A Book Makes Dave Feel Emotions

I thought once we left the Southwest, I would quit reading The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest but none of my other books came up on my library queue, so I decided to finish, and it was well worth it; I learned that the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo, if you want to be politically correct) didn't disappear because of an apocalyptic drought-- there was a drought, but they started leaving before that, and usually with environmental catastrophe, everyone doesn't leave-- there are always a few stragglers that remain and eke out a living, so this was a political or religious migration that cleared out these cliff dwellings and granaries and high mesa redoubts, because by 1300, the area was completely empty of human habitation and life, and that just doesn't happen . . . and so there are plenty of theories of what political/religious movement drove the migration, but none are rock-solid . . . this information may be lost in time, because it's abstract . . . I also learned about the Comanche transformation, which is a real Cinderella-story, an underdog achievement worthy of the scrubs in Hoosiers: at the start of the colonial era, the Comanches were "horseless hunter-gatherers living in small camps scattered around northern Colorado and Wyoming . . . by the end of the seventeenth century they had become the most skillful equestrians warriors and long-distance traders in North America," with a domain that stretched from Canada to northern Mexico . . . so though they've been portrayed as merciless barbarian raiders, that wasn't the case until they met several defeats at the hands of the U.S. Army forces in 1875 . . . but enough of this, what the book made me feel, unfortunately, was jealousy and regret; when I was young, I dreamed of becoming a paleontologist and trekking through the Gobi Desert in search of dinosaur bones, but then I learned that paleontology is not all fun and bones, but David Roberts figured out how to live a life that combined the best elements of adventure, writing, climbing, history, archaeology, and epic journeys-- and while he's stayed out of the academic world, he interviews the people in it, and compiles their theories for the layman and, by the end of the book, after reading about all his hikes, his overnight camping trips and raft voyages, his access to secret sites and petroglyphs in our country, all this made me profoundly jealous, which I'm not proud of, because I have a fantastic life-- full of family, sport, and adventure-- but I know that I'll never get to travel all the trails and paths through the American Southwest that he did, and-- in fact-- that I may not get out there for another decade, instead I'll be hacking my way through humidity and poison-ivy, and instead of petroglyphs, I'll be looking at spray painted tags, which someday, in some far apocalyptic future, might prove to be just as evocative and obscure as the ancient rock etchings scattered through the Four Corners region, but I'll be long dead by then (which makes me want to start doing some graffiti art!)

Dave is NOT in the Zone

It looks like I'm going to have to do this whole thing all over again, in the correct order-- which is highly appropriate for the content, as . . . like most of us (except for the stalkers, of course) I made my trip into the Zone unprepared, with little or no information, and came about it the wrong way, from the wrong direction, as a blithe intellectual, moving too quickly, with too much alacrity-- and I thank myself lucky that I was not ground into pulp, or that my legs weren't turned to gelatinous rubber, but what I should have done, instead of trying to read a book about a movie I had never seen, what I should have done-- because I'm no cinephile-- what I should have done was read the original book first, I should have read Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's novel Roadside Picnic long before I watched Stalker and I should have read Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room  long after consuming both the original novel and the movie inspired by the novel, and while Tarkovsky's film is regarded as one of the best of the 20th century, it's also rather interminable, especially when you don't understand what's going on, and Roadside Picnic explains all that and more, in fact, if you're not a cinephile, then you can skip the movie and the Geoff Dyer book and just read the novel, and if you're not into Russian sci-fi, then you can skip the book entirely, and head to the Afterword, and simply read the notes the Strugatsky Brothers took on their very first discussion about the story, long before they sat down to write it . . . as these notes are so elegant and poetic, so ominous and enigmatic, and so pointed and precise, that they almost replace the novel itself: "a monkey and a tin can . . . thirty years after the alien visit, the remains of the junk they left behind are at the center of quests and adventures, investigations and misfortunes . . . the growth of superstition, a department attempting to assume power through owning the junk, an organization seeking to destroy it (knowledge fallen from the sky is useless and pernicious; any discovery could only lead to evil applications) . . . prospectors revered as wizards . . . a decline in the status of science . . . abandoned ecosystems (an almost dead battery), reanimated corpses from a variety of time periods."

