After a few hectic days of rearranging travel plans, the day finally comes to make the site visit. I get as caught up on work as possible for the first half of the day, then run home to gather my things and meet Cristian (U of U lead) to pick up the rents car. After some confusion and lots of waiting, we finally get the car, load up, and head out around 1pm. We talked the whole time, discussing the project and our chapters’ goals, learning about each other’s professions/studies, and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the beautiful changing landscapes. The drive goes from smoky mountains to red hoodoos to the striking Lake Powell to the deep Colorado River canyons.
We finally get into Tuba City around 9pm, assuming we were too late to grab anything besides McDonald’s. We poke around the local grocery store for some potential meals, but everything had to be heated so we checked out a nearby pizza shop that appeared to be open. The Navajo Nation takes coronavirus VERY seriously- we had to prove vaccination and a recent negative test to embark on this trip, and everywhere requires masks and indoor seating is restricted. We call in the pizza since we can’t go inside, and we fill up the car with gas as we wait. Gas is pretty cheap on the reservation as the area has been exploited for its resources for decades- this is one small benefit they can reap.
The pizza is finally ready and we pick it up at the drive-thru window and head to the hotel. We check in and head to the courtyard where we meet with the EWB CE Corps team members. We enjoyed getting to meet each other in person and discussed the next day’s plans. They had an eventful day discussing a potential active transportation project on an old railway corridor, followed by a pretty big meal of Navajo tacos. We were all pretty exhausted and went to bed.
2025-02-09