It All Starts With Quicksand

October 17, 2023 – Day 19

Remember back to when you were a kid. It seemed that the cartoon hero was always encountering quicksand. And sometimes, years or decades later, you finally realize that quicksand really isn’t that big a hazard that you made it out to be? (Sorry if you still thought it was…)

Would you look at that!

The Hopi settled next to the Little Colorado River. The river is presumably the source of the quicksand which we couldn’t investigate because of the fence. Not to mention the unstable banks and the quicksand!

Safely past the dangers the signage warned us about we made the short hike to Homolovi I archeological site. These creative archeologists named the 4 ruins Homolovi I, Homolovi II, Homolovi III. We bet you can’t guess the 4th one. Yes, Homolovi IV!

Homolovi 1 was the nearest one to the campsite and also the largest of the 4 sites. Archaeologists have dated Homol’ovi I from 1290 to 1400 A.D. From 1290-1360 A.D. it was the largest village in what archaeologists refer to as the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster. which for much of the period consisted of 4-5 villages. During this period Homol’ovi I grew from 200 rooms to over 700.

Before we headed out to the site we watched a YouTube video from AZ State Parks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYB-Uj8_xbo

It goes into great detail about what had been there.

…and what the archeologists have done there. When they are done with the site they first they line the site with a black material and then fill them in with the dirt that had been removed. It lets future archeologists know that past archeologists have already been there already as well as signal where they can pick up excavations.

“In Hopi culture, we understand that ancestral places were marked with footprints (ruins, artifacts, and burials, monuments to our prehistoric occupation, that would be attributed to us one day… The reconstruction of the Homol’ovi villages may help refresh Hopi memories of life in the past – some of which we can still ‘dig’ for in our oral, clan. and ceremonial traditions.”

Mican Loma’omyava. “Homol’ov Revisited”

Indeed, pretty much anywhere you cast your gaze downward you found shards of pottery and primitive stone tools. Many tourists before us collected these and placed them on Hopi bricks.

These bits of relics are everywhere. Look at the background of this picture and you’ll easily see more on the ground in the background. We asked a ranger why they were on the ground. In Hopi culture when a tool was wrecked, say by a dog running through the work area, or children messing about, they would leave the artifacts in place to “remember them”. We honestly wish we could recall exactly what they said, it was far more meaningful than “remember them.”

It was humbling to pick these up and hold them. It made us think about life back then. Was the pottery used for water? Grain? Was the tool used to cut, or maybe scrape hides for leather? So many questions that are left unanswered.

You can see the size of the ruins behind Susan, there was an equal amount behind me, taking the picture.

We spent about an hour there, just taking it all in. We saw 2 birds we couldn’t identify along with 3 different species of lizard that we also couldn’t identify.

We headed into the Visitor’s Center to learn more, we were greeted by more warnings! It seems that Nature is a very dangerous place out here in the west. New England, where are you?

We headed back to the campsite to wait out the heat before heading over the Petrified Forest National Park. The park has a 28 mile road which the Painted Desert in the northern part and the Petrified Forest in the southern part. We both agreed that getting there a little before sunset was ideal. BTW, we were wrong.

We arrived around 4:30 pm. The park stops admitting visitors at 5pm and you must be out by 6pm. So we had to hustle. Which is a shame since the park is huge. It really deserved lot more time than we had allotted for this adventure.

The Painted Desert had stunning vista after stunning vista.

Soon we left the Painted part of the park and headed down to the Petrified part. We did cross Historic 66 and they had this cool old car there.

The shadows were starting to get long and we were starting to get worried about the light. A ranger at the Visitor’s Center said that we should do the Blue Mesa loop, a 3.5 mile driving loop through some spectacular scenery. But we had all these plains to cross to get there.

This is looking down from the overlook at Newspaper Rock. Way down at the bottom is a rock with over 600 petroglyphs. You could easily see them with binoculars.

Let’s zoom in some, sorry for the poor quality. We tried hold the iPhone up to the binocular lens. It might have worked with some fussing and more time but we really were worried about loosing light. And getting out of the park by 6 pm.

You’ll just have to trust us, this was pretty impressive with binoculars.

This was part of an area known as The Teepees.

At the time we thought those were the teepees on the left, but later on down the road we saw better ones. Didn’t stop though because it was getting darker.

Finally, we made it to the Blue Mesa loop.

Can you see our mistake? Sure, the Golden Hour is here and the shadows are more pronounced and the light is golden. But… the 2 “pro” photographers missed one important fact: The pretty bits were below grade and they were already in shadow. It was dark!

But still, it was pretty impressive and beautiful.

But it was clearly time to go. We had 31 minutes to exit the park so we moved along.

Check out this next photo. You can see a road down at the bottom. We need to figure out how to get there for our next visit. Yes, we had already decided to come here again sometime. Phoenix will be our westward destination for some time, so we don’t mind stopping by again someday.

Paul’s Gallery owner, Katherine Baltivik taught both Susan and Paul that “Pretty is a trap, don’t shoot pretty pictures.” But still, come on, even Katherine would have liked this next one.

Soon after taking that shot we came across a group of people eating dinner! They had a Coleman stove, table, chairs. Everything you need for a side of the road impromptu picnic. We thought they were stupid. They would be trapped! The gates close at 6pm!

We made it to the gate with about 5 minutes to spare. It was pitch black and the closed gates reflected in our headlights. What could we do? Turn around and drive the 45 minutes to the north entrance? That gate would also be closed. Were we trapped for the night? Then we saw the sign, “Automatic Gate Approach Slowly.” Whew, we wouldn’t have to be trapped in the park overnight!! We approached the gate and opened. There was no need to hurry. We bet those people eating dinner at the Blue Mesas knew that they could get out.

We were glad we had experienced the park at dusk. We’ve already decided to come back some other time to explore it without being rushed, walk around the petrified forest parts, and to maybe hike some of the easier trails.

Daily: 0

Total: 2,916

Moving Miles/Day: 324

Overall Miles/Day: 153