Faith, Folklore, and Friends

There is only one place on the United States map where four states come together.  It is here, in this high desert in the Navajo Nation. We thought we would be the only ones there, since we had seen very little traffic that morning.  Wrong again! There was a huge line of people wanting to put their bodies in four states at once. There is a flea market with lots of merchants around the monument; most have jewelry and sand art and T-shirts.  We decided to shop a while until it wasn't so crowded.  I shot some photos in all four states. When we finished shopping, the line was longer than before, so we just took these photos of people we don't know and went on our way.  We were able to spend much more time in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.  Our visit to Colorado this time was short; just the time it took to walk around the vendor's booths.  It looks nothing like Denver here!

About 1992, someone suggested I read  Tony Hillerman's  latest novel.  I did, and I was hooked.  I read everything he had written up to that point, and got every new novel as soon as it was released.   His eighteen mystery novels are set in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona with protagonists Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee of the Navajo tribal police.  Hillerman's books describes the Four Corners area, Window Rock, Arizona and other desert landscapes. We had been to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, but had never stopped at these places and seen them up close. We had a long winter here, and one cold, rainy day, I was thinking (daydreaming?) about how nice it would be to be in the Southwest. I started rereading Hillerman's  novels , and Hub read some of them for the first time. His descriptions make you want to be there, to see these places with your own eyes, to taste the dust with your mouth, to hear the wind and the silence. So blame it on a wild ...