

Okay, and maybe this:

Maybe it was the beautiful turquoise jewelry or the Native American ruins or the saguaro cacti or the eventual mystical draw of the Grand Canyon. But it happened. This southern girl sank roots into the harsh clay soil of Arizona. Now, I fear, it will be difficult to uproot me. It follows therefore that I will be uprooted. But when?

Understand me, though, my heart still swells to the tune of Dixieland, and I still ache a bit for Tennessee where I grew up. But I married a New Mexico man, and truth is, I've always had some tendrils tenaciously clinging to Western soil, because my nearest relatives on both sides were all in the western United States.

So...Tennessee? The Elysian Fields of my youth, the setting of the stories I tell to my children. You can't go home again.

You make a new home, as I have done. Okay, sure, I thought once upon a time that home would be in Texas. That's where Matthew and I met, after all, in the vibrant city of San Antonio. My sister Annie's there, too, and my parents are settled there at least temporarily. I got attached to the hill country in the middle of that state, and I love the small German town of Fredricksburg where Matthew and I honeymooned. Still...

Well, the spell is broken. This year the ties were snapped. No longer does the smell of Mexican food make me reminisce or the sight of a swaying palm in a parking lot make me wistful. I don't ache for the Alamo. Heck, I don't even remember it. And I no longer pine for a stroll on the River Walk. In short, I'm good - good where I am.

In Arizona.

I have new lifestyle goals because of my adopted habitat. For instance, I now believe there could be nothing better than to live in a house with a saguaro in the front yard. I yearn to travel to every major Native American ruin in the region. In fact, I no longer feel the strong itch to travel overseas; there's so much to see in my own backyard, all these National Parks here. And it's possible that I may start rereading every Zane Grey and Tony Hillerman novel ever written while wearing a dusty cowboy hat and worn jeans tucked into boots, sitting out on the stoop while I feed my loyal mare Wind-in-her-mane sugar cubes.

Yeah, that's not really my horse...

Okay, no? Too much? Well, perhaps. But I already have the hat. Matthew bought it for me on our honeymoon:

But that is my hat....howdy..uh, cowgirl!

Lately I've accomplished part of my goal by visiting some major Native American ruins, Casa Grande and Tonto Basin's lower cliff dwelling. Being as I am a generous person, I'm going to share my photos with you. If you think history and ruins of ancient civilizations is interesting, you're going to love this! If not, you'll be bored to tears.

The Casa Grande is a ruin just south of Phoenix. The Hohokam who occupied it built extensive canals and irrigation ditches across the arid Salt River Valley, more than 250 miles, in fact, and dug by hand. They were "Master Farmers" in this extremely harsh environment, and scientists believe they came from Mexico to this area around 300 B.C. Except for structures like this, few clues remain about their culture. Amazingly, some of our modern-day canals follow the path and grade of those constructed by these prehistoric engineers who had only primitive instruments at their disposal.

Unfortunately because of the work of vandals who have carved their names and other graffiti into the masonry of this ancient structure, no one is allowed to climb inside. So, if you are like me, you plaster yourself to the fence and gaze up and wonder.

The Tonto Basin cliff dwellings of the Salado people were a thrill...that is, after Matthew and I herded our kids nervously up the paved, but veeerrry steep walking path, half afraid one of them might go tumbling down the cliff into the multiple prickly cacti and pretty colored stones waiting for the yielding flesh of human beings. Wish I had taken a picture of that trail, so you would actually believe me. Also wish I had taken a picture of the cliff dwellings from the park services parking lot. That would have been beautiful...oh, well! Too bad for you. You'll just have to come to Arizona or settle for these images:

A window into the past, with a Park Ranger keeping guard.

Down a darkened hallway (with ancient roof still intact)

The black from ancient fires burning...

We actually were permitted to wander around the lower cliff dwelling. Certain rooms we could not enter in the name of preservation, but we were able to gaze closely at the blackened walls (while avoiding touching them, of course) and the ancient tools such as the mano and metate that were used for grinding corn. I craned my neck to view the surviving timber of their roofs and the notch in the cliff where they rested their ladder once upon a time, the only entrance to the community back then and an easily defensible one.

You know, these pictures do it no justice. I cannot communicate the thrill of being near these places, of setting my feet on steps weathered by the passage of hundreds of years since their construction. Nor can I explain the mystery of how or why I fell in love with Arizona. But at last the great American Southwest is in my blood, and I hear the echo of ancient voices...

