The Holbrook Letters- Tuesday

Hi Sweetie,
I am sure that by the time you are reading this is will be the morning, and I wanted to tell you happy birthday. I miss you, and I wish that you were here.

Today was fairly quiet but I spent some time driving around town trying to get the feel for the place. We saw Dad's ALCO store. At first glance it is like a dollar store and the Kmart's from the 1980's had an illegitimate child. But I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. I walked up and down every aisle...checking out prices and the merchandise. The store may be small but it is packed with stuff. By the end it sorta reminded me of the little bakkals in Turkey.....packed with absolutely everything and if they don't have it...you really didn't need it anyway.

We also visited a couple of the local tourist shops here. We went to the sign shop that had the "Indian Parking only, all others will be scalped", and it was the type of store where there were no price tags. When I asked the elderly owner how much the different signs were he said that they were $6 to $30 depending on the item. Well, wouldn't you just know it....every sign I inquired about was $30. So I just stuck to buying the $6 magnets and took pictures of the various signs that I liked while Jimmy and Mom distracted him. We also went to "McGee's Trading Post" which was an upscale shop that had some really nice Indian crafts in it. While this place had pricetags...they all said "you can't afford this so back away slowly".

Jimmy and I are taking stock of things that we want to visit later and take pictures of. On the drive back there is a bridge that we want to stop at...I think that it is over the Glen Canyon Dam...in any case, it was almost as cool to drive over as a tunnel. And there is some cave outside of Kanab that we want to visit. Don't be surprised if Jimmy and I bring home a smallpox blanket either.

Unfortunately, there are still some bad stereotypes here...I have seen one to many drunken Indians for comfort. We were going to go try this rock shop for souvenirs, and I was waiting for this old Indian guy to finish stumbling past the sidewalk to turn...he was doing fine until he started to stumble in reverse. For a while I thought that he was going to fall back on the car. Technically he would have hit me...but I don't think that the car insurance company would believe the damages. He did manage to regain forward momentum...so that is good.

The B1 vitamin seems to be helping greatly. I did get swarmed by mosquitoes when we got out of the car at dusk...but none of them bit me. They did chew on Jimmy a bit though.

Tomorrow we are going to visit the Petrified National Forest...or at least, the visitor's center thereof. Hopefully I will be able to find some cheap petrified wood to bring back as souvenirs. There is also some famous restaurant in the nearby town of Winslow that we are going to eat at tomorrow. And my Dad promises alot of driving around. I will take a bunch of pictures for you to see until you will be able to come down and see if for yourself.

I will call and leave a message in the morning sometime for you, maybe I will be able to find a birthday joke for you. Everyone here misses you and says to tell you hi, especially Mom who really really wants a birthday hug from you.

I love you sweetie,
Happy Birthday!

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D