On a
cold winter night in January, Don and I amused ourselves with talk of taking a
trip out west. At first it was just that, talk to fill a long cold winter
night. And then it became two winter nights, then a week, then we started
writing locations down and before we knew it, we had sketched out a itinerary.
My mind kept lingering on a photo of a place called “House On Fire Ruin” and I
really had no idea where this place was. I had seen a photograph of a stone
house carved neatly into the side of a mountain. The photo practically glowed
with what appeared to be flames shooting out of the roof. I had found very
little information about the place, it isn’t well known or an advertised
tourist spot. So I used my Google skills to find that it really isn’t too far
away from some of the locations we had researched; it looked like it was about
80 miles away from Monument Valley in Southern Utah. Information was scarce but
I read on some hiking websites that it was about a 1.5 mile easy hike down a
wash. The best time to see the effect of the flaming roof was to be there on a
sunny day about mid morning. Since this was a make believe trip anyway, we
included it in our itinerary.
I did
some research on House On Fire. The Anasazi Indians, also known as the ancient
people are the ones that historians and researchers give credit to for the
fascinating cliff pueblos found throughout the Four Corners area of what is now
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The name Anasazi comes from the Navajo
Indians and loosely translates to mean “enemy ancestors”. The Hopi Indians of
today lay claim that the Ansazi Indians were their ancestors. Researchers
believe that House on Fire is not a traditional house, but rather a granary, a
storage place for grains and they have concluded that it was built around
1400A.D. I found it difficult to find information on how to locate this hidden
treasure, it’s path is not marked. My mind was in constant debate whether to
attempt to find a place so remote, yet tortured to be so close and let my fear
and doubt stop me.
Finally
Don and I decided to book the trip, so we picked our travel dates, booked a
flight and a rental car. It was really going to happen! Our first thought was
to wing it and not book any hotels, but our children insisted that we cannot
possibly be serious. This vacation was unlike any trip we had ever taken;
different hotels for each segment of the trip. We decided quickly on 2 nights
at Grand Canyon and 2 nights in Page Arizona. Then the planning got difficult
because there’s not many places to stay around Monument Valley. We had to
decide; turn around at Monument Valley or venture 75 miles into Utah to attempt
to locate House on Fire. Don made the decision easy; we were going to do it, he
wasn’t backing down. So we found a little town called Blanding and booked our
5th night there.
We
arose early on Sunday morning and checked out of the hotel. A very nice man at
the hotel helped us with directions and we set off with our camera equipment
and plenty of water. Luckily the weather that day was party sunny and very
cool; about 45 degrees. The websites were right; there aren’t any signs. We
hiked down a pretty steep hill still very unsure about where we were going.
Soon we were into the wash and we started into the canyon. A quick look at my
cell phone told me what I feared, “no service”. I still marvel that two people
from Kentucky could located and find such a remote place. We followed the path
along the wash as it meandered up tiny rises and down into the wash itself. It
was a very easy hike although I still had a fear that we still weren’t sure we
were on the correct path. Soon we heard voices and others were joining us on
the path and after some friendly hellos they passed us. This gave us joy to
realize that we were not alone. After about 45 minutes we heard other voices
and around a bend we saw it up on a cliff; House On Fire. The house is tucked
into a cliff on the right side of the wash and we had a short climb up some
slick rocks to reach it. There were already a couple of photographers there,
one was from France and the other was a local. With much camaraderie we shared
photography tips and allowed each to get the correct angle. From the original
photo I had deduced that the fire effect was caused by erosions in the rock. I
believed that there were large cuts in the rock. I was wrong. The roof was
smooth but revealed thin layers of rock. There were darkened areas on the
mushroom shaped roof that caused the fire effect when the sun bounced from the
rock floor onto the rock roof. The tiny doors were very small; the builders
must have been short of stature. Inside the tiny windows were signs that asked
for everyone to be respectful for this ancient place; and we were as no
photographers tried to enter or shoot inside. It was such a serene place and I
felt God’s Presence on that beautiful Sunday morning. After a hour or so, are
hearts were full as we were ready to begin our hike back to our car. Clouds
were filling the skies and we were warned many times of the danger of flash
flooding in the narrow washes of the canyon. We walked out, chatting away about
our experience at an ancient Indian ruin. We were very Blessed.
We
decided we should just go “stand on a corner”...
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