The Avalanches Reveal the Fault in Dave's Brain

 I was very excited a few weeks ago when I got to listen to The Avalanches new album Wildflower . . . I clearly remember the day I heard "Frontier Psychiatrist" on WRSU while driving home from work in my 1993 Jeep Cherokee Sport . . . Since I Left You became a staple on my iPod, and I really like the new album as well, but I was surprised to learn that it's been sixteen years since the band released Since I Left You . . . in my mind their last album was from a few years ago, and it is categorized in my brain under "Hip New Music of which Dave is Aware" and maybe this is because of the liberal and bizarre use of samples . . . I suppose I consider Girl Talk to be new music-- but not Paul's Boutique-- or maybe it's that most new music doesn't dent my consciousness, but anyway, it was a bit frightening when I learned that Since I Left You came out in the year 2000, a fact that bears plain witness to just how faulty my memory and cognition is (though I think we all have these experiences all the time: I can't remember who was in the Super Bowl three years ago, but I vividly remember Super Bowl XXIII, the 49ers/Bengals game when Pete Johnson couldn't gain a yard on fourth down) and I guess the lesson here is that you shouldn't trust anything anyone says about things that happened in their past, because people tend to compress the past, or conflate it, we exaggerate memories from our youth, forget the rest, and generally just remember things however we want.

Back to Back Crap

When I get motivated to do crappy chores, I usually do two in a row, and the chores I juxtaposed on Monday morning were especially gross-- so if you've got a weak stomach, turn back now: first, I took a white garbage bag and put it inside a cardboard box and then opened fifteen jars of rancid home-pickled vegetables and poured them into the bag-- our extra fridge in the basement died months ago, but we never took the stuff out of it . . . so the white plastic bag was filled with old beets and pickles and peppers and onions and loads of vinegar (of which plenty spilled onto my chest and shirt) and the sound of old pickled vegetables plopping into a plastic bag full of vinegar is not particularly pleasing; so after a half hour of this, I sealed up the bag and-- keeping it inside the cardboard box for support-- carried it to the CRV, the vegetables sloshing around inches from my face, put it in the back, drove it to the park, and chucked it into an empty dumpster, where it hit the metal floor and exploded, and then I got home, took off my shirt-- which reeked of vinegar-- went into the backyard, and in the shade of our yew tree, shaved my chest hair to a reasonable length.

The Test 55: Of Robots and Noodles

I'm back and so is The Test . . . this episode mainly focuses on robots-- both televised and cinematic-- but there is also some discussion of noodles and intelligent apes; check it out, keep score, and determine how intelligent of an ape you are.

How Many Popsicle Sticks Do You Need for an Apocalyptic Project?

The people that comprise ISIS want money and sex slaves (who are forced to use birth control so they don't get pregnant) and beheadings and ransoms and territory and power and Twix and Axe body spray and expense reports and lonely American converts and employees and-- most importantly-- glory . . . glory in participating in what Rukmini Callimachi, the New York Times reporter that covers the Islamic State, calls their "apocalyptic project" . . . if you want some interesting perspective on ISIS, and why-- though ISIS will fold rather easily when confronted with organized military force-- the war with them will be prolonged (they may fold easily when confronted, but once you've defeated them on the ground, then you've got to stay on the ground for a long, long time . . . in Iraq and Syria and Mali and Nigeria . . . etcetera . . . it ain't happening) then listen to Planet Money 667: Auditing ISIS and Rukmini Callimachi Talks to David Remnick About ISIS.

