Standing on a Corner...

Today we are staying in the guest rooms of a fantastic hotel/oasis in Winslow called La Posada. If you’re ever in the area you HAVE to stay for a couple of nights at least. The resort is owned by newly elected mayor Allan Affeldt and his wife Tina Mion. They were both recently recognized by the Arizaona Republic in an article about visionaries in the state. Tina is an extraordinary artist and many of her original works are displayed throughout the hotel. If your in Washington, D.C. next year from Febrary through August there will be a room dedicated to her work at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Thanks to Allan and Tina and other like-minded people, the city is going through somewhat of a renaissance. The renovation of La Posada is the anchor that drives a lot of the new activities and store fronts. Many thanks to artist Dan Lutzick for serving a dinner that couldn’t be beat in his former department store/newly converted home/art space that houses many of his sculptres. Tomorrow is a rest day, so now we'll get organized! Right.

The last two days have been pretty hilly, and featured Alice developing a water leak and not one, not two, but three flat tires (on the bikes, not Alice). We suspect the thorns of the desert scrub brush. We managed to see the very end of an elaborate Hopi Kachina dance with beautiful costumes and music that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. It was dumb luck that the ceremonies were happening while we were passing through.

We're riding through the Painted Desert which brings us to: Different views of the same thing…

Riding downhill with a tailwind:

Painted, indeed! The desert is full of color!! Delicate hues with slight gradations that, if you look close enough, are all the colors of the rainbow. The Great Spirit has endowed this wonderful land with a richness that words can barely describe. The flora and fauna take on the many subtle shades that only a painter’s palate could describe. I guess that’s where they came up with the name! I could live here for the rest of my life…

Riding uphill into the wind:

Painted desert my ass. Maybe if you took a billion gallon can of Sherman Williams and poured it over northern Arizona – but only if the color was brown. The dirt is brown, the bushes are brown, the half dozen trees that there are, brown. The mountains are brown. The roadkill is brown. The bottles of beer and whisky by the side of the road, the birds, the lizards, those rodent prairie dogs, the tumbleweeds and cactus – brown, brown, brown, brown. The only things that aren’t brown are the sky (gray) and the road (black and HOT). Why anyone would come to this god-forsaken hell-hole is beyond me unless they like the color of… color of… hey… I think that’s a downhill around the corner… ♪ I see trees of green, red roses too…I see 'em bloom, for me and for you...♪