Goodbye National Parks, We Had Such a Good Run

From Flagstaff, we drove to Moab, Utah, for access to Arches National Park. It seems there is some disagreement about the origin of the name Moab: Either a Biblical name referring to an area east of the Jordan River or a Paiute name referring to mosquitos. In the 1890s, residents petitioned to change the name, unsuccessfully, to something else because in the Christian Bible, Moab residents are described as incestuous and idolatrous apparently and who would want that! We certainly did not see any evidence of that, but discovered a bar with live blues and killer barbecue, one to satisfy a Kansas City born and raised Owens. What was not to his satisfaction though was that most beers (or until recently all beers by law?) were 3.5% alcohol. You can’t have it all after all.

We hiked the Devil’s Garden Trail in Arches National Park - which is a collection of the stone arches that the national park is named for. Good and pretty hike overall, but nearly half of it was hiking on dessert sand, and Zeynep deplores hiking on sand.

The next day we visited Mesa Verde National Park and saw Ancestral Puebloan cliff houses, dating from the 6th century to the 13th century. When you see the landscape from afar, you can only see green tables (mesa verde in Spanish) of high plateau. These are cut by small canyon / valleys however and the Puebloans built multi-story multi-room houses in the cracks on the inside walls of these valleys, entirely invisible from the top of the mesa from a distance. Very impressive structures as perfect hideout residences for large communities.

Again, the museum was quite disappointing. The exhibits display a curatorial style from the 70s, not just in anthropological approach but even in font. No part of the narration, curation, guiding, ownership, displays or even sales of things is produced by Native Americans; and the funding for this national park is markedly lower than other parks we visited. Maybe all this should not be surprising (especially given the poverty and isolation we have seen while driving across most Native American Reservations and the reading done in accompaniment). Yet - this trip has made me genuinely sad and angry at how American recognition and discussion of the colonization of the US territories (in addition to any reparations or other actions) are so woefully inadequate and exclusionary, and at times, outright callous.

And - Mesa Verde marks the last National Park of our road trip, which is sad. From now on, we are staying in towns, first in New Mexico and Texas and then through the South of the United States.