Thats why im here. Because im looking for stories. Im looking for these same kinds of stories that i find in the desert. I came to hear straight from Grace Cathedral today where i walked into the cathedral and i took off my shoes and walked on the maze thats right in the front, in the center. And i dont know if youve ever been to this place. You have to stop in and walk this maze because it is very much like what its like to be out in the desert. Where you start walking along and you see where you are going eventually. You see the center spot and you know where you are going to be, except you are going away from it and then toward it and then away from it and all the way around it and then away from it again and back toward it. Thats what its like walking out in the desert in the deep cliffs, in the dunes where you want to go there but theres not a route from here to there. If you had a gps it wouldnt really work because it would point a Straight Line from here to there because theres
He said first light, we all looked and we couldnt see it. He had a better eye, he had been watching this much longer than us. But then we started to see the glow. And then the orb of the moon rose into this narrow gap between two twin towers looking north into the rocky mountains. And as that happened, i turned around and as the south and i see out of the rocky mountains, i could see a gap where the piedro river flows south and through that gap i could see the desert of northern new mexico and just over the horizon, just about 120 miles away, is chaco canyon, the largest anastazi site in the southwest, just over the horizon. And in between these towers and chaco canyon there are fire signal stations up on top of buttes. Every fire signal station is in view of two other signal stations. Each of those, four, on and on and on so that a fire would be lit at one spot and everybody would know, you could send messages for hundreds of miles. You could send messages over Mountain Ranges. There
I see out of the rocky mountains, i could see a gap where the piedro river flows south and through that gap i could see the desert of northern new mexico and just over the horizon, just about 120 miles away, is chaco canyon, the largest anastazi site in the southwest, just over the horizon. And in between these towers and chaco canyon there are fire signal stations up on top of buttes. Every fire signal station is in view of two other signal stations. Each of those, four, on and on and on so that a fire would be lit at one spot and everybody would know, you could send messages for hundreds of miles. You could send messages over Mountain Ranges. There are fire signals all over the four corners, rows and fire signals. I talked to the guy who first discovered these signals and he was just out there mapping archeological sites with a crew in the 70s and he kept coming across these hills that had some kind of a little bit of architecture but they couldnt tell what they were. And they decide
We also want to thank the publishers for bringing craig to us and we also want to thank inaudible at the book table at the end of the program. Craig childs is a commentator for National Public radios morning edition. He has written noert new york times, the Los Angeles Times and several magazines. His work has won the spirit of the west award as well as the colorado book award. The book, house of rain, is craigs latest book. Please help me welcome craig childs. Hello. I come to you from out of the desert. Im coming to you from a landscape where once you get an eye for things, 3 grains of sand out of place draw your attention, where everything is brought to bear, where everything is hinged to a story, every drop of rain leaving a dimple in the ground. Stories are everywhere out in this landscape. When you walk down into the bottom of the Narrow Canyons made of sandstone and you put your hands on the sand stone faces and the smooth shallow scallops that look like champagne glasses, you c
You will end up in the wrong spot. You will end up going the wrong direction and you wont be able to find your way to the center. Of course, out in the desert, you cant just walk off of the maze and out the front door and back into the street. Out in the desert, you are there. The cliffs stand around you. The mazes are everywhere, passages opening up left and right. To write this book, house of rain, i walked a little bit over a thousand miles in legs from the four Corners Region from arizona, new mexico, colorado and california meet down to the chijuajua area of new mexico. There was one excavation along the way i remember out in the desert nears winslow, arizona. The desert out there is just a still life with a few landmarks on the horizon and this empty hole, the Little Colorado River desert, the painted desert, and we were working on a 500room pueblo dating back to about 1400 ad. I just remember the wind just hailing down on us for days and you would be working down with trowels in