Out and About (or aboot?) :)

I'm so bummed to have to return to real life next week. I can't believe how quickly this trip has flown even though I feel like I've been here for at least a month! I've never bonded with a group of people so quickly either, but I'm going to miss my new teacher friends immensely. On the bright side, I do have places to stay and/or people to show me around if I choose to go to Oklahoma, Tennessee, Seattle, or New York City (among other states) so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

This was our last weekend before we leave, and we travel to Santa Fe on Tuesday, so our fearless leaders suggested that we take it easy on ourselves this weekend. I always listen to instructions so of course I only went white water rafting on Saturday and drove about 230 miles around to different places on Sunday. Definitely taking it easy :). So here's how the story goes...

Friday was an AMAZING lecture by Scott Ortman. It was all about the linguistic varieties and commonalities among the pueblos. Marjie told me I looked like I was in heaven during the lecture and everyone was surprised by my active participation in the discussion (I tend to be more of a passive listener most of the time, but I was right in the thick of this discussion and really following well). I'm thinking that maybe linguistics is a passion of mine worth pursing in the future. I've never felt so energized even though we stayed up late the night before talking etc. (that was the night of the infamous joke). We spent the rest of the day working on the curriculum project...yes, as a matter of fact I have been getting work done too! I know you're shocked, but honest! I have proof!

Saturday I went white water rafting with Alisha, Noelle, Mark, and Anne. Well, we say we went white water rafting but it was more like floating down the river with a very qualified and highly attractive river guide steering the way (Kind of how I picture Ares, the Greek god might have looked...:-)). We didn't even paddle (I think he felt sorry for us because we told him we were all teachers and his parents were retired educators). We hit a couple of white water spots (thus the pictures) but only like twice. It was a fantastic 4 hour relaxation tour. Our guide also had an amazing tattoo on his back. It was an Egyptian Pyramid with a four winged eagle...a design he chose after his archaeologist uncle returned from Egypt (which I have to admit, seemed so coincidental that we had so much to talk about with our guide!). After a leisurely dinner at Fired Up! Pizzeria we headed back to the Hogan ranch for a movie and celebrations with Becky who sold a piece at her show that day.

Sunday was AMAZING too! Becky, a Ute Tribal member (you remember, the artist...), took Jan and me on an exciting adventure loop where I could have filmed an episode of Alisha's new reality TV show "And, this is How I Die" because there were moments when I felt a little nervous, but Becky knew what she was doing and we were in a Jeep (which, of course, is magical so we were really in no danger) so it was all good. We started off visiting a few trading posts along the route...really old ones with very neat items, then had lunch in Bluff, Utah. After lunch, we drove to Goosenecks, a canyon where the San Juan river runs through. Kind of like a starter Grand Canyon...and it took my breath away. My eyes kept adjusting and readjusting over and over till it kind of made me a little dizzy. (by the way, I had to stop writing this for a minute because a bird just flew into the Gates building and flew in circles around my head. lol.).

Then we jumped back in the Jeep and went up the Moki Dugway (you should really look this up because my pictures don't do it justice) but essentially, it's this SUPER narrow road literally up the side of a Mesa in Utah...this is where my episode started because at one point, I looked out the window and saw NO ROAD. Just a steep drop off. I nearly had a coronary right in the back seat with Becky laughing all the way. To top it off, as we were going up, Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" played on the radio...very appropriate as I truly felt I was living on a prayer ALL THE WAY UP! haha. Then we raced a storm all the way down a clay road to a lookout (Muely Point) where you could literally see Monument valley and for miles around...as the storm rolled toward us. There were a couple of lightening flashes and after I gave Becky my camera to take pictures from the edge (because I was holding my chest to keep my heart inside, we jumped back in the jeep and just barely made it off the dirt road before the storm rolled in there, and headed back down the Moki Dugway...as "It's Raining Men" blared on the radio (what is up with the soundtrack of our lives? Haha)...Jan filmed the road down. I plan to have a copy of that to share with everyone. We made it off the Mesa right before the rain came there too and I finally began to breathe again as we rested at the bottom. I trust Becky wholeheartedly because she timed that almost perfectly! I couldn't believe it.

Leisurely now, we headed back toward Colorado, stopping to see the petroglyphs (I posted these on Facebook) and to meet Becky's friends Jonathan and Ben, archaeologists at Abajo Archaeology (much smaller than Crow Canyon).

On the way home, Becky took us through the Ute reservation where she pointed out the different facilities and her own home and, by taking the back road in, we got to see the fields where they farm and even an unexcavated archaeological site (that few people see...even famous archaeologists only dream about it since it is on the reservation) called Moki Springs. We felt truly honored that she took us here. I'll have to tell you more about all this in person as I don't feel it is right to post it on the Internet. Finally, we ate a really unhealthy dinner at the Casino (I had Irish Nachos...yummmmmm...) where we met some of her family members and then went back to Hogan ranch to sleep perchance to dream of another amazing day in the Southwest.