Hoskinini, the Navajo Houdini

In a feature that should recur more often than it will probably will, here's a dude that should be on the high school history curriculum but is not: Hoskinini, the man who eluded Kit Carson and the Navajo Roundup of 1864 (and the ensuing Long Walk of death and misery) and then survived with a band of seventeen men, women, and children and twenty sheep in remote areas near Navajo Mountain (on the border of Utah and Arizona) until the Navajo were allowed to return from Bosque Redondo back to their homeland . . . and, in 1868, when the refugees arrived, they were met by Hoskinini, who gave "those wretched Dine corn, sheep, wool, and skins from the vast store he had accumulated during the years of hiding" and Hoskinini never revealed where he hid for all those years, but David Roberts thinks he might know . . . I'm still making my way through his book The Lost World of the Old Ones, which is full of adventure, discovery, academic debate over archaeology (observed firsthand by the author) and compelling American history and would be a fantastic book for high school kids to read (as opposed to the controversial new Mexican American Heritage textbook which was approved to be used in Texas, which-- according to this Washington Post article-- was written by people with no  who have no expertise in Mexican-American studies and calls Mexicans lazy).

Victory! And He Did It Without the Sauce

After five hours of best of three play, my son Ian and I won the first annual Sea Isle City Cornhole Classic . . . we only dropped one game (in the finals) and Ian was a good sport all the way through, and he had to be extremely patient, as there were many rounds of play and we only had one board (and three bags each, which certainly slowed play even more) and I'm quite proud of him, he carried me when I was missing the hole, stayed late on the beach with the adults even though all the kids had gone back to the house to watch TV and eat junk food, ate a slice of pizza between games to stay fueled, and played cornhole sober (I think) despite the fact that it's a mindlessly absurd game that should only be played for any length of time if you are drinking beer (which, of course, I was).

Family Vacation + Organized Competition = Recipe for Disaster

My eleven year old son Ian and I are riding an obnoxious two day undefeated cornhole streak, and last night-- after much sangria-- my father and the cousins wrote up a cornhole tourney bracket on a styrofoam plate, there are twelve teams and Ian and I are the top seed, despite the fact that he is the youngest player by a decade; Ian is very, very competitive and I think this level of organization and competition will only lead to bad and ugly things later this afternoon . . . I will keep you posted on all the sordid details as they unfold (or maybe not) and I think the problem is that he's too young to drink beer, which helps you to put things like competitive cornhole in perspective, and allows you to relax and enjoy the sounds of the ocean, instead of enjoying seeing your enemies driven before you (with beanbags).

Weird Things You Might Want to Grapple With

A couple of weird things I've been thinking about, so you can ponder them too:

1) we now live in an age of negative interest in the global bond market . . . so instead of keeping your millions and millions of dollars and/or francs in an insured vault, with a guard, and all that overhead, you invest them in a bond that you buy for a hundred dollars, and this bond promises to pay you back $99 . . . which is weird enough, but some of these bonds have gotten so popular, that you can sell your $100 bond to someone else for $101 dollars . . . the new episode of Planet Money: I Want My Money Back explains this phenomenon better than I can . . . but it still doesn't fully explain it;

2) weird thing number two is that the anti-union, free-market champion billionaire industrialist Koch Brothers dislike Donald Trump . . . and I dislike the Koch Brothers of course, as they're against public education funding and teacher's unions and me getting a pension and sucking off the government teat until I die . . . but I'm certainly not for Donald Trump, but it seems I should be happy about what he's doing to the Republican Party . . . win or lose-- and he will most certainly lose, Trump may prove to be a boon to the working man, even if he is a douche, because it's probably better to be a douche than an ultra-rich, ultra-tactical free market fundamentalist in an economic environment where you happily put ten dollars in a bond in order to get back nine.

Summer Reading: Giant Insects vs. Child Cannibals!

