"I don't know what lies around the bend
but I am going to believe that the best does."
-L.M. Montogmery
but I am going to believe that the best does."
-L.M. Montogmery
Gallup is dusty and flat, on the famous Route 66. I pulled into the gas station which was
closed, not surprisingly, as it was a Sunday. I parked the camper fully expecting to wait until the following morning for the tire repair. A truck pulled in. A huge Navajo man with long black hair got out and in a very surly voice asked me my business. I told him. He said he was getting something for a birthday party and that he could not help me. He fairly glowered. I told him I fully understood, that I was fine, and not to worry about me, that I had books to read. I was extremely polite. Next thing I knew he was fixing my tire. "I'm going to charge you a lot," he says. I just nodded, a model of equanimity. What did I care? I was alive and not caught with a flat in a desert with the coyotes possibly being abducted by aliens. As he worked the tire he asked me about what I had been up to. I told him about my desire to go to Chaco Canyon. He was visibly upset. How could I? How could I even think of going there? Even he, who lived in Gallup all of his life does not go there. Did I not know it was sacred? One has to respect the spirits.
Puzzled I nodded. His reaction was visceral and sincere. His bill came to thirty dollars. Maybe he was feeling better about me. I happily paid him. I began to think that going the long way around to Chaco Canyon would take too much time. The distance was too great. Were these all signs? It all just seemed that maybe I was not meant to visit there after all. No matter. There is more than one pueblo site in the southwest and I was headed towards a huge and very famous one.