Chasing Tumble Weeds

Last weekend, I took a little trip to Arizona on the Harley with my wife Kathy and another couple. The idea was to go to Canyon de Chelly at Chinle, AZ and down the road a bit to the historic Hubble Trading Post at Ganado and do some watercolors of these scenic and famous places. Both are on the Navajo Reservation. Originally we were going to camp at Chinle but let me just say that it didn’t work out. I’ll leave it at that. Instead, we decided to camp in Cortez, CO and make a day trip down into the Rez on Sunday. Unfortunately that’s the only part that worked as planned.


We arrived in Cortez midday and set up camp. That afternoon the wind began to blow. Our wisdom told us that it would die down when it got dark. I mean, typically that’s the way it goes. You know that. Well, I’m here to say that the wind howled all night long. None of us got any sleep, what with the sides of our flimsy nylon tents whipping violently and the fear that the tents stakes would rip out of the ground and we’d find ourselves tumbling through the night toward Kansas tangled in sleeping bags along with sundry camping gear.

At daylight, Sunday morning, with the wind still whipping us around, we collectively decided to go anyway. We’ve ridden in wind before. How bad can it be? I stuck a wetted finger in the air and announced that the good news was, on the return trip the wind would be at our backs.

By the time we got to Mexican Water, we realized that this was a serious wind and maybe we were being a little foolish. The kind older Navajo gentleman behind the counter at the little (and only) store where we stopped to seek refuge seemed to think so too. He didn’t say anything, he just stood there with a big grin and quietly chuckled when we came in. I’m sure he was thinking, “stupid white people”. He might have been right. Undeterred we forged on.

The wind was so strong at Hubble we didn’t stay long, and the sand storms at Chinle prevented us from seeing anything so we just kept riding. I was correct however that on the return trip we found a bit of relief when, at times, the wind was at our backs. However, when you have trouble keeping up with the tumble weeds “tumbling” down the road at 65 mph, you know the wind is blowing hard. We rode back to Cortez in one huge sandstorm. Needless to say that I didn’t get any painting done. I’m not really into “sand” paintings.