I'm now in summer beach mode-- which means reading whatever the fuck I want-- and I've just polished off back-to-back novels that differ so vastly in content and style that they may not have been written by the same species of animal . . . I highly recommend both books, read in juxtaposition:

1) Tainaron: Mail from Another City by Finnish sci-fi writer Leena Krohn is a hypnotic series of thirty letters written by a nameless woman that has traveled across the sea in a white ship to reside in a city populated by giant, anthropomorphic insects; the book is precisely observed, philosophical, and slim, and tackles the cycles of life and death, and the dynamic metamorphosis of character and being, with memorable moments that aptly describe the smallest moments of consciousness, which are brought into sharp contrast by the existence of the giant insects, which are slightly empathetic but mainly alien . . . it's a weird, weird trip with an oddly satisfying ending to a mainly plotless ramble and it's up there with Karel Capek's War with the Newts;

2) Off Season: The Unexpurgated Edition by Jack Ketchum is the story of six tourists who visit the Maine woods in the off-season and are beset by a family of feral cannibals, mainly comprised of a horde of flesh-eating children . . . the book is so obscenely graphic, so realistic, so vivid, and so tightly plotted that you will read the entire thing without taking a breath, occasionally contemplating your own heinous aesthetic taste, occasionally laughing at the gruesomely pragmatic descriptions of cannibalism (the book is a bit of a how-to) and occasionally wondering if the local police department would really handle a case this abhorrently repugnant, or if they would immediately call in for the National Guard . . . but it doesn't matter, Ketchum doesn't give you much time to think logically, nor should you, because if a horde of flesh-hungry children are chasing you through the woods, your book-learnin' will get you nowhere . . . this was Ketchum's first novel, and there is an essay at the end of the book about his battles with the editor that led to the tamer first edition of the novel and how pleased Ketchum is with the unexpurgated edition that is now available . . . read this in the dark, late at night on your Kindle (because it's only $3.99!) but heed the warning on Amazon:

This novel contains graphic content and is recommended for regular readers of horror novels.

Dave's Family Trip to the Four Corners Region: The Takeaway

After three weeks in the Southwest, and a fair bit of pertinent reading (four Tony Hillerman novels: The Wailing Wind, Listening Woman, Thief of Time, and Hunting Badger . . . these are ostensibly crime thrillers, but I also learned a bit about the Navajo nation, Navajo religion and practices, and high plains topography . . . I can't wait until "seep spring" or "box canyon" or "ceremonial Navajo sandpainting" comes up in conversation, because I know just enough about these things to be annoying . . . I also read about half of David Roberts' The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest . . . this is the sequel to In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest, a tome which is famous . . . or even infamous . . . with professional archaeologists and amateur pothunters alike because his tales of mountaineering, climbing, and intrepidness inspired others to hunt down the many off-the-grid ruins he described, and now many of these sites are heavily trafficked by hikers, and some have been vandalized, desecrated, and/or plundered . . . Roberts is a bit of a grouch, but his writing is vivid and fun, and his synopsis of the various academic debates on the origins and disappearance of the Anasazi-- now known as the Ancestral Pueblo-- is excellent) this is what I can tell you, and it certainly helped that our last stop was in Santa Fe, where we stayed in a historic adobe house right near the plaza . . . the owner, an older Spanish lady named Virginia, is related to Father Martinez-- the priest of the Taos parish that Willa Cather characterizes in her masterpiece Death Comes to the Archbishop . . . in the novel, Martinez challenges the Catholic faith's rule of celibacy, and he supposedly fathered many children in Taos . . . Virginia, whose family has lived in Santa Fe and Taos since 1598, described Martinez as the "villain" of the novel and was skeptical of Cather's speculation about him . . . this was news to me, rube that I am-- I never would have ascribed "villain" status to anyone in the book, which was more of a sequence of vignettes leading to the construction of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi-- a romanesque marvel of golden sandstone-- which Father Lamy (Latour in the novel) spent his life yearning for, so that the church could have a proper house of worship in the untamed West (and, ironically-- and you can see a scene of this on the giant iron door-- it was the Pueblo revolt and the burning of the original church that cleared the ground for the new cathedral) . . . anyway, I've lost my way here, and that's appropriate for my final moral, but whether it's the exit that boasts both The World's Largest Golf Tee and The World's Largest Wind Chime, or the perfectly preserved ruins in Mesa Verde, or the many ruins in Canyon de Chelly, which the Navajo live amongst, or the various old adobe churches and buildings on the Santa Fe trail, or the ancient petroglyphs that are literally everywhere-- in the canyons, in the Petrified Forest, along the rivers, on the cliffs-- the Southwest offers greater opportunities than the Northeast to see how many people through the ages have said-- with art, architecture, buildings, weapons, war, pottery, and giant wind chimes: we were here . . . and the Southwest reminds you, with the vastness of the land and the evocative ruins, that you will not last, you will turn to dust as well . . . in the Northeast, sometimes we pave over history, sometimes we build over it, sometimes we grow beautiful green plants over our history, and sometimes the rains just wash our history into the rivers and oceans, but in the dry and arid Southwest, history is preserved, and it feels like a different country . . . because it is, because everywhere in our country is a different country, it's just that you can see it out there . . . and if you can get out there and see and feel this land, the ruins and the mountains, the desert and the high snows, if you can taste the fresh green and red chiles and navigate the weird winding streets of Santa Fe and Taos, which are reminiscent of Toledo, and walk through the plaza in the dry heat, you'll see what I mean, and never think about the United States the same way again.

