Just a couple of days left before the summer of 2007 is history so we’re going to do things a little bit differently today. Friday’s blog comes to us courtesy of my longtime friend Nancy Mager who resides in Tucson, Arizona. On a trip through the desert on a horse with no name she saw these rocks and wanted to share them with the audience of Sunrise Santa Cruz. As many of you know, I don’t do much shooting away from the coast (it’s in my contract) so I’m thrilled that we’re bringing in some southwest desert action. The first shot is of a place called White House Ruins. I know Nancy wanted me to make some clever comment about this location but I think the name speaks for itself. So here we go with our first guest blog. Take it away, Nancy.

Canyon de Chelly National Monument is located in northeastern Arizona, within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation. Its 83,840 acres are all nonfederal, preserve artifacts of the early indigenous tribes that lived in the area, including the Ancient Pueblo Peoples (also called Anasazi) and Navajo. Canyon de Chelly is unique among National Parks, as it consists entirely of Navajo Tribal Trust Land that remains home to the canyon community. Access to the canyon floor is restricted, and visitors are allowed to travel in the canyons only when accompanied by a park ranger or an authorized Navajo guide.

Canyon De Chelly (pronounced da Shay) National Monument is a group of three canyons that fan eastward for up to thirty miles. Stratified, multicolored cliff walls surround the canyon. For many centuries the Dine (Navajo) built caves and lived in these cliffs. Most of the caves were located high above the canyon floor, protecting them from enemies, flash floods and door-to-door salesmen. Today the canyons contain many ruins and sacred places.

Spider Rock stands over 800 feet high. Geologists say that the formation was created 230 million years ago. Windblown sand swirled and compressed with time, creating the red sandstone monolith. The Dine (Navajo) Indian tribe named it Spider Rock after one of their most important Deities. It was Spider Woman who taught the Dine the art of weaving. She told them, “My husband, Spider Man, constructed the weaving loom making the cross poles of sky and earth cords to support the structure.” Through generations, the Dine remain accomplished weavers. It is said Spider Woman chose the top of Spider Rock for her home and to this day, she watches the sky for rains. Either that or the Weather Channel.

That’s it for our initial guest blogger. It’s amazing that these wildly colorful structures sit in the middle of the Arizona desert. What’s even more amazing is there wasn’t a casino in sight. If anyone else would like to be a guest blogger contact me and we’ll see what we can do. Next week I’ll have news about the upcoming Open Studios Art Tour that Sunrise Santa Cruz will be a part of for the first three weekends in October. I’m looking forward to seeing lots of people from this blast list at this event. Or at least my parents.

Anyway, to sum up my feelings about the state of Arizona, let me quote from Three Dog Night’s classic hit “Never Been to Spain. Well, I’ve never been to heaven. But I’ve been to Oklahoma. Well, they tell me I was born there. But I really don’t remember. In Oklahoma, not Arizona. What does it matter? What does it matter?”

Thank you and good night, everybody.