Trip Day 9 – Tuesday 23rd August
It’s a misty start this morning, as we set out into the low cloud across the mountains.
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We stop at the Molas Pass viewpoint (10,899ft) to look out across the valley
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Heading down out of the mountains towards Durango,
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We stop for for a long awaited breakfast stop at the Bakery Café in Mancos. From Mancos, we head out across the valley towards Mesa Verde National Park.
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The Mesa looks quite small as we approach...
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Once up on the Mesa, we stop at the Montezuma Valley viewpoint and can see the thunderstorms rolling in across the valley below.
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Believe it or not this was the road into the park, around the aptly named Knife Edge Peak, until 1957 when a tunnel was built through into the canyon.
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We were last to leave the viewpoint and the plan was to ride along through the park, hopefully before the storms arrive...stopping off to look at the ancient dwellings of the ancestral pueblo people or Anasazi as they are called by the Navajo, who inhabited this canyon in arount AD550
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We thought we’d easily catch up with everyone else, but after peeling off to view the amazing Cliff Palace we don’t see the rest of the group again!
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It's incredibly well preserved when you consider how old it is....
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By the time we leave, the thunderclouds have made their way to into canyon. We decide that everyone else must have headed out of the park to avoid the rain and so we follow suit. We start to head out across the darkening skies of Montezuma Valley towards Shiprock, past some impressive eroding sandstone mesa
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but the sky does not look promising as we enter New Mexico….
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We hope that the storm will have passed by the time we get there, but increasingly it doesn’t look good. We start to wonder how bad this is going to be when the large truck we were following pulls over to the roadside. The lightening is getting more frequent…there’s no shelter, just an endlessly straight road into oblivion!
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We have no option but to continue and hope that something will appear further along the road where we can take safe shelter…. the rain starts, and soon turns torrential, a car overtakes our now steady pace and it’s like a bucket of water has been thrown over us as it passes. The road starts to flood and we are riding through water a foot deep as we finally see signs of Shiprock town ahead. We cross the bridge over the San Juan river and the water is running like a river downhill towards us… there’s a Burger King across the road but it’s too scary to contemplate crossing 4 lanes of traffic, not able to see where the gaps are in the central reservation, but just a little further we see another local burger bar. Relieved, we pull into the car park and dash inside.
The place is empty except for an old Indian in with long, grey braids, wearing a check shirt. He just stares at us like we are from another planet… he doesn’t smile or speak (we find out later this is quite normal for the Native Americans…). Paul true to form, decides that eating is the best option and goes for a hot dog…I don’t feel at all hungry, but opt to order a hot chocolate for some comfort. There are a couple of guys in hoodies hanging around outside under the canopy, all adding to the friendly ambience of the place… maybe they’re the local dealers? Paul doesn’t like the fact he can’t see the bike from the window…
After a few minutes of staring at the endless rain, a Mexican guy wearing a large cowboy hat walks in, thankfully he’s a jolly chap called Ray and so the mood lightens as he engages us in the usual conversation about where we are from, heading to, etc. He tells us that he’s a farmer and that it’s the start of the monsoon season (who knew there were monsoons in New Mexico??) and that he welcomes the rain for his crops. Paul shoots off to the gents, before his hot dog arrives and Ray picks up his coffee. At this point he says to me ‘I don’t want to alarm you ma’am, but there’s people around here who’ll try to take advantage of good folks like you… and I don’t just mean the Hispanics, the native folks too. When you leave here, stay on the main road and whatever you do, do not turn off or stop in any of the side streets. Well, as far as I’m concerned, he couldn’t have said anything more alarming at this point!
(This is start of a script for a good horror movie…) He then bids me farewell and to have a good day!
Paul emerges from the restrooms and I try to discretely convey this message whilst under the endless gaze of the old Indian… Paul takes one bite of his hot dog and by the time I’ve finished the message it’s in the bin (this is serious stuff!) and we are off. I decide I have to visit the restrooms before we leave – not wanting to have to pull up, further up the road for obvious reasons…
We head back into the rain, which now seems insignificant in the scheme of things, and there’s another native American making a bee line to us asking for change…. He gets short shrift from Paul, and we leap on the bike and ride off into the rain, which has eased a little and the road is not so flooded. As we drive out of town towards the Shiprock which looms eerily in the distance, I see why Ray gave his warning about not turning of the road. Alongside the main highway, there’s a large reservation, which looks most uninviting with the usual ramshackle buildings and derelict cars littered all over the place. I find it quite sad and depressing that this is the home and life of the ‘native american’ and this, in particular, the proud Navajo nation. My ‘romantic view’ of the Red Indian is now in tatters…
We turn off the freeway a few miles out of town and drive past the ghostly Shiprock itself. It’s quite impressive, and probably wouldn’t be so evocative on a nice sunny day. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos as it was still raining quite heavily.
The rain did finally stop as we headed out of the valley and over the mountains into the red valley and Thunderbird Lodge at Chinle, our destination for the evening.
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Thunderbird Lodge is run by the Navajo and is situated right next to the Canyon de Chelly, their sacred ancestral home. We catch a glimpse of the canyon as our GPS tries to navigate us to the hotel, ‘the long way round’, along a dirt road, through another reservation! As the mental scars of the events of a few hours ago are still raw, we pull over at a viewpoint to look into the Canyon and try to work out an alternative route.
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It seems that as soon as we stop anywhere, Indians emerge from the undergrowth and try to sell us all manner of trinkets…but at least they are not trying to robs at gun point, or whatever else Farmer Ray was eluding to earlier…. Paul is not in the mood for buying however, and so we drive back down the road and finally find that we’ve driven past the entrance to Thunderbird Lodge. We are the first to arrive! We check in and try to chill out and dry out our gear…. whilst hanging soggy gloves outside, Paul is approached by another young Indian lad who offers him a necklace. This happens several more times throughout the evening, as soon as Paul emerges from the room….he has ‘one of those faces’, as I’ve said earlier..
Finally, the rest of the group arrive having taken a totally different route to avoid the rain and they’ve visited Four Corners National Park in order to hold a press up competition over the four states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah…
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but looking at the photo of Chris, he’s taken it a stage further and is apple bobbing! I think he won the competition...
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We all meet up for the evening meal in the hotel restaurant, which turns out to be more like a school canteen run by some rather stern, unsmiling Native American dinner ladies. The famous US services culture does not extend to its’ oldest inhabitants…
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... one day.......
