When it rains it pours. I had just left Bill and Belle's place when I received a call from GB Cornucopia up at Chaco Canyon. GB has been living up at Chaco for over twenty years and I had been courting him for an on-camera dialog ever since I first heard his name over six months ago.

I spent time in Chaco on my initial way south into New Mexico and I figured I wouldn't be back, but sitting down with GB was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so I packed up my gear in Flagstaff and left that evening making the six hour journey in one shot so I could interview him the following afternoon.

I pulled into Chaco from the south this time around and since it was late at night and the Chaco Campground was closed I just slept on the side of the road in the desert surrounded by darkness. In the morning I awoke to a beautiful sunrise.

I rose early to get out into the Chaco Landscape so I could do the four hour hike out to the Super Nova Petrograph. You can read more about it HERE. My on-camera dialog with GB wasn't until somewhere between four and six and I had to beat the desert heat so Moses didn't burn his paws on the noonday hot sand.

The hike out was quiet and meditative and I was grateful to have been brought full circle to Chaco. The last time I was here I left early in a rush to get to Taos for an interview with Mike Reynolds and was sad that I hadn't been able to do this hike to the far reaches of the park.

After arriving at the petrograph I say in some of the last morning shade and ate beef jerky with Moses. I then set up and shot the stone images on a variety of formats and after feeling the ground decided it was best to leave the Penasco Blaco ruins at the end of the trail for another day. Moses clearly getting hotter by the minute did not hesitate to agree.

We arrived back at the van a few hours later, moses crawling into the shade beneath her while I drank water sitting in the side door. After a while we headed back to the visitor center where I read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake given to me by Bill McDorman, while I waited for GB.

GB and I finally sat down surrounded by books in his beautiful Chaco apartment. We talked about how civilizations come and go, how there are no absolute and clear answers in relation to what occured in the case of Chaco, and how complexity and adaptation affect each other. We talked about how places affect the people who inhabit them and from GB's timeless and calm gaze I could see that this was true for him. I left glad to have made the journey, not only for the content, but for the human connection. I know I could learn and share a lot more with this man, and I look forward to perhaps doing that in a not too distant future.

peace,
d