Days 11-12: Wild, Wild Weekend

Well... that was interesting.

This weekend has been action-packed! We took a trip to Chinle in hopes of hitting up the fair and going to a gathering before an Enemy Way Ceremony. We saw some of the staff from the school at the gathering, and ate some great mutton, squash, and white corn stew, as well as some fry bread and fresh fruit. There were also some roasted green chiles, which were fantastic. 

Fry bread with roasted green chile.

After we ate to our bodies' content, we headed back to town, then decided on heading to Canyon de Chelly. There are a billion pictures on Facebook, but I'll put some on here, too.

View of the canyon from the first overlook.

I almost wanted to go down the stairs... just because it said it was prohibited. However, I was a good citizen. :)

Another canyon photo. You can see little cave-like things in the canyon wall. They're pretty neat.

Me looking at the canyon.

Just one of the more epic photos of Nick on the trip so far... no big deal.

Spider Rock!

Me in front of Spider Rock... also my new profile picture on Facebook.

Catching some rays and a breeze at the canyon.

Beautiful sunset...

Today was also very action-packed. Linda and I visited Kayenta Bible Church today, which seems like a great church to attend while I'm on the Reservation. It seems like a smaller version of either one of my churches back at home (LLBC and CBC), which made me feel very relaxed. I was so glad to be back in church after not being able to for over a week. :)

After church, we got ready to head out to one of the cafeteria worker's family's home, where they keep horses and sheep. The home is located in Cow Springs, but it's not really on one of the main roads. We spent most of the trip going about 10-25 mph on a dirt road. You really haven't seen backroads until you've been on these. 

These are the backroads... Barely paths, but people drive these all the time!

We let the sheep out to go graze in the field and get some exercise, then got the horses out. It had been awhile since I have ridden a horse, so it was like learning all over again. My legs were too short to reach the stirrups to get on the horse, so I had to stand on a cooler or something to get on, and then just jump off. I rode two different horses, Nahnibelle and Princess. Princess was my favorite horse because she was very compliant, and  liked to follow Billy, one of the male horses. The girls were both quarter horses, but Billy was a mustang, so he loved to run. We had a great time riding, and then cooked out afterwards. I went with Nick and one of the men to go get water from the well for the horses and sheep. That was by far the most interesting conversation with anyone I've had so far on the Reservation. The man, Jeff, was very open about his life and the Navajo ways he had learned as he got older. He talked a lot about how life is interesting and how there are so many things to learn as we grow older. 

When we got back to the house after retrieving the water and giving it to the animals, we made fry bread. the ladies inside had already made the dough, it was just our turn to make it into circles and stretch it out to fry it. Mine turned out pretty well! Apparently, if a single woman, like myself, makes good fry bread, she is a good woman for a Navajo man to marry. If I master this, I may come back with a husband! lol. 

The trip back to Kayenta was a little rough. My rear end was sore from a fall on the rocks on Friday night (I'm fine, no worries) and from horseback riding today. We ended up turning the wrong direction at one point in time because the people we were following were going too fast for our driver to catch up. When we came to a turn, we could not see where they went, so we ended up going the wrong direction. Once we got it figured out, though, it wasn't too hard to find our way back to civilization. We got home around 9:30, and now I'm exhausted. I'm looking forward to a great day at school tomorrow, although I'm pretty sure we start NWEA testing. Hopefully it will be a happy day!!!