Navajo Indian Reservation

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Yesterday I left I-40 at Gallup to cross the Navajo reservation. Was a kind of memorial trip. My father and his brother sowed their wild oats on the reservation although on the Arizona side and I grew up hearing some of his stories. I am a fan of Tony Hillerman's mysteries and he died a couple of years ago. I felt the characters I had become fond of had also died. It is a sobering truth that when an author dies all the characters who lived in his head only exist in the past tense. So farewell to Hillerman and Sergeant Chee, The Legendary Leautenant Leaphorn and Bernie.

The reservation is a fascinating place. Possibly because it changes little. The land is mostly barren with far, far vistas. Dispite its lack of water and growth it is beautiful sweeping away to the horizon. Going North there are amazing land formations, the most famous is Shiprock but there are many at least as amazing. In the south the prairie dogs seem to make a sport of crossing the highway. They seem to be very good at it since I only saw one who had been hit. At one point six white goats suddenly jumped from the ditch into the road. Glad I was going only 55!

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