Ready to talk about my experience at Chaco Canyon

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

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This will most likely be very long, please bear with me.

Well, it has been around 2 months since we visited Chaco Canyon as part of our big 2021 road trip and I think I am finally ready to talk a little bit about the strange things I experienced there. Kdog can confirm the things I'm going to talk about here as I described my feelings and insights as they were occurring.

First let me explain a few things that may or may not relate. From early childhood I have been somewhat sensitive to things that most others would simply brush off as their imaginations playing tricks on them. At times some of these things can be terrifying but sometimes they can be beautiful. Because the terrifying has always outweighed the beautiful I try to block out these experiences as much as I possibly can and have done so for many years- though sometimes nothing I do can prevent them. Such was the case with Chaco Canyon.

The drive into the canyon is treacherous. We entered from the south entrance (there are only 2 roads in and out of the canyon, both the most horrible roads we have experienced). It took well over an hour to travel the 20 mile road and even at that extremely slow pace it did severe damage to our SUV. The road passes through nothing but desert and mesas and is extremely isolated to the point we actually discussed the fact that we were glad we were fully packed for self-sufficient camping in case we broke an axle and had to wait many days for assistance as there was no phone signal at all and drove through many miles of nothing but canyons before even reaching the road into Chaco.

As we traveled down the incredibly bumpy dirt road we joked and laughed, enjoying each other's company and the scenery. We couldn't even get a radio channel to come in. Then all of a sudden about a third of the way in it hit me. Out of the blue I was overwhelmed with emotion! The only thing that even comes close to describing it is that it felt like I was experiencing every emotion I had ever felt in my entire life all at once. At first I didn't even realize that tears were streaming down my face and when I glanced at the side mirror I had seriously "ugly crying face". Suddenly I heard a male voice that said to me "You belong here. You are finally home." It startled me but I was not frightened. I started telling Kdog what I was experiencing and he asked if I was okay and if he needed to turn around and get me out of there. I said I was okay and to keep driving.

A few miles down the road the emotions hit me again. This time I heard what sounded like a small group of people, male and female but with a female voice being loudest. Once again I heard "You belong here. You are finally home." As I felt the tears run down my face I again explained to Kdog what was happening. It stopped as suddenly as it began but then something else happened. To our right there appeared a small flock of birds just sitting in the sand. As we passed the birds took flight and flew alongside our vehicle for several miles. It was unusual because we were traveling at barely above an idle due to how bad the road was and I wondered how they were able to fly so slowly. We both thought it was really cool. To note: During the entire trip I had several strange encounters with birds and kept finding feathers nearly everywhere we traveled. Maybe just coincidence.

The birds peeled off as we finally neared the visitor center with its paved road and parking lot- thank goodness for pavement! We parked at the visitor center and for  minute just sort of looked around the immediate area, taking it in. Again I was hit with emotion but this time was different. I told Kdog that something really, really bad had happened there. I felt that a whole lot of people were killed, not just died but murdered. I told him I didn't know if they were human sacrifices or if they were eaten but that whatever happened it was horrible. I had read a few things in the past that were sketchy about Chaco Canyon but had never put stock in any of it as history and archeology get things wrong more often than anyone will admit but once I was standing there the feelings I experienced convinced me that the tales were nowhere near as horrifying as what actually happened there. I don't have words to explain how I knew this, I just knew with every cell in my body.

Skip ahead to us walking in at the tail end of a museum worker's presentation (there is a small museum in the visitor center). He was telling everyone that while Chaco Canyon is a historical and active archeological site that it is a completely personal human  experience and that many people experience all sorts of feelings there with most of the people feeling that extremely evil things happened there and actually brought up cannibalism and human sacrifice! Kdog and I looked at each other with our eyes wide as saucers and I felt the hair stand up on my neck and arms.

The story continues with a room in Pueblo Bonita that I could not even force myself to enter and a brief vision of people being pushed down a chute into one of the in-ground pit/arena? things but this has run too long already. I will say that while this was extremely disturbing it is not the strangest part of our trip, not even in the top two, but hopefully we can talk about other incidents another time. 

Most people refer to a "trip of a lifetime" every time they go on vacation but for Kdog and I our road trip really was exactly that in every sense of the phrase! Hopefully I will be able to tell more of our adventure soon. The trip has changed me in ways I can't explain and it is hard to find the words to relate our experiences to others.