Dispatch 5
It is hot, the kind of hot that slowly drains your energy. It’s not a difficult walk up this hill but the heat, humidity and mosquitos poking at my neck and arms sure make it a bit miserable. Whose idea was it to come so late in the day?
I glance beside me to my teenage son. Right.
We reach the top of the hill and I forget the heat. Before me is what appears, at first glance, to be piles of stones. A lot of them. Soon my eyes begin to pick out patterns that indicate structures although we are still a fair distance away.
I am not standing in a place that I would have expected to see what is in front of me. In the Southwest, where I have spent a lot of time, this sight would fit my expectations. But here, more than a thousand miles away, it seems as out of place in my mind as it is perfectly at home in its environment.
The first question that hits me is, “How did I not know this was here?” Memories of a childhood playing among huge rocks dropped by glaciers onto hillsides run through my mind. Those rocks landed where they pleased. These rocks, though some have tumbled down, have a sense of order, purpose.
How long has this been here? I think of the sites I’ve visited in the Southwest and others I know of around the world. Are they related? In time? In intent?
I approach the ruins. There are so many questions running through my mind. Who built this? Who found it? Did people live here? For how long? Why? What else was here? Had I come upon this place from another path I may have thought it was the remains of a farm field. Rock walls extend toward the horizon. But the main part of this site is much more built up than that. There are still passages accessible under the rock right here. Was there a roof once above that section over there?
We spend the whole hot afternoon, my son and I, reading every entry on the map, following every guide post, trying to take it all in and figure it all out.
In the end, some of the answers remain out of reach. I want to know more but sometimes I really can’t know.
At the end of the day, as we get back into the truck to head home, my son asks if we can come back. I nod. There’s so much more to see.
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