2001-03-12 - The first day as a volunteer. A good portion of the day was spent drawing uniforms and getting Tiny set up as well as the customary briefings and the "how are you, glad to see you aboard" salutations. I did spend the last few hours of the day in the Visitor's Center attempting to answer questions and give directions that made sense. I also spent a fair amount of time talking to foreign visitors and welcoming them. The country providing the most visitors was Germany. The second was France. There were several Japanese groups and even one Korean family who lives near Dallas. I still have much to learn but I could answer the majority of questions and I feel comfortable with that. I do not anticipate taking any time off until next week when hopefully the weather is warmer and I can take three days to visit Mesa Verde in Colorado north of here. There are so many National parks and Monuments in the Four Corners area that it is very difficult to make any choice. Of course I am collecting all the National Park service stamps so I can get them to Mimi and Hanna for their collections. If I do not, I will be hounded to return just for the stamp. It has happened before when I forgot.

2001-03-13 - Interesting day - I was much busier than yesterday. I guess Spring Break has something to do with this. It is an interesting cross section of American, I am enjoying - in most part - the people who come to the park and whom I interface with. I do become discouraged when people come in and want to know everything about the park but who do not have the time to view a very good twenty minute movie. They rate right along with those who want to know just how fast they can go on to the other end of the park so they can get on the expressway to visit the next site. I actually had someone ask me what they should see in eleven minutes because they were behind schedule. It took all my strength not to tell them the only site they could see was the exit Why people like that travel I do not know, it certainly isn't to see anything. I guess I have done it in the past hopefully I am beyond that point now. I know that is true for this trip where every black squiggley line on the map warrants investigation. The straight arrow distance to Virginia is 2200 miles, I drove close to 4500.

2001-03-14 - Some things are falling into place, the procedures seem to be "Fly by the seat of your pants" in that there are no procedures, rather there are four or five ways to do something as long as the end result is somewhere near the desired results.

I do not mind doing the scut work which I know has to be done, this frees a ranger to do other work and this is the role of the volunteer. It appears that I will be doing actually Interpretive work which interests me of course as I do like to talk to people and of course the best way to learn something is to teach it. I am either reading a book or watching a movie every night if I am not on the Internet looking for answers. I fear I have truly neglected the United States during my education. I will attempt to set that right during the next six months, at least for the Southwest. Hopefully next summer I will be able to work in the north-central area, Wyoming, Montana, Utah in addition to Washington and Oregon.

To define a few things in a way I hope makes sense. The Painted Desert actually covers a much larger geographic area than the park. A large part of Arizona and part of Utah consists of the Painted Desert. Petrified wood is found all through this area and of course all through the world.

Here at the park, it is entirely the Painted Desert and there is petrified wood to be found throughout the park. It is however that in the north end of the park the wood is harder to see as it is generally at the bottom of the Wilderness Area and to get out and see it requires climbing down to the bottom. The sightseeing is primary looking down as the cap rock has been eroded away is a relatively narrow area and the overburden washed away so you are looking down at the petrified logs on the bottom and the distorted bluffs across the Badlands. The capstone is basalt which is almost impervious to erosion.

In the lower area of the park, petrified wood is found very close to the roads and it is possible to walk up and touch the rock itself. The capstone in that area is primarily sandstone and has been worn away except where there was harder material, such as a petrified log, the protected the overburden from being washed away. I haven't been to the lower region yet but hope to shortly. I also tell people there are two regions to the park. The Northern area is a "No touchee feelee, just lookee lookee," the southern area is "touchee feelee."

The Puerco Pueblo is extremely interesting in that some authorities feel that it was not the land of any one tribe but rather a "neutral" area where many tribes came to trade goods and exchange communications. Remnants of bird bone that ould only have come from Central America have been found, sea shells from the Pacific Coast and artifacts from Indians much further north have all been found in the debris. The kiva may have been used not only as a place to have religious ceremonies but a a place of business and negotiation.

Petroglyphs or rock drawings, accomplished by local and traveling Indians abound in the area. These drawings are made by chiseling through a coating caused by weathering that turns a very thin layer of the rock very dark. This coating then is chiseled away to form the picture. The chiseling did not require sophisticated tools, and a sharp rock would suffice.

Petroglyphs are found just about everywhere, just look for a dark rock and more than likely it will have Petroglyphs etched onto it. The area with the most petroglyphs is Newspaper Rock which might signify that the drawings were not only just symbols but rather messages to other travelers passing through the area. In a way this reinforces the idea that the area was a meeting ground for many tribes not sharing a common language. There is no authoritative source to consult if this was indeed fact.

Just what is meant by each of these pictures is a matter of conjecture wildly debated by the people who have studied them. As the Indians did not have a written language, and did not leave a Rosette Stone as a dictionary, there isn't any proof. Some are known to coincide with the solar calendar, others may be just graffiti, others may have sexual connotations. Your guess is just as good as anybody's in this case.

The desert is a very delicate environment and the simplest misdeed can cause damage that can take a century to recover. The organisms that do not even look like plant life at all produce vast quantities of Chlorophyll when moist but if stepped on require forever to recover. The Wilderness area has been declared an area where trails and roads will never be laid out and even foot prints are washed away by the rain. While hiking and backpack camping are allowed, it is tightly controlled to preclude ecological damage.