Unexplained Shaving Phenomenon

It's trite and cliche, but after a month in the Southwest, followed by an immediate family vacation at the Jersey Shore, I am certain that it IS the humidity . . . and perhaps that explains why, after a month of not shaving, it was so easy to remove my beard . . . I'm not sure if it's easier to shave when you haven't done it in a long time-- if the hair comes off easier-- or if it was just the return to a humid environment . . . and the internet has no explanation . . . but if I didn't look so grizzled with full-on facial hair, than this would be my new shaving pattern: four weeks of growth, then a super-smooth/clean shave.

Dave Endorses Hillary Clinton!

I normally waste my presidential vote on The Green Party-- because biodiversity is our planet's only interesting asset . . . and I think the Green Party might be in favor of biodiversity-- but this November, due to the special threat of Donald Trump, I'm actually going to make my ballot count and vote for Hillary Clinton-- I was skeptical about her at first, but I listened to Ezra Klein's interview with her, and she was smart, logical, funny, empathetic to the plight of the American worker-- especially in light of globalization, job loss to immigrants, and foreign competition-- and she had nuanced and reasonable ideas about childhood poverty, immigration reform, healthcare, and the media . . . plus, she actually talked about books, including one I read, which is always a good move when you want my endorsement (and obviously she did, or she wouldn't have mentioned a book that really moved me) and so my advice is this-- you think you have Hillary Clinton pegged, but you don't, so listen to this interview, read Robert Putnam's Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, and maybe you'll decide to vote for Hillary Clinton as well . . . the problem is that I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here, I strongly doubt that any Trump supporters read my blog . . . but if you do, then tell me why I should change my mind (but you should probably listen to the interview and you should also read the George Saunders piece in The New Yorker about when he attended a Trump rally).

One is the Zoneliest Number

Our cross-country trip spanned 6440 miles-- kudos to the minivan-- and we spent over three weeks together, often in the car (22 days, to be exact) and my wife and I only got into one fight, which I think is fairly commendable . . . it was in Taos, on the plaza-- I got some iced coffee and my wife went to the bathroom, and both kids were with me, and across the hall from the coffee place was a high-end rock shop (they had a fossilized mammoth femur . . . six grand) and so we went across to browse, but we kept checking for my wife, so we could catch her as she walked by, but we somehow missed her and she didn't see us in the coffee shop and so she walked across the plaza and then all the way back to the car and then back to the plaza, and-- after checking near the bathroom and asking about her at the hotel desk-- we poked our heads outside and found her, in an irate mood, looking for us again in the plaza . . . and we argued about who was right: I said that you should never move from the original spot, and that's where we kept checking and we were very close to the original spot and we were totally concerned about her and I took umbrage at the fact that she was accusing us of just wandering away and forgetting about her because we were totally trying to find her (but we were also trying to look at high end rocks and fossils . . . and I didn't tell her this, but I was chatting with the shopgirl about the quality fish fossils we brought back from Byblos in Lebanon for a bit and that's when she probably walked past us) and her point, which was a good one, was that we should not have moved from the original spot and she thought we abandoned her and then she insulted my phone provider (Ting) because her texts and calls didn't go through, and I took offense at that as well, because my phone works just fine and I received a call from her earlier, from across the plaza, and after we said our fill, we didn't talk for twenty minutes . . . and we didn't even play the radio-- and the kids kept quiet too, probably because we hadn't fought all trip, and after we cooled off, we both agreed that it was a silly fight and Catherine said that I was totally right and she should have waited at the coffee shop and that my phone provider is boss and she's grateful for how much money I save the family and that she understood how alluring a high-end fossil shop can be . . . or maybe she didn't say those exact things, and I was smart enough to let the argument drop without trying to get her to say those things-- which is my usual mistake-- and then we were back in the congenial zone that comprised most of the trip, and the moral here is that I have a great wife who I get along with even in the most claustrophobic situations and that though we provide excellent role models for our children, it doesn't rub off on them in the least and they bickered at least once every twenty-five minutes for twenty-two days straight.

