Arizona (From "The State I'm In" Series)
Posted: Tuesday, September 13, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
I’m kind of a rock hound. I started hunting fossils on my grandparents’ farm near Williamsport, PA when I was just a tyke. The old road that went through their property cut along a steep hillside and exposed tall cut banks of loose, sandy dirt. I’d find brachiopods and crinoids and other low quality fossils every time we visited. Sometimes I’d bring a bigger rock down to the house and my grandpop would help me crack it open with a hammer. I developed an eye for it, and was always on the look out. My dad used to say. “He can find a fossil in a parking lot,”—because I had.
I got married young, limped through college and graduated with a degree in English Literature. What I was going to do with that, without a teacher’s license, I don’t know--and didn’t know at the time. My wander lust dragged us to Wyoming where I went to work in an oil refinery and quickly became an alcoholic. By then, it didn’t matter that I didn’t get to be an archeologist. I was, and still am, fascinated by interesting rocks, and continue to hunt for and find them.
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A few years ago, we were on our way back east during our second driving trip to our place in California. (I know it was the second time, because we only took the Jeep twice. The first time I had to replace CV joints and U-joints when it was over. This trip it was the front drive shaft that went out at Denver and caused me some stress and bucks). We left Pioneertown at about 1:00am, with me driving and her sleeping in the back with two of the dogs. Riley, my gun dog, always sat on the front passenger seat when it was open. I was really short of sleep and a little hung-over, but I had a thermos of coffee and was a real trooper when it came to covering long distances at night.
We headed out 29 Palms Highway across the Mojave, all the way to Vidal near the Colorado River, then cut north and hit I-40 at Needles. The coffee was kicking in by then so I stopped, topped off the tank then crossed into Arizona. We’d decided to take a drive through Monument Valley, Canyon Lands and Arches National Park that trip (the itinerary, as usual, was fixed in stone. The route, with time and miles between stops, was all spelled out). I’d cut north at Flagstaff and head for Moab, Utah. Our ultimate goal for the day was a pet-motel on the east side of Denver. About an 1,100 mile day.
It was morning rush hour when I got to Flagstaff. That really doesn’t mean much to someone who lives an hour out of Philly and an hour and a half out of New York, but I’d already been driving six or seven hours by then. I had a headache and got really ticked off at a couple of idiot drivers I got behind when I cut off onto the two lane road. The wife hadn’t moved in a couple of hours and was snoring.
Snow capped Humphrey’s Peak, the highest point in Arizona--which holds much magic and power, a Navajo guy at a gas station told me once—and the forested hills around Flagstaff soon faded in the rearview mirror as we entered the parched Painted Desert and the Indian reservations. The desert is well named. The spectacular shades of reds, grey-blues and oranges that ‘paint’ the ruggedly eroded hills and mesas are not short of breathtaking. I stopped at several overlooks and let the dogs out for a pee. The wife groaned when they piled back in on top of her, but she was more than willing to continuing preparing for her turn to drive, and went back to sleep.
I turned northeast off the road that led to the Grand Canyon North Rim and headed for Tuba City in the middle of the Navajo Nation. I’d been there before, maybe 25 years ago. It was a hurting little burg then, but I knew they’d have gas. It’s pretty sparse pickings on the reservations sometimes. There was nothing around. I was really moving along the straight, flat, two lane road when I spotted a small sign with faded paint and bullet holes through it. An arrow pointed up a dirt road to the north. It said “Dinosaur Tracks.” I slowed up a little, thinking about it, but I was almost 15 minutes behind schedule and kept going.
I kept thinking about it. I remembered the pile of fossils in my attic, the beat up fossil books my mom got me that were still in my library at home. I thought about those toy dinosaurs and my grandpop cracking open a rock for me. I was about three miles down the road when I said, out loud, “When will you be here again?” My wife mumbled something and the dogs all perked up when I pulled over and turned around.
About a mile up the dirt road, about half way to a low, sharp, brilliantly red butte that was contrasted dramatically with clumps of blue-green pine shrubs sat a battered lean-to shelter with canvas sides. It was about 30 feet long, ten feet deep and looked like it was ready to fall down. Three Indian men and a woman sat behind a couple of beat up tables. There was a port-o-potty off to one side. There were two other cars there that looked like they worked and one that didn’t. I pulled in, parked a few yards away from the hut and got out (the dogs were overly interested, but the wife hadn’t moved after I told her what I was doing). I went over to the table to see what was going on. They wanted $15 for a tour of the dinosaur tacks area. I was a little skeptical, but agreed.
The younger of the guys walked me around the back of the hut and down a small gully. We came out onto a flat area of solid red rock. It was absolutely covered with dinosaur tracks. Big, three toed tracks were everywhere, thousands of them. I couldn’t help it. I got so excited I started talking faster and louder. I “oohed and aahed,” when he showed me a real nice one, or we got to an area where they were so thick you couldn’t not step on them. I kept turning the video camera off when I wanted it on, and on when I wanted it off. I got a lot of video of my feet.
Fifteen minutes later we were down over a ledge, out of sight of the hut at another section of exposed tracks. He pointed at a small pile of rocks and asked, “Do you know what that is?” I didn’t. It looked like eroded red shale. “It’s dinosaur feces, fossilized dinosaur poop.” I was skeptical again, but I looked closer at the hundreds of samples lying around. A few ‘piles’ were undisturbed and did look like a giant cow flops.
“I’m not supposed to, but would you like to buy some?” he asked.
Always the practical man I asked, “How much?”
“That depends on which one you want.” He kept looking up the hill to be sure no one was coming.
Well, you don’t get too many chances in a lifetime to buy a pile of fossilized dinosaur crap. I took $25 worth. He made me promise to not tell his “cousin” up at the hut, and to hide it under my shirt until I it got back to the car. I paid him cash, of course, and he stuffed it in his pocket. It wasn’t a real big piece, but it really did look like a turd. I would have really liked to have gotten a whole “muffin,” but it would have been too expensive and I couldn’t have hidden it under my shirt. I think I can say for sure that I’m the only guy in the neighborhood who has dinosaur poop. Heck, I don’t know anybody else that has some.
After I secretly loaded it in the back of the Jeep (my wife woke up for a few minutes, but just said “What!?” and went back to sleep when I enthusiastically told her what I was up to), the Indian fellow, with a fresh $25 in his pocket, came over to the car and asked me if I could give him a ride into Tuba City. I told him I had three dogs and a sleeping woman on board, but I’d be glad to. While I was trying to get Riley in the back to make room, he cam back and said he had another ride. Starting to feel my own hangover again, I though I might know why he wanted to go to town so bad. Maybe it was a cruel stereotype, but probably not.
Monument Valley looked just like it did in all the western movies. Canyon Lands and Arches National Park were wonderful sights. The wife was driving by then. I was done for the day so I got a six-pack of beer and just watched the scenery go by. We hit I-70 north of Moab and started the long run to Denver, through Rifle, over the Rockies and in through the Eisenhower Tunnel. On the east slope it was raining. When we pulled into the motel about ten that night I heard a scary noise under the vehicle. I was pretty hung-over again when I took the Jeep to the dealership early the next morning to get a new front drive shaft installed.
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