RAIN
One small word. It’s a word that we say or experience many times a day in the Pacific Northwest. The weather forecast normally contains one of the many variations of it i.e. showers chance of showers, light rain, increasing chance of rain, etc. You get the idea.
So now we are here in NE Arizona where the rain is almost a religious experience. In fact it IS just that. Among the native people there are dances and ceremonies dedicated to bringing rain to the area. Their artwork has rain symbols everywhere.
Yesterday was a religious experience. It rained. It actually started about 7pm on Thursday night after I walked with the girls. It’s been quite a while since I heard the sound of rain drops on the roof of the trailer. I love it. We got treated for over an hour. The preliminaries even included a couple of thunder rolls to warm us up.
The skies were filled with clouds when we woke up Friday morning; very usual, and the forecast was for showers of rain or snow for the Gallup area. (We have found Gallup and Show Low radio stations that we enjoy.) As we began our trip I was wondering if I should have rinsed the rain spatters off the truck before we left.
It would have a total waste of time. We encountered showers as we headed east on I-40. The wipers got to go on their short trip several times on the way east. Our destination was Crownpoint, NM but we didn’t need to be there until late afternoon. (See the next entry). We turned north on BIA 12 and ended up in Window Rock. It is the capitol of the Navajo Nation. There is a very nice cultural center/ visitor center/ convention center/ museum. R & I spent several hours there, leaving mostly because hunger moved us on. We looked for a local restaurant ignoring the McDonalds, Churches, Taco Bell, and ended up at a Chinese buffet. The idea of eating Chinese food, in the Navajo capital, in Arizona still brings a smile to my face. If hunger wasn’t such a factor we might have had more time to hunt for something else.
After lunch it was time to take the girls for a walk, trying without success to avoid the puddles and mud that covered the parking lot. With the new sights and smells it took a while to get the girls to take care of business, but we finally got everyone wiped off and headed east on Hwy 264 toward Gallup. Window Rock is on the AZ/NM border so we were immediately in a different state. The time doesn’t change as you drive from the “Rez” into NM because they both are on the same time (MDT). It’s just the rest of Arizona that doesn’t change time. (How confusing is that?)
We were in and out of showers all day as we traveled to Crownpoint; several times snow as we crossed the Continental Divide. We crossed it a total of four times going from Gallup to Crownpoint and back. The elevation on I-40 is 7250 and on Hwy 371 it was over 7300. Everyone we talked to during the day were talking about the rain. It definitely was a big deal. Nobody seemed to mind having to drive on muddy roads. They were happy to have cars that looked like they had driven a leg of an off-road rally.
So walking on a muddy parking lot at the Crownpoint Elementary School was almost a pleasure.
One small word. It’s a word that we say or experience many times a day in the Pacific Northwest. The weather forecast normally contains one of the many variations of it i.e. showers chance of showers, light rain, increasing chance of rain, etc. You get the idea.
So now we are here in NE Arizona where the rain is almost a religious experience. In fact it IS just that. Among the native people there are dances and ceremonies dedicated to bringing rain to the area. Their artwork has rain symbols everywhere.
Yesterday was a religious experience. It rained. It actually started about 7pm on Thursday night after I walked with the girls. It’s been quite a while since I heard the sound of rain drops on the roof of the trailer. I love it. We got treated for over an hour. The preliminaries even included a couple of thunder rolls to warm us up.
The skies were filled with clouds when we woke up Friday morning; very usual, and the forecast was for showers of rain or snow for the Gallup area. (We have found Gallup and Show Low radio stations that we enjoy.) As we began our trip I was wondering if I should have rinsed the rain spatters off the truck before we left.
It would have a total waste of time. We encountered showers as we headed east on I-40. The wipers got to go on their short trip several times on the way east. Our destination was Crownpoint, NM but we didn’t need to be there until late afternoon. (See the next entry). We turned north on BIA 12 and ended up in Window Rock. It is the capitol of the Navajo Nation. There is a very nice cultural center/ visitor center/ convention center/ museum. R & I spent several hours there, leaving mostly because hunger moved us on. We looked for a local restaurant ignoring the McDonalds, Churches, Taco Bell, and ended up at a Chinese buffet. The idea of eating Chinese food, in the Navajo capital, in Arizona still brings a smile to my face. If hunger wasn’t such a factor we might have had more time to hunt for something else.
After lunch it was time to take the girls for a walk, trying without success to avoid the puddles and mud that covered the parking lot. With the new sights and smells it took a while to get the girls to take care of business, but we finally got everyone wiped off and headed east on Hwy 264 toward Gallup. Window Rock is on the AZ/NM border so we were immediately in a different state. The time doesn’t change as you drive from the “Rez” into NM because they both are on the same time (MDT). It’s just the rest of Arizona that doesn’t change time. (How confusing is that?)
We were in and out of showers all day as we traveled to Crownpoint; several times snow as we crossed the Continental Divide. We crossed it a total of four times going from Gallup to Crownpoint and back. The elevation on I-40 is 7250 and on Hwy 371 it was over 7300. Everyone we talked to during the day were talking about the rain. It definitely was a big deal. Nobody seemed to mind having to drive on muddy roads. They were happy to have cars that looked like they had driven a leg of an off-road rally.
So walking on a muddy parking lot at the Crownpoint Elementary School was almost a pleasure.
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