A Date at Chaco Canyon with Matthew, My Love - Revised

Matthew thought I should have set up this post with a little more detail about our preparation for that first trip to Albuquerque together. He claims I made him run out with me at 9pm the night before we left, so I could buy a new outfit in which to meet his folks. My sister Annie was in collusion with this last ditch effort to dress to impress, and I bought a pink shirt and capri pants, he says. I find this detail highly suspicious. First, because it's very doubtful a man would remember an outfit his wife bought a month ago, let alone ten years after the purchase. Second, because I'm no great fan of capri pants. But leaving that alone, the only other thing I will say about the journey west to meet my new folks is that west Texas is pretty ugly. No, not pretty. Just ugly. And forlorn. And I've seen it many times since.

I'm thinking about decades and milestones and how I still feel in many ways like that young girl who traveled from San Antonio to Albuquerque with her fiance to meet his parents ten years ago this March.

And I'm wondering at the fact that we have four children now.

With a smile I'm recalling what Matthew's parents asked me on that first introduction to New Mexico, "Is there anything you'd like to see?"

Later I bet they wished they'd never asked that question. You see, I didn't say, "Oh, Santa Fe would be nice," or "How about Old Town Albuquerque?"

I knew exactly what I wanted to see, even though I had no clue how far away it was. I wanted to see Chaco Canyon where a whole slew of ancient and beautiful Native American pueblos stood. I'd recently seen a documentary on PBS about the ruins, about the exciting discoveries being unearthed there, some even that suggested cannibalism could have occurred. I knew the archaeological dig was still in progress, and that thrilled me.

"Oh."

Day-picking, plans-laying, map-spreading preparation had to be done for such an excursion. But they had, after all, asked.

On the appointed day we headed northeast toward Sante Fe in my mother-in-law's jeep, stopping at a little restaurant in Bernalillo where Matthew's parents treated us to breakfast. I thoroughly enjoyed my oatmeal with caramel ice cream. Then we skipped across the road to look at all the kachina dolls and turquoise and pottery for sale in the ubiquitous shops they have here in the Southwest. We hopped on another highway, heading northwest now, and some time later we were on a dirt track headed for the great houses of the thousand-year-old ruins.

I say dirt track, because to say road implies a smooth and well-maintained trail of transport, and this was by no means smooth. The track was narrow and there were deep ruts in it. After a good haul of bouncing and jangling on such a trail, Matthew's dad decided to speed up. At this point the road ceased to be a track through the desert and became a mild roller coaster. With every rut or hole in the road, Matthew's and my head were launched toward the ceiling, a few times making contact and at other times spared by our upraised hands pushing back against the roof of the vehicle. We laughed like two teenagers on a carnival ride, but I also began to get the impression that my father-in-law either loved speed or that he really hated that he had agreed to such a hair-brained trip. I don't think it helped that between bonks on the ceiling, his son was attempting to canoodle with me in the backseat of the car. I was already feeling the angst coming from the front seat, so I hissed, "Matthew!" many times while giving my lover boy hard looks, my eyes popping in an attempt to dissuade his amorous advances.

It didn't help when Matthew's mom said, "Okay, cut it out back there!" without even lifting her head from a book, and Matthew just grinned at my flushing face.

It must have been three plus hours after starting out that we parked at the visitor's center in the high desert and began to traverse the trails. Matthew and I borrowed jackets from the back of his parents' vehicle - so like them to always be prepared for anything. The only thing we weren't prepared for was the fact that the visitor center had no snacks, so we pulled out suckers (years old?) from the jacket pockets to tide us over.

As we navigated the extraordinary ruins, I for one was giddy. It was my first close encounter with ancestral puebloan ruins. The complex of great houses, all oriented to solar, lunar and cardinal directions, was extensive. The great houses themselves were large. Pueblo Bonito, just one of many, contained 800 rooms at one time. And all the magnificent Chacoan ruins, sacred to the descendants of the Anasazi - including the Navajo peoples, are rimmed round with beautiful mesas. Long ago, there were many roads leading from Chaco Canyon to other great houses in the region; it appears to have been central to the region's ceremonial, economic and administrative activities.

I confess I wasn't thinking about all that historical significance, though. Okay, maybe I was gaping now and then at the thought that these structures helped feed the social needs of a culture that flourished hundreds of years before, but I was more or less intuitively sopping up the atmosphere of Chaco Canyon, as if my eyes and feet were parched sponges.