The Kindness of Jerseyans

Yesterday we drove the final leg of our thirty hour trip home, Columbus, Ohio to New Jersey, and we were all pretty close to losing our minds; I put some Bruce Springsteen on and this inspired me to drive like I was in New Jersey-- instead of patiently tailgating or flashing the brights at folks who wouldn't get out of the left lane (who are these people?) I started beeping at them, and this technique was very effective-- although I'm sure they had some choice words/thoughts when they saw the Jersey plates-- and then when we got home, it started to pour-- and I hadn't seen rain in a month-- so I put on a baseball hat took a walk down to the park, and I was wearing khaki shorts and a button down shirt, so I didn't look like a runner and I was absolutely soaked, and a young dude stopped his car, rolled down his window, and said, "Hey is your car up there in the lot?" and I said "no" and he said: "Do you need a ride?" and I realized he was being kind to me, even though I was back in Jersey, so I told him, "No, I'm okay, I just got back from New Mexico and I haven't seen rain in a long time."

My Political Platform:Most Rafting Accidents Happen on Land

I think all the political podcasts and talk radio we've been listening to on the ride is starting to weigh on me-- yesterday we heard Rush Limbaugh, NPR, The Weeds, Slate Money, and some other local stuff-- and I had a dream last night that I was elected president (ha!) and it was awful . . . tons of responsibility and everyone had a different opinion on how to do everything and I didn't want to make any speeches and there was a lot of reading, and the only thing I wanted to get across to the nation was what our young long-haired river-guide told us during the safety lecture before our trip down the Rio Grande: "Most rafting accidents happen on land . . . like in the parking lot? or stepping on a slippery rock getting out of the boat? okay?" and while I'm not sure why this information is a grand metaphor for political policy in our fractured nation (I'm still a bit groggy) I'm sure that this is crucial information and will eventually heal the ugly rift between the parties, so remember it and try to hear it in a presidential tone: most rafting accidents happen on land.

Hauling It Home

I will try to eventually write a wrap-up of our cross country trip, but we were so busy that I got behind, so I'll have to squeeze Mesa Verde, the Petrified Forest, Santa Fe, rafting down the Rio Grande, and Taos into one run-on sentence . . . I'm too tired to do that now, but I'm happy to report that despite some minor illness and an injury, we made it from New Mexico to Missouri-- 13 hours of driving-- and I did more than half of the driving, despite a sore shoulder . . . I should warn you that when you cross South Guadalupe St. in Santa Fe, at the Garfield Street intersection, you need to pay close attention, which I wasn't-- I was talking to my son about my used book purchase at Big Star Books and Music and I walked right into a low hanging traffic sign, the thin edge of metal caught me right in the shoulder and it's still kind of sore-- but aside from a few scrapes, that was the only injury on the trip, so no complaints; on the way to Springfield, Missouri, we had a great meal of brisket, fried bologna, hot links, and world famous banana cake at Leo's Barbecue in Oklahoma City . . . this place is very authentic, and on a weird rural road with seventeen churches on it, despite being near downtown; unfortunately, Ian didn't get to keep his meal, he got carsick several hours later-- the minor illness, again no complaints-- and he filled a plastic bag with vomit but didn't spill a drop in the car (well done, Ian!) . . . he ate some mozzarella cheese near the end of the ride, and puked this up into one of the planters in front of the Day's Inn . . . yuck . . . we're going to get him some Dramamine tomorrow morning . . . and, in case you were wondering, I'm out of clean shirts.

