I wanted to let everyone know, that we made it home and are back to work and settling back into the routine. Friday, Sept. 21st, was our last day to work and I spent the morning at Church Rock working on the roof of the parsonage replacing shingles. Luckily, I spent the morning working with Roland, a Navajo from the area. We had a great talk and he told me how he had just returned to the area from a town about 1 1/2 hours north of Church Rock. He went up their after he was threatened, and nearly attacked, by 2 guys that he had fired for being worthless. Roland was a painter and these guys were assigned to his crew by his employer, but they didn't know how to do much of anything. He happened to be in Home Depot with his boss after he had fired them and they were just about to beat him when his boss pulled a gun and told them to leave him alone. He headed out of town to let things cool off, but now was back home to be with his family. I asked him if things had settled down, he said no, but he was happy to be home. I hope things work out for him, really cool guy. He invited me come out early next year and he would take me camping and fishing on the reservation. That would be cool, I'll see if that will work out for next year. I was surprised when he said fishing, since I hadn't seen even a creek since we got there, but he assured me there were lakes further back. We then proceeded to an area that has been dubbed "Kid Canyon" by one of the ladies in our group due to the number of kids that live in the area. When we got there we only saw a few kids, but there were a shitload of dogs, most in pretty bad shape. We handed out some of the toiletry packets that we had, (soap, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brushes and some other stuff) plus some Bibles. There were a couple of dogs that were none too happy that we were there, made me a little nervous. When we left, Deke said he had something that he wanted to run by us. He said he wanted to go buy some dog food and go back to kid canyon and put down some food for these malnourished dogs. John and I agreed that that would be good, so off to Walmart. When we got there, the suggestion was to buy a bowl for food and a bowl for water. My suggestion was several bowls for food and one for water. Reason being, there were a bunch of dogs that were really hungry, I figured one bowl was a Micheal Vick fantasy of one big dog fight. I was shot down most unceremoniously. After we bought the food, we headed to Tolaki to pass out more packets and now feed a few dogs. I felt a little like a Jehovah's Witness, but without the preaching. We saw people in their yards (If you want to call a patch of dirt a yard), but when we knocked, amazingly there was know one home, must have been the time machine out back. A few answered and we gave them the packets and Bible's if they wanted them, and all did. Not sure if it was because they wanted to read it or because it was free, either way, they got it. We came to the house Frank lives in, he was the guy Chris and I worked on the church roof in Tolaki with. He had 3 big dogs and 2 puppies that we saw. We asked if we could feed them and he said sure. Deke and John put one bowl of food down for the 5 dogs and a fight broke out almost immediately. (It's so good to be right, but being the Christian that I'm trying to be, I said nothing) There was the Alpha male dog who was hogging the bowl which had enough food in it for 10 dogs, but I'm guessing by looking at them, they don't eat very often. The 2 puppies weren't getting anything, so Deke took a pile of food for them. Before we left, the Alpha male had his bowl and the other 2 big dogs had chased off the puppies for the other pile. I see it in Mexico as well, but I don't understand why you have pets if you can't afford to feed them. Seeing the reaction at Tolaki just reinforced what I knew was going to happen with all of the dogs at kid canyon, which it did. I didn't go to KC the second time, but I spoke to a few of the ladies that went up with Deke and John and they said the dogs were going at it pretty good. I was really uncomfortable with the door to door thing, if you know me you know that ain't my thing, but we were welcomed most places pretty warmly and since we weren't preaching to them, we didn't get the same looks I used to give people who came to my door to preach to me. We had Navajo Taco's for supper, which is fried bread with meat (there was hamburger, beans and something else in the "meat", might have been mutton since they seem to eat a lot of that), lettuce, onions, tomato's, cheese and then you had salsa or green chili's to choose from. I had the fresh green chili's and that was great. We got on the road home about 9:00pm or so. We drove through NM and into north Texas where we pulled over for some gas at about 1am. We found a closed gas station, but the pumps still worked and since it was the first place we had seen in a half hour, needed to fill up. I got out to pump the gas and grabbed a hold of the pump, only to realize that bright lights, plus middle of nowhere Texas, plus 1am equals a shitload of bugs. The pump was covered in bugs that I now had crawling all over my hand. I jerked my hand away and since I had to pee really bad, tried not to piss myself. I knocked the bugs off the handle, since I didn't think hundreds of bugs in the gas tank would help our fuel economy, and began the filling process. As I mentioned, I needed to pee really bad, so I set off to find a bathroom, but as I mentioned, the station was closed. Now any of you who have traveled with me or Brian know, we don't have the largest bladder capacity, so I wasn't going to be able to wait until we got out of middle of know where Texas to pee, so I went behind the building to, well, do my business. There are a few things that scared me about this option:
1. There were several, I'll guess lonely, truckers in the area that I though might find it entertaining to see a guy pissing in public. I had no interest in recreating the "squeal like a pig" scene from Deliverance, so I was concerned.
