The Sandcastle

I love reading about different cultures. I often read historical fiction for just that purpose. Yesterday, in the gift shop at Wupatki National Monument, I found a different type of history book. One was about Kachina Dolls and the other about the Navajo Code Talkers. Here’s what I learned.

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls are not gods. They are more like characters in a morality play. Some are good guys and some are bad guys. And, just like our Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, different ones are associated with different days. On those days adults dress up in the appropriate costumes and act out the plays as a way of teaching children about good and bad. Then they give dolls they’ve made representing the characters to the children to help them remember.

Navajo Code Talkers

I have been hearing for years about the Navajo Code Talkers and how they helped us win World War II by speaking a code the enemy could not break–their native language. I have always been intrigued by this story and wanted to know more. This book told an amazing story.

In 1942 the U.S. Marine Corps recruited 29 young Navajo men whose commander described them as, “…the first truly All-American platoon…” These men and the others who joined them, 400 in all, served in all six Marine Corps combat divisions in every campaign in the South Pacific. Each one was accompanied by a bodyguard lest these men, who were shorter and darker skinned than Caucasians, be mistaken for Japanese while speaking their “foreign” language.

Most of us are familiar with the military’s alphabet where the letters are represented by words: alpha, bravo, charlie, etc. The Navajo used the same type of alphabet but their words were things that were familiar to them like ant, badger, cow, etc.

Plus they had words for particular military items. For instance, an armored tank was a turtle, a amphibious landing vehicle was a frog, and a grenade was a potato.

The code talkers had drilled into them so firmly that they were NEVER to talk about what they did in the war that most of them were unable to do so even after their secret was declassified in 1968. I read a news story just the other day about a Code Talker dying whose grandchild said something like, “Grandpa talked about the war but he would never tell us specifically what he did in it.”

Since the code was declassified these brave soldiers, 14 of whom were killed in action, were finally awarded many medals, some of them struck just to honor them.

History is Everywhere

Oh, the books I learned all this from? Children’s coloring books.

TTYL,

Linda Sand

I’m angry. If you don’t want to listen just move on.

We pay to have our mail sent to us. No one can mail something to us without us paying again to have it forwarded to us. We choose to do this as part of our fulltime RVing lifestyle and we love to hear from friends and family who can’t email us instead.

But! I hate paying for advertising to be sent to us. Companies who send us birthday cards–often to Dave on my day and to me on Dave’s day don’t make us feel “closer” to them.

And why do campground organizations insist on mailing directories to us when that same information is all available in more current form on-line?

This rant today is prompted by having received a catalog from a company with which we have never done any business!  This company is located in the same town as our mail forwarding company. Why would they mail catalogs for a local store to people using a mail forwarding business as their address?

They offered no information as to how to contact them by email within that catalog but a Google search found them instantly. I ranted directly to them also so I expect to get no more catalogs from them. I hope.

In the meantime, if you need anything having to do with a bicycle, please do that business somewhere other than at Spoke-n-Sport in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

TTYL,

Linda

Big hole!

A hole big enough to be called grand!

As in Grand Canyon. A National Park.

A place with a lot of history.

Want to go for a walk?

Me neither. But it is beautiful, isn’t it?

TTYL,

Linda

We’ve been traveling around New Mexico and Arizona for awhile now and things are starting to tie together.

As I mentioned previously we visited the Very Large Array in New Mexico.

There we learned that students from the University of Minnesota, Dave’s Alma Mater, asked to have the radio telescopes pointed at an area of the sky that turned out to be empty. Not a black hole. Not a dense cloud. Empty. A hole among the stars.

Later we visited Meteor Crater in Arizona.

Another hole. This one in the ground. Made by something falling from the sky.

Today we visited Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Where we got to see a photograph of the hole in the sky. And a piece of the meteor that made Meteor Crater.

Big little world.

TTYL,

Linda

I finally persuaded Dave we need to just sit somewhere and catch up with ourselves. Unfortunately, we decided to do that in Flagstaff, Arizona, where there are not a lot of highly rated campgrounds. So we would up in a highly expensive one instead. A KOA. On a weekend. With all the weekend campers and their activities.

The staff drive around in a golf cart with a bullhorn announcing the next activities. Late yesterday afternoon is was story time at the Eco Park. Last night was Dominoes pizza and table games. We didn’t go to either but I do want to go check out the Eco Park while we are here. And we will be able to recycle our collection of aluminum cans here. And if I get some stamina built up the walking trail into the National Forest is near our campsite. So this is an OK place to be for awhile.

Dave spent yesterday just running errands and still didn’t get them all done. I spent yesterday sorting recipes and planning food and still didn’t get it all done. But, we plan to be here a week so maybe we’ll get everything done by then.

At least I finally started exercising again. This morning I got out my stretch band and instructions and did the warm up exercise part and my body said, “That feels good but we’re done for now, right?” Maybe next time I’ll get to do the actual exercises. 🙂

The pool here is at a health center about 3 miles down the road. It charges $5 a day for non-resident drop-ins. Maybe I’ll go do some aqua aerobics. If I get up enough courage to try on my swimsuit.

Dave just told me there’s a ten percent chance of snow here Monday morning! I don’t do snow anymore so it better not! How am I supposed to start a walking program if it snows?! Unless it melts by the time I’m ready to go outside. I’m not a morning person, you know.

TTYL,

Linda