Day 32 - Tuesday 7/21/09- SETTLED

We stop at a scenic overlook and buy art souvenirs from local Navaho vendors.

The clay, as I understand it, is from the white soil they have in UT, AZ and NV, which contains a lot of limestone. I just found out yesterday that limestone and marble are related, since they are primarily calcite. That accounts for the white color and also the hard, porcelain-like quality.

When the horsehair is applied, in the final firing, it leaves the black color, but the hair itself is singed away. Therefore the smooth finish. I imagine they do a final polishing with a polishing stone, all by hand.

The other Native American black pottery which we love is polished similarly. It's far too expensive for us to buy. The black pottery is fired like Raku, with a special hand-built kiln on the ground lined with cow dung and rocks, with a tin lid. The black color is from the smoke.

The firing is such a delicate process, involving precise timing and extreme vigilance.Then the polishing is so extensive to achieve a sheen. Even a 1" pot costs over $20. There is a local artist, now deceased, Maria Martinez, who is world-famous for this type of pottery.

We see the Greenland Lake Sinkhole. There are many tiny lakes and ponds like it.

The burned trees in the Kabob National Forest we see look like totems.

We stop and visit some Anasazi ruins where all that is left is the first set of rocks on the walls of the rooms.

There is a very narrow passageway called Bright Angel point. The dropoffs are, as Bob describes them: "Scrinchy". We walk out to the end of it, in disbelief that people are letting their pre-school age children wander it without holding anyone's hand!

We spring for a fancy ending to the evening and reserve an early dinner seating at The Grand Canyon Lodge. We are there for the beginning of sunset, which is stunning. The young waiter who served us, with his slicked down long hair and handlebar mustache, looks appropriate for the time when the Lodge was built, 1928. He seems surprised when I mention it.

In the lodge, we appreciate the antiques on display, including real radios with tubes, which had a chip implanted to play old-time music.

As we are leaving, we smell the sweet honey scent of the Desert Rose. We watch as the shadows creep up the canyon with the setting of the sun. The golden light on the peaks changes from moment to moment.