2. Did I mention there were bugs? I didn't want them on my hands, you can bet I don't want them anywhere else.
3. The last thing that caught my eye was a sign that read, "This premises has 24 hour video surveillance."
Well I went anyway, behind a dumpster, just like the good Lord had intended. We finally stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX and got a few hours sleep before we hit the road again. We stopped off at a McDonalds, we travel in style and only eat at the finest establishments, and I had a good laugh, even though John didn't see the humor at first. If you have been to a McDonalds anytime recently, and you have unless you are a vegetarian or a communist, you might have noticed that all of their drive thru windows are put in for the SUV's of this country. That makes it more fun for a car of smaller stature to give their money and receive their purchase. Lets focus on the second part of that. The Prius is small, so the bottom of the drive thru window is the top of the Prius window, so when you reach out, you reach out past the window frame and then up. This would then tell you to bring your purchase down and in. Take into account that we are driving a lot of miles and a little sleep, and you might do like John and forget the down part. He grasped my EXTRA LARGE Coke (nectar of God) and pulled it into the car, without the down, and proceeded to dump said nectar into his lap, rendering it less than desirable. My first instinct was to laugh, which I now know was incorrect (live and learn). He was less than happy at the outcome of the "in" move. I realized my error in my reaction and stifled further snickering. The kid working the drive thru appeared to be 8 years old, so in his stunned look, asked John if he wanted napkins. Seemed like a silly question to me, my response would have been "No, I'll just soak in it Madge." (How many of you oldies got that reference?), but John just said yes. The fetus handed John about 5 napkins, to soak up an extra large Coke (nectar of God) which John responded with "Keep'em comin." The kid handed him a wet towel, which didn't help John's mood. He sped off and pulled into the parking lot so he could get the ice out of his crotch. Since we were hauling all of our dirty clothes with us, he had something to change into, so as he put it, he went into the truck stop bathroom and he "got to get naked in front of a few truckers" (see my "squeal" comment from above). After about 100 miles, he thought it was funny, just in time to be pulled over by a Texas State Trooper. It seems that those signs that say "Speed Limit 70" are NOT a suggestion, but a rule. (Live and learn) The guy walked up to the car and introduced himself as a Texas State Trooper, which seemed a little redundant since we had been watching his flashing lights for a short time. He asked for John's license and said he'd be right back with a warning, which was good news. I feared a ticket my push John over the edge and we'd do a Thelma and Louise (another damn reference) The cop was back a few minutes later with a warning and gave us a piece of info that will be valuable should you drive in Texas, or at least the very tippy top of it. "The speed limit is 70 mph, we'll give you 75mph, but anything over that, we'll stop and visit with you." Good to know. The rest of the trip was good, I dropped John off in Kansas City, he was meeting up with friends to go to the Chiefs game on Sunday, and I headed home. I had a great time on this trip, but I know its the return trips that make all of the difference. You start to see the same people over and over again, they begin to know you and most importantly, trust you. That is when the real connection is made. They are used to people making a one time trip, they look for people to come back again and then they connect with the people who come back a third time. After that, its like family, which we are, one God, all brothers and sisters in Christ.
God Bless
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