Mesa, AZ - Eddie and the Cowboys 2

Gallery after gallery is filled. Then there were galleries devoted to the art work of Native Americans.

I especially liked the detail and coloring of the 3 pottery pieces on the shelves.

There was quite a display of Kachinas. The last time we were here, they were all in one room. This time they were spread out and this gave us time to explore each one by itself.

Eddie Basha wanted to put a grocery store in Chinle, inside the Navajo reservation but only because there wasn’t another large grocery store anywhere nearby. They had to learn what the Navajo wanted in their stores. They tried a large freezer section which failed because many of the Navajo homes did not have electricity. They also learned that the Navajo preferred lamb, probably because historically they were herders. They also sell 25-lb bags of Blue Bird Flour. No other brands - this is what the brand-loyal Navajos wanted. They also didn’t sell things that other merchants in the area did.

They also wanted at least 95% of the members (they call the employees ‘members’) to speak Navajo. Not only that but 25% of the profits were slated for education of the Navajos - in scholarships or schools or funding of small entrepreneurs. Bashas also stipulated that they would never sell alcohol on the reservation.

We met a young man in the museum whose father was one of the artists. He was scurrying around and I figured he knew lots about the museum so I asked him a question about one of the pieces of art. Sure enough, he was the museum manager and knew more than I could ever imagine. He told us about some of the pieces and, since we were interested, took us through lots of the galleries. One painting he knew about personally was one by his father, Russell Houston, called ‘Capitol Offense’. Seems that when the Arizona capital was built after the turn of the last century, it had a weather vane on the top of it. The cowboys after a night of drinking learned that if they hit it just right with a bullet, they could get it to spin. This was all considered an ‘urban legend’ until bullet marks were found on the vane during restoration.

We spent about 5 hours in the museum and then decided that the day was flitting away and we didn’t have our walk in yet so we left with the idea that we would return on another day. Why head home to walk when we could walk around here? Nothing like a new place to walk. We found a development that - well, the gate needed a code so we couldn’t drive in but, after we parked in the nearby tennis court parking lot and followed the path around the lake, we walked in. Interesting security. Nice walk around the lake. We saw some interesting birds. I’m used to mallards but this green eyed duck puzzled me. Later at home, I looked it up in my bird book and found that it was an American wigeon, a common duck. It spends the summer from the Northwest up to Alaska. It spends winter in the south down to Mexico.

Nice walk around the ponds. Note that these birds all have their mouths open - all singing to beat the band.

I almost had a good picture of this great blue heron in flight but - it was too fast for me.

Next time. Yeah, right.