Monday March 22, 2004
Dave and Barry slept in the Hershberger guest quarters, a camping trailer parked beside the house. As with the previous day, this one also started with discussion on the topic of snoring. Based on the previous night, Dave had insisted that Ed sleep in a different room from himself. Now it seems that Dave has another problem that was masked the night before by Ed's proximity to Dave.
Dave found that Junior, one of the Hershberger dogs, was chewing on a black leather glove. It wasn't Barry's. This was the first of a series of dog days events for Ed. He and Junior had a little talk about the glove, but Junior didn't seems to have regrets.
Regina had breakfast prepared when we got into the house. Then Ed wanted to get some photos of the larger cactus at the rear of the property. Mahlon had told us that they grow about one inch per year. So comparing the height to Ed makes this an old cactus.
Before leaving Mahlon and Regina's, we took pictures of them and Mahlon took one of us wearing our new Sturgis 2004 T-shirts. Monica Burgess represents Saltillo out of Rapid City, SD. Her husband is a partner in the Harley dealerships in Rapid City and Sturgis. She helped Dave at the Saltillo CSUN exhibit and gave us each a shirt. Thanks, Monica!
Before we fired up, Regina filled our water bottles with her famous iced tea. She has a special method of making it. She heats the sugar with some water and adds it to the tea in her automatic iced tea maker. Thanks, Regina and Mahlon for a great visit!
The destination for the day is Mexican Hat, Utah. The scenic highway through Cottonwood and Sedona offers wonderful views. The artist colony of Jerome, a 19th century mining town, is perched on the side of a mountain west of Cottonwood and deserves a more thorough exploration, but not today because we have a lot of distance to cover.
We stopped in Sedona for lunch and ate outside with a beautiful view. This part was slow going, but we were able to open up north of Flagstaff.
Temperatures were plenty warm, just the opposite of concerns we had in planning the trip. In fact, the previous two days set new record highs and the forecast for today was just one degree below the record high.
By the time we were past Tuba City, home of dinosaur footprints, it was clear that we weren't going to arrive at Monument Valley, on the Utah-Arizona border, before dark. Dave pulled in at the first motel in Kayenta, a Holiday Inn. They had a suite with two beds in the main room and one bed in a separate room with a door between. This had a certain appeal to Dave. After unloading we walked the short distance to Amigo Cafe for another Mexican dinner. The other patrons and the staff all appeared to be Navajo. After dinner we walked to the Burger King. We had noticed a sign approaching Kayenta that promoted the display on the Navajo CodeTalkers at the BK. Before going in we roamed an outside exhibit of hogans, a sweat lodge, and a wagon. During this time, Ed got acquainted with a local stray dog. It didn't seem to understand that Ed didn't want to play and it tore a hole in his pants. It hadn't been a good day for Ed and dogs.
The Navajo CodeTalkers display was fascinating. It reviewed the role of Navajo recruits in the armed services during World War II. The Navajo language is complex and recruits were trained to convey information by radio in Navajo.
We commit to an 8:00 AM departure since Tuesday will be a big day.
285 Miles today.