Yeah. No tornados. The kind of day I like: tornado-free. Note to self: remember to be grateful for that more often. ;)
It was a Tony Hillerman day, is what it was. Shiprock, Kayenta, Teec Nos Pos. Like that. It was quite a thing to see those places - some looked like I expected, and some didn't.
It is striking, how much Hillerman loved this land and these people. It's evident not only in what he wrote - which I knew - but in what he didn't write. I learned that today.
The rest is snapshots - weather. I was wind-skittish like a colt today, which is understandable; I don't trust that shit right now. And it was hairy windy, again, slowing us wayyy down - the camper has things in common with a clipper ship - the tumbleweeds sped across the road faster than we could (as we did not want to adopt their method of travel today, anyway.)
I stood on the corner at a gas station, in warm wind, and it rain/hailed on me as I stood there, and in the distance I could see the dry dust storm we were driving into. It's all powerful stuff. The weather is a serious element here - you can see it, see the grey clouds in the distance hazing rain down to the ground, see the brown-red fog of dust storms that make you roll up all the windows, see the distant rainbow that tells you that yes, that is rain across the canyon. It's a thing to reckon with. I learned that too.
People. I don't think they liked us or our funky camper or our California liberal attitudes in Kanab, Utah. I didn't like them, either. I've never wanted to get shut of a place as fast as I did this morning. The campground guy had a sharky smile that was more predatory than friendly; Good Sam, my $%@!. No bathroom usage if you check in after 6 (but M begged the code off a neighbor), and when I asked if they had a utility sink (I wanted to wash dishes) he said incredulously, "You folks don't have a SINK in that thing?" Well, yes, we do, of course - it's just that it's hard to get around the spa and the widescreen TV sometimes. (We DO have a sink, but we have no hot water, and I thought it'd be easier than heating water on the stove.) The hardware store man looked at me like I might steal something. Anyway, Kanab, Utah: don't go there, unless you are there. In which case, you can have it.
In contrast, everywhere in Navajo Country we got smiles. The place where many live in small barrack-like homes, or shacks or old mobile homes out in the canyons, where our truck is no older than anyone else's, where it is so painfully obvious that we have gone horribly wrong with the way we built our society and community - there, I felt welcome.
When we put gas in the truck, a man with a gas can approached M - he'd brought his sister to Kayente to the Navajo health center for her asthma medication, and had no gas to go back home, twenty miles.
Part of the reason I am on this trip with this man is that I did not have to watch to know M would put gasoline in that can.
"Did you believe him?" I asked, curious, when we left. "It doesn't matter," he answered. And he was right.
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Edited to add: while I was shutting down M's computer, a gust of wind blew up a huge cloud of dust right through the screens, and his keyboard filled with dust and I was sitting in dismay - and then all hell broke loose, with winds that the weather channel said were over 60 mph, and lashing rain. The camper threatened to blow over, the power failed, and M came down from the bunk so we could easily make a break for it if the thing rocked any harder. We got the windows and vents shut, even the door that threatened to tear out of my hand. And then it all stopped. And now there's light wind, no power, and emergency vehicles cruising the campground.
Weird, Auntie Em.
