Evocation: Painted Desert Overlook
I love the Painted Desert Overlook on the road between Sunset Crater National Monument Visitor Center and the Wupatki National Monument Visitor Center. It is an amazing experience to stand in the black cinders of the Sunset Crater volcanic eruption and look out at other cinder ones, also created by volcanic action and at the Painted Desert in the distance, created by depositions of ancient seas. What a contrast!
The vegetation at this site is diverse and interesting. I love to relax with a friend and sack lunches at a picnic table here in the shade of a pinon pine tree.
I remember one magic evening when I was showing around a friend from Virginia. She wanted to see Mormon tea growing wild, so I drove her here late one summer afternoon, just as the sun was setting. A light drizzle of rain was still falling from monsoon showers earlier in the day. We were the only ones at the overlook; the air was cool and moist; everything was quiet. Suddenly, from the distance, a coyote’s wail pierced the silence; shortly a response followed from a closer hillside. We drew in our breath quickly and glance at each other. Ruth had never heard a coyote, and I had heard them only too seldom. These voices from the forest spoke to us of the wildness and persistence and cleverness of these fellow mortals in the beautiful place that the national monuments are preserving.
Now, whenever I visit this Place of My Heart, I cherish the privilege of having heard here the haunting cries of coyotes on a cool, quiet, drizzly evening.