On Hopi Lands

I'm up before sunrise and it's Easter Sunday in Holbrook, Arizona but I have no plans other than getting to Flagstaff later in the day.  I am at the Wigwam Inn (sleeping in a concrete teepee) on old Route 66 and Flagstaff is also on Route 66, but the old byway has been largely swallowed up by Interstate 40 and I want to explore back roads. My plan is to head north into Hopi reservation land and then to swing west to Tuba City before turning south to 'Flag'. 

Taking my time, I stop along the way for photos, and at one stop a black SUV pulls up to talk. The driver is a young man who notes that I am a photographer and asks if I had ever visited Blue Canyon, but I admit that I had never heard of it. He introduces himself as Alfred Lomahquahu, the Vice Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council, and that it is a special place and he is glad to show me the way. I admit that I have brief thoughts of 'paid guide scam' and 'ax murderer' but dismiss them quickly because he is so kind and ernest. I follow him to an unmarked turnoff onto a dirt track through miles of ranch land to a spectacular canyon landscape. It is a chasam with soft white spires and fine red banding in the cliff faces. He says it takes on a blue tint at sunset and I suspect that generations of Hopi boys have been coming here with their girls to appreciate the setting sun.

I want to stay a while and as we say our goodbyes he mentions that he is headed to a Hopi Kachina dance ceremony at a nearby village and that I am welcome to visit (but no photographs).  Since the day has no agenda I do visit Moenkopi, just near Tuba City and watch the dancers - maybe over a hundred - along with about a thousand spectators. I look around and note that I am one of maybe three 'off reservation' visitors and, to myself, I thank Alfred for the second special introduction of the day. I catch an apple, an orange and a lemon as the dancers throw treats to the crowd.  As the day ends I still have Hopi chants rattling around my head.

Trinity

Kind of funny to have a national historical monument that is closed to the public 364 days a year, but that's where I'm headed on day number 365. I'm on the dirt track that's the back way in, based on directions from Linda who runs the ranch B&B where I am staying. The route cuts from the back of the ranch across scrub desert towards the paved road to the gate onto military land. It's a beautiful morning and I stop for a bit to climb a ridge for the panoramic view. A few grazing cattle reluctantly get out of my way as I pass. Bit of a backup now at the gate as MPs check identification and give instructions: 14 miles, stay on the road, no stopping, no photos until you get there. When I do get here, there is a modest crowd milling and taking pictures, although, in fact there is not much to see now. But on a July morning in 1945, the air temperature went from the pre-dawn chill to ten million degrees in an instant. When it cooled, the surrounding desert sand had fused into a sheet of green radioactive glass. Because it had never been produced naturally it was given its own name: Trinitite, for the first atomic bomb test at Trinity Site, New Mexico. What is here today is not much. A somber stone monument, security fences, and if you look hard enough, pieces of Trinitite, left after the government removed all they could in a effort to "clean up" the site in the 1950's. I handle some found today that after checking that it registers only a few clicks on a Geiger counter operated by a volunteer. Not much physically here, but what
does remain when you think on all this, is the legacy of what we did here. They say man lost his innocence in the Garden of Edan, and certainly lost a bit more when the first stone was raised in anger. What we did here was certainly a giant leap beyond that. It worries me that the people who did this, including the brilliant scientists - did this mostly just because we could. What will we decide to do next?

OK,  I realize that I am pontificating a bit and as I write this tonight I am finishing a cheeseburger and my second Carta Blanca  at the Owl Bar and Cafe in nearby San Antonio. Only place open on Saturday night, so it is without a doubt the best place in town.