We were the only visitors, and the day was unusual, seeming to cast us on the whims of the ghosts of the place, for one moment it would feel warm enough to remove our jackets; a few minutes later, large ethereal flakes of snow would drift down from the dancing clouds.

We only saw a portion of the ruins, mainly exploring Hungo Pavi and Pueblo Bonito, but they are by far the most outstanding puebloan ruins I've ever seen. Granted, I've only gazed upon Montezuma's Castle and crept about Tuzigoot since (both in Arizona), but neither one of those compares even remotely in size to Chaco Canyon.

We left after wandering around the trails connecting the ruins for what could have been hours. I was so smitten by the experience of being surrounded by that remarkable ancient architecture, of catching glimpses of rooms where archaeologists were excavating, that I'm not sure exactly what time it was. I do know once we left the track and got back on paved roads, we had to stop for gas. That's when Matthew said suddenly, "Hey, Dad, isn't that a sign up there for I-40?"

Matthew's dad was obviously glad to see that it was, and the way back to Albuquerque was considerably shorter than the journey to Chaco had been.

I've convinced Matthew to take me back there this year, our tenth together. We'll take the short route, though - back to explore the history, the beauty, and a portion of the landscape of our romantic beginnings. Only this time, we'll have four of our immediate descendants trailing us. As it was for the Anasazi, so it is for us. Time marcheth on.

Dream Blog: No Bridge at the Old Ruin? What a Bunch Of Croc(odile)!

A new road had been built by-passing the old fort or Native American ruin (I couldn't decipher which it was at first). Unfortunately, somehow I ended up taking the old disused road that ran right along the old place. Part of that road was blocked by a piece of overhang that had once shadowed the front of the ruin and which was now standing perpendicular to the lie of the dirt road. This was simple to get by, and I went swiftly around it.

I didn't stop to examine the place or go in, and I don't know why. I am always drawn like a magnet to anything that reeks of age and abandoned civilization. Here, I only noticed as I drove past that the building materials had crusted into a darkish grey color, almost black, and that the building was essentially a rectangle.

After or just slightly before passing the fort - for so it must have been, being composed of discolored wood - I decided to carry my car in the palm of my hand to make the going easier. I trusted my two legs more on the uncertain terrain.

The scenery opened up, and the landscape was like so many desert environs I've seen. I walked through the sandy soil until I reached an impressive canyon quite abruptly. I gazed across it; I did not look down. Nevertheless, I knew a river lived and moved there at the bottom of its astounding depth; I could hear it.

There was no bridge.

There must have been at one time for the dirt track resumed on the opposite side of the canyon. Stupid old road. Why had I gotten lost? And the sight of this old place was decidedly lonely and eerie.

I spun around and quickly retreated. Not the way I had come but along the back of the fort, and suddenly I was accosted by water. So much water. It was shedding off of huge boulders to my side and rushing through a gorge that lay in front of me. I'd have to get across this water that had sprung up all around the ruin. The way home would not, could not, be the way I'd come. Still, the gorge was not too steep-sided. I could jump from boulder to boulder down through it and to the other side. I tensed my body for the leap, and then I spotted something below in the churning pool. It was gliding through, its long body a pale soothing green in color. My desperation increased at the sight of it, though; that crocodile was going to make the going more treacherous - deadly perhaps.

A few seconds inward debate helped me to conclude that this strange creature in an alien environment would indeed try to eat me if I splashed through that pool. Who knew how hungry it was, and that water had to be very cold. I felt that this fact would make it more aggressive somehow.

I went along a narrow ledge of rock behind the fort and jumped across the gorge to some higher boulders. My mind fast-forwarded this part, so I could get swiftly by that thing that I feared. And then I walked and walked. I came to a Catholic Church that was just concluding mass. People were streaming out the doors of the small church. I wondered at this a second and then turned to find the ranger's station for the ruin I had just journeyed through.

I went directly up to the woman there and said without preamble, "There's a crocodile in the waters by that old fort."

"A crocodile?" she repeated lamely. "I don't think so."

"Oh, yes, there is," I told her. "You better get rid of it before somebody gets hurt."

"Okay, well I guess..."

"Maybe it was somebody's exotic pet, and they let it loose there," I concluded for her.

Finally she seemed to accept that I spoke truth.

"Okay," she said, tossing her tightly braided hair back over her shoulder. "I'll tell someone and we'll get it out of there."

I nodded, satisfied....