<- Above dwellings are about here in the larger picture
"Prairie" trip, June '02
Arizona
My first day was simply driving to a campground outside of Winslow, AZ (Homolovi State Park). I went into Winslow for breakfast the next day, which was depressing. Before the interstate, the town had been a major stopping point on the old National Highway (route 66), and thus it had a relatively large downtown with many older and abandoned buildings. This theme of abandoned and decaying towns was going to come up through the rest of the trip....
From Winslow I drove into northeastern Arizona through the Navajo Nation. Driving through the Navajo Nation gave a very immediate sense of our national neglect of Native Americans. While much of rural Arizona is very sparsely populated with long distances between towns or villages, the Navajo Nation had many small villages (10-20 housing units) that were typically about 5 miles apart. Much of the housing was manufactured housing, with some in good condition but quite a bit being very run down. Also, there were many areas where you would see a set of 10 or so houses that had the uniformity in appearance suggestive of subsidized housing. Overall there was an odd sense of being in an urban ghetto, yet in the country. The general poverty was evident in another way that made travel confusing -- highway intersections that appeared on the map were not signed, and thus it was easy to drive many miles out of way due to missing a turn. Besides what appeared to be a general financial poverty, there were multiple indicators of a poverty of spirit -- one evident throughout the reservation was the frequency of signs about alcoholism and drug abuse. (Other indicators will be mentioned in later sections.)
My reason for driving through the Navaho Nation was to get to Canyon de Chelly National Monument. I'm not generally going to describe parks, since information on them is easily obtainable on the web (http://www.nps.gov). The briefest description of Canyon de Chelly is that it is famous for cliff dwellings set within spectacular scenery.
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<- Above dwellings are about here in the larger picture |
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To get a sense of the size of the cliff dwellings, note that there are three people standing in front of the structure that is on the canyon floor -- there is also a pickup truck in the picture on the left (in the trees on the canyon floor). |
| This very tall spire is at the lower end of Canyon de Chelly. |  |
One of the more distressing things about visiting Canyon de Chelly was that at every overlook there would be one or two Navajos who were selling trinkets, many of which were clearly not made locally. More distressing than that was the frequent signs saying that there were a high number of break-ins and to thus not leave anything valuable in the car -- and at one overlook, a sign telling visitors not to leave their cars unattended.
From Canyon de Chelly, the most direct route was to cut over into New Mexico; up to Cortez, Colorado; and then just east of Cortez for Mesa Verde National Park (also famous for cliff dwellings). Here's a picture from along the way, this is near 'four corners' (the point where AZ, UT, CO, and NM meet) -- I intentionally left in the Burger King billboard, to give a sense of size:
