Cortez, Four Corners and Teec Nos Pos, Kayenta

Hello all! It's been a fun couple of days since my last post. We've entered the Navajo Nation in North Eastern Arizona and it is a dry, hot, desolate place. In the mornings and evenings the light on the desert rock formations is absolutely gorgeous (as I hope will be shown through my pictures) in the middle of the day though most everything is washed out and boiling hot! Luckily for us we've had some relatively short rides (about 70 miles a day) and some fun attractions along the way.

But first, some overdue shots from our ride into Buena Vista, CO.

The crazy thing about the Rockies when compared to the Appalachans is the expansive flats between the mountains. This is a pic of some that we encountered on our ride into Buena Vista.

Kim on the Buena Vista ride

The downhill into Buena Vista

Andy's flambouant outfit on the day from Buena Vista to Gunnison

Andy with a mountainous background on the Buena Vista to Gunnison Ride

Cortez, CO

Our first day out of Durango was into Cortez. We stayed in a great house the local Bike shop owner is remodeling and it was just perfect for us. Kitchen, showers, lots of floor space. It was a great homey atmosphere that is often hard to come by on the road. Especially when you switch locations every day. We got into Cortez pretty early, dropped off our bikes, got lunch, unpacked the trailer and then asked ourselves what to do. Since Cortez is a pretty small town and it was a sunday there really wasn't a lot going on. So I went to see the new harry Potter movie with Eric, Andy and Yvonne. It was Eric's 2nd time seeing the flick in as many days... Lets just say he's a Potter fan.

Luna on the ride to Cortez, CO

Four Corners and Teec Nos Pos, AZ (Navajo Nation)

Out of Cortez we rode to the four corners monument and into Arizona, more specifically The Navajo Nation, which is a huge reservation in the northeast corner of Arizona. We spent the night at a small rural church in Teec Nos Pos. The sunset that night was absolutely spectacular. Probably one of the best I've ever seen (Hence the ridiculous number of pictures I've taken and posted)

A Navajo Kid doing a dance at the Four Corners Monument

Group shot at the Four Corners Monument

Me napping in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona all at once... I got skills

Lindsay at the Arizonza State Line/ Navajo Nation Border

Me and Madormo at the Arizona State Line

I'm not sure what this is technically called but a mesa-esque rock formation in Teec Nos Pos

The same rock formation with Madormo and Andy on top after they spent about an hour finding a way to the top!

Molly North and Eric cleaning bikes and hanging out at sunset.

Eric Immel - Model Shot

Yvonne on the phone at sunet - Teec Nos Pos

Andy Mac, and Yvonne at Sunset

Portrait of Yvonne at Sunset

Yvonne and Chris Jochem at Sunset

Sunset at Teec Nos Pos

Another Sunset shot

Kayenta, AZ (Navajo Nation)

From Teec Nos Pos we rode to Kayenta. Kayenta is a bit bigger than Teec Nos Pos. The towns main industry is based around a mine and for that reason there are more chain stores there that we couldn't find in Teec Nos Pos, which only had a convenience store. That night we had our last week of the affordable housing curriculum with some excellent presentations on immigration, gentrification, home owner vs. renter statistics, and national affordable housing organizations and their methods of organization and action.

I think that gentrification was the most interesting topic just because it is so hard to come pick a side to support. It's obvious that improving the quality of housing and public services in a community is good, but how do you do so while still keeping the housing affordable for those that currently live in the community? If you don't keep it affordable how do you justify simply kicking people out of their community and transplanting them to another neighborhood, which is also not great, most likely away from their current place of employment, etc. I think that the general goal should be to improve the community as well as the people who live there. Find ways to help them afford the better houses be it more affordable loans, skill training programs, better general education, whatever. The net message I gotten out of our affordable housing discussions this summer is that we all need to focus on community. It is important to understand a capitalist economy and how to protect and leverage your property rights to increase wealth, quality of life and use resources efficiently but it is also crucial that we realize that as humans we care about those around us and that the best way to improve our community is to become more involved in it. We all need to meet, and work with our neighbors, to talk about important community issues and help each other work to make our towns, cities, and communities stronger. If you think about it on a global scale that is the smartest capitalist move we can make. Much like companies find ways to combine the resources of different divisions to increase the efficiency of the entire corporation we need to work with our neighbors to make ours the strongest, most skilled and educated community so that we can continue to compete on a global scale. Anyway, enough of that stream of consciousness ramble for now...

Riding out of Kayenta, early morning (left to right: Jen, Emily B., Melanie)

Some sweet clouds on the ride to Tuba City.

We are now in tuba city, which is bigger than Kayenta (the cities just keep getting bigger). Today I rode sweep with Melanie and we had a great time. It was a fun day with great conversation and adventure. Only have a few pictures however as most of the landscape looks pretty much the same and the light isn't that great while we're riding. That's all for now. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Cheers,

Vandy