But boy am I glad my drunk photographer’s eye is a sharp one!

I want to live on the road forever…

Today was a good day, thanks to spontaneity.

Better make sure you tell the Truth.

Beautiful, right? But instead of being able to take a bunch of petrified wood back home with me, they scared the crap out of me by whipping out a warning of “THIS IS A NO TOLERANCE PARK, SOME PARKS GIVE YOU A WARNING, HERE YOU’LL BE FINED $1000.” Normally I just ignore these rules and take as many rocks as I please, but I feared this time there would be hidden cameras watching me stuff my pockets. After we left I realized I should have just taken it. Damn.

Mark and I drove all day — well, Mark drove, I appreciated the scenery. We left Bryce Canyon in Utah around 8am after watching the sunrise over the amphitheater. Five hours of driving and many photo-op stops later, we ended up somewhere in Arizona near Navajo Nation. I kept seeing little stands along the long, straight road, all of them empty. At first I thought they were fruit stands which only opened in the summer. Then I saw a sign “NAVAJO JEWELRY, BUY DIRECT”. You have no idea how much I’ve been wanting to buy Native American jewelry from actual tribe members instead of those white folks who run fancy stores in tourist towns and jack up the price to ten times the amount they paid for everything. But all the stands were closed for the season, and soon I realized I’d have to wait until we reached warmer climates before we came across any active jewelry stands.

Suddenly we found one that was open. As far as I could tell, no other customers were at this particular stand, which is the reason why all the others were closed for the season. Mark pulled an epic U-turn in the jeep with Wanda in tow. We hopped out of our seats and looked over their measly inventory; just a few necklaces and bracelets, some earrings, dream catchers, arrows and other weapons — a lady at one end of the stand was stringing beads, a man greeted us. “How many customers have stopped by today?” I asked. Al answered us, he had an amazing Navajo accent “Oh, you are just our second for the day.” He looked down at the ground, it was already 2pm. “I’m sorry to get your hopes up, but we don’t have any cash on us. But I’ve been waiting for months to come across a stand like this! Oh, I wish we took out money back in Marble Canyon (14 miles away)….” Without hesitation, actually he sounded desperate “We take personal checks, if you have checks, personal, we take, personal..checks.” Well, I left my checkbook back in New Jersey (like a huge jerk, what kind of person does that? Someone who owes Nikon $500 and has to have their mother send them the money and then transfer $500 out of my bank because I am a jerk who left my checkbook thousands of miles away.) Mark is not a jerk, he had his checkbook with him, but he doesn’t know how much money he has in this particular bank account, and wasn’t feeling too secure writing out a check that could bounce.

As we discussed the checkbook situation, Al ran to his car and came back with one of those tourist magazines you pick up at almost any RV Park — this one advertised the wonders of Page, Arizona — written by a bunch of tourists-turned-residents and the entire magazine’s design was hideous. Al was soft-spoken and went on for a good ten minutes, flipping through pages of the magazine, telling us about all the natural wonders we needed to visit in the area. The Rainbow Bridge! Navajo National Monument! Antelope Canyon! Horseshoe Bend! I could barely understand a word he was saying because he was practically whispering, but he kept coming back to this “Horseshoe Bend”.

I continued looking through the jewelry, I was determined to find an affordable piece we could purchase with the $3 we found in our emergency cash fund aka the change console in the jeep. A beautiful, long beaded necklace caught my eye, $8 - I needed this necklace, it called my name, Katie, buy me, now. We asked if they would take $3 in cash and then a $5 personal check. Al turned and started speaking in Athabaskan to the woman making jewelry — I was quite impressed. A lot of the younger generation of Navajo are not fluent in this language and it’s almost impossible to learn. A few minutes later Al returned, “Yes, we can take your check. Please leave us your phone number at the top though.” Mark wrote the check out and I put the necklace on. Al fumbled through some mini files and handed me two small papers about the beads used to make the necklace, one about Juniper Beads (seeds), which run all around the strand, and the other about the Spirit Bear, which sits at the bottom of the necklace.

Al asked us about the T@B and we explained that we were on a road trip. “Oh, I wish I had the money to do that sort of thing.” Let me admit here, that I am totally ignorant to what goes on in Native American cultures. I saw a special on television earlier this year about Navajo Nation and was shocked to learn about how life is panning out for the native people of this country - alcoholism, poverty, theft, etc. Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American reservation that, I believe, spans throughout three or four states here in the southern mid-west. And being that they govern themselves, they’re not receiving the help they need from American government, and there aren’t enough jobs to go around. That’s when all the problems come about. Before setting off on this road trip I imagined coming across Navajo Nation and finding a way to help, but what can be done? I’m not even sure if they want help.

I probably shouldn’t have asked some of the questions I asked, but Al probably shouldn’t have started telling me about his trouble with the law and how life has been going for him this year. He had a scar down his left cheek, his lips were a little off kilter and his left eye was looking in the other direction. When he wasn’t whispering I understood that, hey man, things happen, drinking happens, punches to the face happen and detached retinas happen. Sometimes saw blades to the ring finger of your right hand also happen. “It’s just not my year” Al told me.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just want to hug everyone really hard that I meet on this road trip who is living in a situation that is far from perfect. But I restrained myself. I shook Al’s hand, and told him our names, he told us his - Al somethingorother. Maybe I just assumed his first name was Al but really it was a great Navajo name and I am an ignorant fool who didn’t understand him. We got in the Jeep and started to drive off. I saw Al walking toward us and opened the window. “When you get to Horseshoe Bend, it’s just right off the main road. You just have to pull off, and there is a cliff — you have to walk up that cliff and go for another half a mile. You’ll find it there.”

