Field Notes #7: Terry and the Wee Folk

Written by: Megan Madill (human)

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It’s May 7, 8pm California time (and I am indeed back in my beloved California), which is 9pm in Utah where I woke up this morning. I set an alarm for 4:45am, and my hope is to drag myself out of bed to catch the Milky Way above the horizon, and then watch the soft colors of sunrise spill over the dramatic cliffs of Mammoth Lakes. We’ll see if I can manage that. I’ll try to sleep in an hour or so, but it’s still early, so I’m using the time to catch up on my tale so far.

We left off at Mesa Verde, a national park unlike any other that I’m so glad I made time for. My next activity was the only one with a proper deadline: a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon with a 4pm takeoff that I absolutely could not miss. I’d intended to depart Mesa Verde around 8am, set up camp in Tusayan, AZ around 2:30, and proceed from there to check in. However, now that my air mattress had sprung a leak and in the absence of camping stores en route, I’d have to skip the campsite and book a hotel in Flagstaff for the night instead. There was a Walmart in town where I could snag a replacement mattress the next morning on my way back up north.

Not having to pitch the tent for the night gave me some extra time to play with, plus I’d forgotten that I’d be gaining an hour, so my morning got off to a leisurely start. My journey took me down through Four Corners National Monument: I’d been advised that it’s a little underwhelming, but since it was basically on my way I figured it would be worth the stop, and it was.

Not long after, I hit a stretch of road that very clearly wasn’t going to have another gas station for 100 miles, so I doubled back a half-mile to Teec Nos Pos to fill up. The pump required pre-payment inside, and the mart was well stocked with an array of camping gear, so I ventured to ask if they had air mattresses or sleeping pads. In response, the owner, Terry, who was Native American, asked me:

“Where are you going?”

I told him. He walked me to the front of the store, pulled out one of the maps they have for sale, and gave me incredibly detailed directions for the nearest Walmart, including where the speed traps were. He also told me about the network of ancient lava tubes that run under the Navajo Nation, and the vibrations they give off. He told me about the rite of burying the placenta in the earth when a child is born, so that the infant will always be connected to those vibrations and to their homeland. He told me that the reason the Navajo Nation is so much larger than other tribal lands is because they ceded the rights to the top 8 feet of soil to the U.S. Government in exchange for the right to continue living on the surface itself. Then he asked:

“Where are you from?”

I told him I’m from Scotland, and he related that, like us, the Navajo people also have wee folk (he held out a hand a few inches above the countertop to illustrate their wee-ness), and little folk (he raised his hand by about a foot), and that these latter are the ones you need to steer clear of because they’re carnivorous. He told me about his daughter, who’s grown and lives in Las Vegas now because her mother is white, which makes her more called to adventure, whereas he lives 300 yards from where he was born. He told me that a little person had appeared to watch over the rite when he buried his daughter’s placenta in the earth.

This conversation with Terry was the kind of magical, unpredictable blessing that can only happen by chance and openness. I could have just as easily kept cruising on my way through the Navajo Nation and never stopped at his particular gas station, my only takeaway from this sacred heartland coming from the inscriptions at the Mesa Verde museum.

(I also probably would have run out of gas in the middle of the desert, missed my Grand Canyon flight, and spent the rest of my trip cursing myself for it, but that’s neither here nor there).

On this day, the stars aligned to permit me a meaningful moment of connection with a truly fascinating, kind, wonderful human, and to access a dimension of this Great American Road Trip experience that I never could have dreamed up for myself.

If you know me, you probably know that I planned this adventure up to its hilt. Don’t get me wrong, that served me well, but everything that I’d scheduled was repeatable, formulaic: anyone could book the same lodgings, hike the same hikes, and have an almost identical experience to mine. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but I’m also incredibly grateful for the unexpected, magical moments like this one that couldn’t be planned or predicted. Moments that feel like they were curated just for me.