Expectations

 You know the saying: “An expectation is a premeditated resentment.”  Well, sometimes it’s true.  Take the Green Chile Cheeseburger from Sparky’s in Hatch, New Mexico.  People drive two hours from Albuquerque for it.  Seriously, don’t.  I still resent the calories I wasted on that sad little specimen.  However, the town itself was pleasant and the many stores devoted to its namesake were fabulous.

Sometimes (okay, rarely) expectations can be exceeded. Take Yosemite for example.  Mind blowing.

And sometimes, if you manage to actually have no expectations, you find yourself utterly delighted and amazed by something you had no clue even existed.

I’d picked the town of Silver City, NM merely as a convenient stop on our way towards the Grand Canyon.  We found out there were some Pueblo cliff dwellings not too far away and decided to check them out.  The famous ones at Mesa Verde were closed for the season and we’d only been able to look at them from a distance this time.  We’d never heard of the Gila ones but there was a whole day with nothing to do so off we set - with few expectations.

Even though it was only 40 miles away the drive took nearly two hours.  A one and a half lane (at best) road through the Gila National Forest with so many hairpin turns even Dan started to feel queasy. But when we finally arrived, oh what an amazing place!  We hiked up a beautiful little valley and there they were, still standing after 900 years.

Another unexpected discovery in Silver City was one of the world’s largest open faced copper and gold mines which was jaw-dropping in its own way.  It’s hard to get the sheer enormity of the operation in a photo - they’ve basically cut away several mountains and all those little ridges carry huge mining trucks.  I can’t imagine what it will look like in a hundred years’ time, or what those ancient Puebloans would make of this desecration of their sacred land.

I’m not sure what I expected from the town of Winslow, Arizona.  You know, that song.  Something iconic perhaps?

Why anyone would be standing on the corner or doing anything in that town is beyond me.  Perhaps back in the 70s it was different enough to inspire Jackson Browne and Glen Frey to write that song, but nowadays it’s a sad, sad place with just that one corner and endless piped Eagles music whether you want it or not. 

We stayed at the nearby Homolovi Ruins State Park which seemed equally dismal.  Just off the heavy truck route Interstate 40.  Basically an expanse of arid land with a few wild burros and some cows roaming freely.  Not much of a park.  

But of course looks can be deceiving.  We were able to walk amongst the ruins of ancient Hopi villages and actually handle fragments of pottery the vandals and looters had left behind.  

And then this flat expanse of arid land gave us this.

Here’s to expectations: low, none or exceeded.  But now it’s off to the Grand Canyon.  How on earth can you manage to have no expectations for that?