Hopefully I will get to take a tour of the park and have more explanations given to me which I in turn can relate to visitors to the park I certainly need to spend time in the petrified wood area.

03-15 - Beware the Ides of March

More time was spent roaming and learning, I spent time at the Painted Desert Inn, built in the 20s as a way stop on the road to California and acquired in the 30s by the government and refurbished and remodeled by the Civilian Conservation Corps "CCC" and incorporated in the National Park that had been established by President Teddy Roosevelt. The building has been declared a National Historic Building but if the Department of Interior does not allocate funds soon, the name will have to be changed to National Historic Ruin. Large cracks are developing and much of the building is out of plumb making it impossible to open and close windows and doors.

The ranger that has been naturing me is fondly referred to as "The Little Sergeant" but she is good. She is most knowledgeable and very dedicated. I hope we have more time together as she is a good teacher. Most of the staff I have met is outstanding and are ardent supporters of the volunteer program. There is a shortage of personnel and the hiring freeze precludes the filling of vacancies. It is a very familiar story and will continue until the nation's priorities are straightened out

03-16 - Today was somewhat a down day. There is a bug going around and I may or may not have acquired it. I took off at lunch and dogged it, going to Winslow for shopping and getting the iron to do uniforms. I also wanted an electric heater so I do not have to use up propane at a tank a week. That gets expensive. Even at the lowest setting the electric heater keeps the temperature in the sixties which is just about comfortable. The water heater is acting up again, I have to play with the igniter to work. I hate shaving in cold water.

I think I finally got through to the telephone company that I need a jack to plug the telephone into. It took eight calls to "Citizens Communications" before this dreadful secret finally registered. Hopefully the technician will be out here on Monday and I will be hooked up and can use the Internet freely..

The electricity has been flickering madly for an hour. The wind is blowing at about 60 MPH and is impacting on just about everything. I have an UPS on-line in Tiny so it isn't bothering the computer equipment. There is a building between Tiny and the source direction of the wind so I am not worried about it however. I did see "dust devils" this afternoon - mini tornados - that could do so serious damage to a vehicle if the vehicle gets caught in it Winds of more than ninety miles an hour have been recorded and the RV pad that I am using was covered with shingles blown from adjacent buildings..

03-16 - Surprise, surprise, woke up this morning and there was four inches of snow on the ground and the trees were covered. I walked to the park entrance to take pictures and discovered a coyote that wanted to play peekaboo. I found there were young males that have taken up residence quite close to the headquarters and not especially fearful of humans. One was especially playful and was definitely enjoying the game. We continued this for fifteen minutes before they left the area. I have been told that had I been whistling or singing they would have stayed around much longer.

The proximity of these wild animals to man poses health hazards to both. The coyote do not know they could be hurt. They have been known to stand in the middle of the park road and not move on the approach of a car. In the park this is not a major problem, outside the park they would be run over or shot. I do not know what the answer is nor does anybody else.

The snow was very beautiful but once the sun peeked through the clouds it rapidly melted and before noon it was largely gone. The snow didn't hamper the visitors however many were concerned they would not be able to see anything so why should they pay to sightsee. The questions that we receive are usually of general interest; sometimes however they are flat stupid. The rangers tell me about another park used to keep a ledger containing all the dumb questions but somehow it reached the wrong hands and several people were disciplined for it.

Other people are just cruel; recently an abandoned dog was found tied to a mailbox post. If I could catch someone like that I would tie them on top of an ant hill. Domestic animals do not have a hope here as water and food is hard to come by and would be considered food by predators. This still might be better than dying of thirst or starvation. I wonder how the owner would appreciate the same fate?

03-18 - It was below freezing again this morning and I just didn't want to get up for a while. It was more comfortable jut staying under the covers.

However, while I didn't get up at sunrise as I wanted, the sky was perfectly clear and dark blue when I did get up and the temperature was rapidly rising. I suspect the lack of humidity plays a major role in the modulation of the temperature.

I had hoped to spend time on the "range" and listen to some of the talks that are given at several locations that explain the archeological and anthropological connotations of the area and its geology. I feel inadequate that I am not capable of answering many of the questions that are posed to me. Before I leave here I will have to write a tongue and cheek job description.

I spent most of the day switching between the Visitor's Center and the Interpretive Office. I had been asked a series of questions about the Indians of the regions and I couldn't answer them. Research was required and a fair amount of investigation resulted in a number of discoveries. In the beginning most of the Painted Desert was under the influence of the descendants of the Anasazi Indians, ("The Ancient Ones")a culture that originated in the Four Corners regions of the Southwest sometime early in the first five centuries AD. The Four Corners of course is that area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet.

The descendants of the Anasazi, the Pueblo Indians, named after the settlements in which they lived, derived the name from the Spanish Pueblo or settlement or town. The era has been broken down into four distinct periods of development and decline. Nothing is stable in life I suppose. The only constant is change.

The westernmost tribe, the Hopi Indians, is a disappearing tribe. They are rapidly assimilating into the mainstream of American culture and losing their identity. Navajo Indians, 170,000 strong, remain tribal even if they are economically forced to migrate away from the reservations of Northeast Arizona to areas of employment.

I hope to do more investigating in the coming weeks, there is so much to learn and so little time. Every time I start I find another corner to look into. These is beginning to be more fun than even anticipated and is a real pleasure. Hopefully I will be able to get the web pages updated with less delay than lately once the phone is installed.

Until later.