Port-A-Potties, Tickets, and Tourons

So I've used more portapotties the past two weeks than I have in my entire life. Evidently, bushes, outhouses, portapotties and glorified portapotties are a way of life for archaeologists and the American Southwest, which is almost a deal breaker for me...almost, but not quite...that tells you how amazing this whole thing is! I'm willing to risk an inordinate amount of unsanitary "comfort stations" just to find out more about the Anasazi culture. Go me!

At any rate, now that I've shared that (TMI, anyone?) I will move on to actually describing what I've been doing for the past couple of days. After an intense few lectures on the evolution of corn Monday (I'll be honest...I found it hard to get excited about the evolution of corn even though I know how important it is to sustaining life for the Anasazies and even for us now, it was hard to really focus, especially after such an incredible weekend), we loaded up the vans and headed to Farmington, New Mexico and let me tell you...the beds in a Comfort Inn have NEVER felt SO amazing EVER. Don't get me wrong. Roughing it in the Hogans is fantastic...BUT, a real bed with real pillows did fell really glorious. But even more exciting was a shower with ACTUAL hot water and water pressure. Heaven. (LOL, I'd never make it as a Pueblo...I'm a total wuss).

The next two days were spent at Chaco Canyon and Aztec Ruins. Beautiful archaeological sites, which the pictures do better at describing than I can in the short time that I have this morning before lab work, but I do want to note an observation about Chaco Canyon. One of our guides, a Hopi, (Dee) was hesitant about going to Chaco because of the oral traditions her culture passes down. It has a lot to do with the way Chaco is said to have been unoccupied. She talked of a "Sodom and Gomorrah" type situation and because of these bad things, it is considered counter-cultural to be in such a setting (her quest for knowledge led her to come to Chaco with us, for which I completely admire her, and she did receive support from her family despite the intense feelings of apprehension). When Tessie elaborated on this based on her Tewa Oral Tradition, I was surprised because it was a very "Babylonian" kind of situation. The tradition states that the knowledge spread so far that it became unmanageable and no one could understand anyone anymore and they spread like the wind (that's the layman's version really). I love the analogous relationship of the stories to my own cultural background, but it leaves me with a lot of personal questions that I may never have the answer to. I really want to explore this more, but I'll have to do it when I can truly be alone, not it a room full of other teachers etc (which I have really been enjoying, but I haven't had a lot "alone" time since I got here). I may revisit this blog later.

Oddly enough, though, while we were admiring the architecture and oohing and ahhing and questioning the past, we received one very important reminder about the present.

Unfortunately, while having lunch we parked a couple of vans in the wrong place and the park ranger was not in a happy mood evidently because he, in no uncertain terms, told us how horrible this was and proceeded to write us tickets after lecturing our drivers about how he was in a hurry (ironically, he was in a hurry but kept the drivers talking for a really long time...) and they absolutely should not park in the zone they parked in unwittingly. Our drivers handled the situation very well and after the tickets were written we were on our merry way, good humored albeit a wee bit sad about the ranger's lack of sympathy.

Finally, yesterday afternoon I did a completely Touron thing (Tourist/Moron=Touron). I paid a lot of money to go on a horseback ride through the mountains and it was gorgeous. As Blair said, it was like riding through a postcard. We rode at the end of the day and got to see the sunset over the reservoir, which was lovely. I was on a rather ornery horse (I had the most horse riding experience) so I didn't get a lot of pictures because Chico and I had a running dialogue, but some others in the group did so I'll just steal them later. Anyway, we at a "Cowboy Dinner" of steak, beans, potatoes, and apples and were serenaded with "Cowboy Songs" and it was fantastically Touronic. LOVED IT! (Thanks again to my Uncle Clif whose awesome Horse Riding Lessons really paid off).

And so, I head off to lab this morning, once again heading into the Anasazi world with way more questions than answers.