Dilkon 4-28-2010

by John Aldrich

It started last night. The Red Wind Yeis are out with a vengance. During the night they probed and searched for a weakness in the roof hoping they could lift it off its mooring. This morning it was merely breezy and still clear when we arrived in Dilkon. But the wind has steadily increased since then, and now, as I sit in the motel in Winslow, I can barely see what's across the street. The earth is reaching for the sky. Interstate 40 has been shut down since late morning so the town is full of truckers and travelers looking for refuge.

The food run at Dilkon is held currently at the LDS (Mormon) meeting house which is a nice modular structure.  The capacity of the building unfortunately wasn't designed with a group our size in mind so things were "cozy". But everything went very smoothly.

Before departing for Dilkon we posed for our group picture using the rental truck and motel sign for a backdrop. The group totals 30 and hails from Georgia, Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, and Colorado in addition to Utah.

And that's as far as I got with yesterday's post:

I know I said that I would try to blog from the road with the intention of posting something about each day's food run. But I hadn't counted on the power to Winslow being interrupted by the wind. This end of town at least was without electricity from late afternoon until around 9:00 p.m. We had our group dinner at the nearby Chinese restaurant by candlelight following which the restaurant's sign departed for the Super 8 motel's parking lot across the road.

The wind continued to provide drama to our activities today, but I'll share more about that later. For now, let's return to the Dilkon food run.

Here is the LDS meeting house with the ANE van out front. As you can see, the sky is still clear, and the ground remains where it is supposed to be. What you can't see is that the wind is already starting to blow.

Now the food boxes and flour are in place as Don Bagley and Ron Borden look them over.

Now we jump to the conclusion of the food run where the food and other provisions are being loaded into the Elders' vehicles. You will note that the sky is no longer blue. In fact it looks suspiciously like the color of the earth.

Here Al Sanborn has done his best to maintain his composure and coiffure. Mother Nature has other ideas. I'm not posting any picture now from inside the food run, but just wanted to give an idea of what the day was like. Despite the wind, it was a fine and very successful food run. At the evening meal all the volunteers felt blessed by the experiences they had had that day.

I will end this post with three pictures taken on the return drive to Winslow:

Drive in Beauty is an allusion to a common Navajo aphorism, Walk in Beauty. This theme appears in many prayers and writings.

I will post later about the food runs at Leupp and Birdsprings but most likely not before we are back home a few days from now.