Mutton sandwiches and crucifix rings... or New Mexico

After climbing Redcloud and Sunshine, I started making my way over to Crownpoint, NM, where my friend Bob, the soon-to-be priest, is staying on an Indian reservation for the summer. To get there, I went through 3 mountain passes , two road construction areas where traffic was down to one lane, one snowstorm, and one sobriety checkpoint. I felt like I was on the Oregon trail- "Get lost in a snowstorm, lose 1 day," "You tried to ford a river and 2 oxen drowned," "Stop at a sobriety checkpoint, lose 15 minutes." I even went past a Chimney Rock. When I told the state patrol where I was going from the sobriety checkpoint, they laughed at me when I said Crownpoint and then said, "Well, it's an interesting place. You'll have good stories to tell when you get back to Ohio." Well then.

I got to Crownpoint around 6pm, after driving through the gorgeous New Mexico landscape. The sisters at the house were just finishing making supper when I got there, so I had the first home-cooked meal I had had in awhile. It was delicious. After some after-dinner conversation, I took my first shower in three days (woo-hoo!), and sunk into a spare bed. It's amazing how much more you appreciate the little things in life- a warm meal, a hot shower, a soft pillow- when you don't have them, even for a few days. The next morning, I went to Mass with Bob and the sisters. The church was really neat, because they had tried to incorporate a lot of Navajo concepts into the construction. The shape of the building was that of a Hogan, which is a traditional Navajo building. The alter was made of a beautiful piece of wood that one of the parishioners had given the church, and it looked like part of a large tree trunk. The walls had lots of Indian rugs, and the windows incorporated the four sacred mountains.

After Mass, I helped tear apart a bike (thank you Wheels for Kids!) so the sisters could take it with them on a road trip to Kansas City, where they had some kind of nun assembly. Bob and I then went to the Tailgate, which is a bunch of little lunch stands set up in a parking lot in "downtown" Crownpoint. We got mutton sandwiches, which are pretty much what they sound like, with mutton, lettuce, and a green chile inside of frybread. And frybread... how delicious it is. It's basically a piece of flatbread, fried. And anything is better fried.

That afternoon, Bob and I hung out around the house, reading and being lazy, and watching the mesa in the changing light. Bob got together a couple of food boxes for some needy families, and we entertained a couple of people who needed to either use the internet or the fax machine. It's amazing what the sisters there do- they give away food and clothes, organized a battered women's shelter, have a clothes shop for people to buy inexpensive clothes, had AA meetings going for awhile- they do it all. Bob and I had to run some errands for them late that afternoon, and we stopped at the local grocery store, just because it was something to do. On the way out, we saw a little 25 cent vending machine with little girls' rings inside of it. Being silly, I put in a quarter.... and got a blue heart-shaped ring with a crucifix on it. I've decided that it's going to be my wedding band.


After dinner, Bob and I watched the sky. I swear there were four different skies, depending on which direction you were looking. And the clouds just kept shifting their shapes and textures and colors. It was fascinating to watch. I never knew clouds could move like that.

And the sunset was gorgeous as well. I understand why New Mexico is the "Land of Enchantment."