Two Thoughts Inspired by Our Journey Through the Southwest

I should probably keep these excellent epiphanies to myself, but for the good of all mankind, I am releasing them to the internet:

1) whenever we had to park the van in a hot and sunny spot on our trip, we used a pair of silver windshield shades to block the sun, and they really helped keep the car (especially the steering wheel) cool . . . so why not make shirts, hats, jackets and umbrellas out of this material, so that you can walk around in the hot southwestern sun and not burn up . . . hopefully, some famous fashion-designer will read this and get to work on something that doesn't look too sci-fi/garish;

2) there needs to be a horror movie about a spider-snake . . . some people are scared of spiders and some people are scared of snakes, but everyone is afraid of a spider-snake.

Ben and Dan: Guides of the Southwest

The differences between the Jeep tour we took in Sedona and the "open air vehicle" tour we took in the Canyon de Chelly were perfectly appropriate for each place; Sedona is a well-run tourist machine and Chinle is an off the map little town in the Navajo Nation, and our tour guides embodied these characteristics in an archetypal manner;

1) though they both have three letters in their name, Ben and Dan couldn't be more different as guides-- Dan was born in Connecticut but lived in Maine and also did some time overseas, as an itinerant musician and guide, and he kept up a steady stream of conversation, anecdotes, trivia, corny jokes, and interaction-- if you mention you're from New Jersey, he knows somebody in West Caldwell, if you mention you coach soccer, he played on his high school and coaches his kids team-- while Ben grew up and still lived in Canyon de Chelly and is a recognized Navajo guide, storyteller, and keeper of Navajo cultural history, but his style is just the facts (aside from occasional griping about the National Park Service and how they don't maintain the road and some of the sites as well as he'd like . . . he thinks there's some money somewhere, and he's been repeatedly asking them to trim the cottonwood trees that are blocking the beautiful colored antelope petroglyphs near the Antelope House Ruins);

2) Dan's Jeep is a dependable, well-oiled machine that conquered slickrock peaks, but Ben's "open air vehicle," which my wife wisely requested (because who wants to be cooped up in an SUV) is an old Dodge Ram Power 350 with a modified bed of bench seats, and while it's the greatest way to see the canyon, Ben had some trouble navigating the sandy riverbed and the truck stalled out several times, and the engine overheated twice-- luckily, we were in an incredibly scenic area, so it was no trouble to wait while he fixed the engine, but we really wondered if we would make it out of the canyon before sunset . . . and though his daughter had a brand new Polaris four-seater dune buggy, there was no way she was letting us use it-- she was headed out on the town (Denny's?) with some friends;

3) Dan's tour was definitely organized and built up to a great view, and he was well-practiced at his schtick, while Ben's tour ended at his house, where we got to play some two-on-two basketball with his grandkids . . . on the ride back, all the cotton-pods from the cottonwood trees were floating around in the canyon, and though it was 90 degrees, it looked like it was snowing; we really didn't know if we would make it through the sand-- but we did, and he dropped us at our hotel and then spent several hours fixing his vehicle in the hotel parking lot . . . while Dan dropped us off right on time, we took a picture with him and off he went . . . I think the kids will remember both tours, but I especially liked the trip through Canyon de Chelly, it reminded me of the time Cat and I spent in the Middle East, we were always a couple of clueless white folks being guided out to the ruins by the natives who still lived amongst remnants of ancient civilization, but were trying to maintain their own civilization on top of these relics . . . once again, for pictures, head to Captions of Cat.