We set off for Page, Arizona. Mark wasn’t too happy about this, we had already been driving for five or so hours, and now we had to backtrack six miles and drive another twenty three miles out of the way to find these natural wonders. After looking through the tourist magazine myself, I found out that Rainbow Bridge was a good two or three miles of strenuous hiking away (normally that is fine, but the sun was going to set in another hour and a half — we did not have the time). Antelope Cave cost $20 to enter, and Navajo National Monument also cost money. We don’t mind spending the money on those sorts of things, but we didn’t have much daylight left and it wouldn’t be worth it. Mark was freaking out, we had less than an eighth a tank of gas left and Page was apparently 23 miles away, UP HILL.

I cried and cried after leaving Al’s stand, the same way I cried for an hour after giving that family in San Francisco $28 - not because I missed the $28, but because I couldn’t give them more. Guys, if you see Al’s jewelry stand on the side of the road in Arizona, about 6 miles from the sign that reads “<-- PAGE - FLAGSTAFF -->” please stop by and purchase something.

We were a few miles from Page when Mark pointed out a trail leading up a cliff, “Is that it?” “YES! I THINK THAT’S IT TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND!” Oh yeah, we had to get gas first. We filled up, headed back and hiked three quarters of a mile to the rim of Horseshoe Bend. The sun was setting, and we couldn’t get a good photo, so we just laid down on the edge and enjoyed the view. To put it in perspective for you, we watched closely for five minutes as a small object motored through the river - “Is that a toy boat?… No that’s a real boat!” “Holy s*** we’re up that high?!?!” My heart began beating faster.

Thanks Al, thanks for everything.

   

Sometimes the sky is completely white and that ruins all the photos I take in a day. And sometimes it looks like the above - hooray for menacing storm clouds!

I’ll be the first to say I think my new lens is FREAKING AWESOME!

I miss California, but I think the scenery out here might be making me feel a little better.

Succulent Heaven that is… More to come on this awesome afternoon experience.

It wasn’t as warm as we had hoped it would be, because it’s been foggy in this part of Calfornia for the last few days. BOOO. Where is my Southern California sun I was promised? All the more reason to come back soon. But if you can’t swim in the water, why not just go to Dog Beach? It was a little smelly there, btw.

At the Yosemite Coffee & Roasting Company, the chef doesn’t just entertain your taste buds, he entertains your ears as well. Daniel, Yosemite’s chef (owner too, maybe), is a self-taught piano man, and all the songs he plays (well, at least that day) are his own. Yosemite Coffee is located in Oakhurst, CA. We were not expecting such a delicious breakfast on Wednesday because the rest of the town has been overrun with chain restaurants and stores. But Yosemite Coffee offered us some great egg scrambles and good conversation with the waitress. After kicking Mark’s butt in checkers, we decided to keep the Coffeehouse in mind for Friday morning. They were having a day after Thanksgiving food-4-all - aka, just a lot more delicious food. They didn’t have much business that morning, probably because everyone was busy going crazy buying crap for the holidays, and were too full from the turkey. We were glad to be there though. They have comfortable seating and also, I beat Mark at checkers for a second time.

On the Wanderful Thanksgiving menu:
-$5 gigantic bottle of red wine
-Mashed Potatoes
-Vegetarian Stovetop Stuffing
-Braised Kale
-Cranberry sauce
-MAC & CHEESE!!!!
-COOKIES AND MILK YAY!!!!

These are GIANTS. AMAZING GIANTS!

With the T@B in tow, we drove up and down the streets of San Francisco looking for a parking spot big enough for the whole rig. Eventually, we found a space; but a girl came out and told us to move because the street sweeper would be coming by, and all the meter maids issue tickets to cars parked in that area. But it would be fine to park there after it was cleaned. After about 45 minutes, Katie spotted the Street Sweeper, I threw the car into gear, and we zoomed to a parking space just as it was finishing up. Then Katie wrote this note and left it on the windshield in hopes of deterring parking tickets.

The note reads:

We talked to the parking ticket patrol — She said if a street cleaner goes by it’s okay to park after — We followed the sweeper to this parking spot — Please do not ticket us!

I could have taken much better photos of this beauty but I didn’t. Why you ask? Well I’ll tell you kind reader: My lens broke. Yep, the other day it broke and since then it has been fussy about what it would like to auto focus on. Oh, I could just manual focus, but I spent an entire trip to Montréal doing that and I don’t want to deal with it again (also, all the photos came out blurry). So here’s how its going down: I’m sending the lens back to Nikon to be fixed, which should take a good month or so and I ordered myself a brand new 18-200mm lens which should probably blow this broken 18-135mm lens out of the water. When we get the broken one back (fixed), Mark will eventually get a camera body to go with the lens. All in all, I’m about broke.

This neon sign in the Fisherman’s Wharf section of San Francisco lures tourists much more effectively than the fishy odors coming out of the restaurant’s every pore. Walk a little farther to the Boudin Sourdough Bakery to let the smell of fresh baked bread perk up your deflated nostrils. They have loaves in the shapes of amphibians!

We held up traffic in this tunnel, and well, everywhere we went. Surprisingly people were alright with it. Most, in fact, supported our cause!

I’m sorry Wanda, but let’s be thankful this was the worst of it. Other than being covered in mud, you’re as in as good a shape as the first day we met you!