It is a pity to go so fast on a trip like this that there is no chance to read all the historical markers, stop and look at points of interest, learn more about the crops and the culture of the people, and even go off the route here and there as much as 50 miles or so if there is something noteworthy to investigate. But on this trip we did none of those things. Our aim was to get here with the car in time to meet David.
One subject in which my sister and I are both especially interested is the Indians of the southwest, partly because Margi's daughter Anne had spent some time while she was a cadet army nurse at Fort Defiance, a Navajo Indian hospital. Her sympathies were much touched by the whole situation -- but more of that another time. On this trip the best we could do was watch for what signs of Indians we could see as we drove along. Of course we began to see Indians on the streets as far back as Oklahoma, some in American dress and some in native. In fact we are used to seeing Indian men in our own neighborhood, for they work along the Santa Fe railroad and some of them roam the village only four miles from our house at times. But out here in New Mexico on the Sunday and Monday of Labor Day weekend we began to see many more individuals in their showy holiday attire, probably gathering for some tribal event. Before we got to Gallup we saw many Indian houses made of a sort of soft-looking yellowish brick, and often a little roadside stand would be built at the roadside to match the house. Sometimes these stands were quite well-built, like little roofed houses, just big enough for a person or two to sit inside, with a little brick table in front on which would be laid out any items the Indians had for sale. Sometimes the stands would be ramshackle, built of branches and roofed with some sort of thatch, sometimes they appeared to have been started and abandoned without being finished, or else were falling into ruins. Through here their fields were green and healthy and looked well-tended; corn and alfalfa and something that might have been beans.
We saw little activity as we drove along, and most of the roadside stands were empty, but occasionally we would see a big white towel or rag blowing in the wind on an extension of the roof timbers, and that meant "open for business." Usually we wouldn't see anyone till we were right at the stand, then we could detect a person sitting modestly within, almost out of sight, with a little display of pottery on the table in front. There was nothing pushing about these salesmen! No placards or ads, just the white flag and the items for sale. If you cared to buy, just stop and be politely served. If you didn't, there was no pressure whatever. The ware seemed to be small and dainty and light in color, quite different from what we had seen blatantly displayed and advertised along the way in bigger, more commercial roadside stands. We made up our minds that at the very next place we would stop and see it and probably buy some. But at that point we ran clear out of the area of this type of house and shanty. We learned afterward that these were Laguna Indians, but we never did find any of their handiwork anywhere. They must be more reserved and self-contained than some tribes, less commercialized and keeping strictly to themselves. It will be something to look forward to in the future -- to see Laguna ware and learn something more of this tribe. By the way, we passed huge lava beds before we got to Gallup but haven't yet found out anything about them: how they came to be, how old they are, and so on. They looked black and tarry in the sun. That is another thing we will have to find more about.
We hoped we would find more of the Lagunas farther on, but as we neared Gallup the character of the Indian dwellings changed, some being of wood siding, unpainted, and some were grouped in villages. And beyond Gallup, the next day, when we came into Navajo country, the homes were quite another kind. The Navajos build hogans, round, with the roof sloping to the center where there is often left a hole for the smoke to escape. They have few windows and doors and are very low, as though they were used strictly for sleeping. They couldn't have been comfortable for much else. Often there would be an outdoor oven, and a stockade or roofless room where women apparently did some of their work. Very curious, and we would like to have stopped long enough to learn more. We did stop at a genuine old Indian trading post which has been there since the 80s and has a fascinating museum including the mummy of a Hopi cliff-dwelling woman. The old man there told us quite a bit about the items, and we bought some of the real Indian dolls and the silver and turquoise jewelry. He could have talked all day and we would gladly have listened -- if we had had time. That was on Labor Day, after we had left the pink-blue-and-white plaster patio where we had spent the night at Gallup.
It was at Gallup that we had our first chance to sit and talk with tourists in the lobby of the motel, so we took the occasion to find out a little about what we still had to face in our travels. If we followed Route 66 all the way we would go through Needles; how about that, would that be hard driving, would there be any better way to go? Oh, don't go by Needles! warned the honeymooning couple who had just come through from there. It is unbearable, they said; go by Las Vegas. Yes, said the proprietoress, by all means don't go by Needles, go either by Las Vegas or else down to Prescott and over the desert. They took over the argument among themselves whether it was best to go to Kingman and put up there and start on very early in the morning for Las Vegas or drive clear to Vegas in the first place and spend the night there. The honeymoon couple were positive we should stop at Kingman; the woman just as positive that Vegas was best. Meanwhile we kept in our minds the suggestion of a service-station man farther back who had been just as positive that we should go to Prescott. We were grateful for all the discussion, but still were not sure what to do. So from then on we asked at every stop, and at alternate stops we would be told to go north and to go south; and the ones who advised going south alternated between advising crossing the desert by day and by night, and they varied in how comfortable or how uncomfortable the trip would be. One man said if it was him, he would go clear to Wickenburg and cross from there; another said by all means don't go to Wickenburg but cut off on 71 at Congress Junction. We decided that we would just continue to ask questions and leave it up to the last one we asked what we would do.
Meanwhile we had reached and passed Flagstaff, Ariz., and had practically decided to go to Prescott, since the desert way looked shorter than the northern, and in our innocence we thought that our main problem from here on was preparing for the heat of the desert. But at Flagstaff we had to make a choice between Route 89 from Ashfork and Alternate 89 from here. On the last advice before we left town we went toward Ashfork. No one gave us any inkling that we were facing anything as bad as what we had been through in mountain driving up to this point, and from the map we judged we had passed the highest places or at least wouldn't go any higher than we had successfully negotiated without a nervous breakdown. Maps tell you so much and omit as much you ought to know. It is a curious thing that everyone we have talked to since concerning our Waterloo has looked surprised and murmured, "Oh, that -- but there wasn't much of that. That's not so bad." However, to us that stretch we ran into between Flagstaff and Ashfork was the straw that almost broke the camel's back. It was a stretch labelled "Dangerous but passable" and that is exactly what it was. It was high, rough and narrow; there were two lanes but ours was the one next to the dropoff into the canyon. The whole way is only 50 miles between those two towns, but he narrow detour alone seemed twice that long to us. Alongside we could see the magnificent four-lane highway that was being constructed for future tourists, but for us there was only this nerve-wracking way. This and the early moment of panic at Amarillo and one later point in the desert where the three spots of utter discouragement we suffered the whole way; three moments from which we felt we would probably never recover. But within a few hours after we reached Santa Barbara we were laughing at our fears as heartily as anyone could, and our hair is no grayer than when we left home. -- Hope.
(Tomorrow Hope continues her jaunt to sunny California.)