Blathr Wayne Lorentz

If your beauty pageant has replaced the swimsuit competition with an animal slaughtering competition, you may live on the Big Rez.

One of my wifeʼs inbound packages has made a stop at the Big Rez. Iʼve never seen that before.

This is what it looks like when kids on the Big Rez have to do school-from-home.

If arming dinosaurs with massive hypodermic needles makes getting a flu shot less scary for kids, then I guess I donʼt understand kids.

When Darcie was reading the Navajo newspaper, she mentioned there was a sale on new, low-mileage Rams.

This isnʼt what I expected.

Today I learned that a sheep is three feet long.

If you listen to the chattering masses on the internet, you can be made to believe that the internet is everywhere, data is virtually free, and if youʼre not connected to everyone everywhere all day every day, you must be at room temperature.

As is often the case, reality and the internet are very different from one another.

The reality is that there are millions of people in America with no internet service. Not because of choice, or poverty, or lack of education; but because they are simply beyond the reach of the infrastructure.

People I know in the Silicon Valley bubble cannot fathom that there are places in America without broadband, let alone cell phone service. Yet right now, there are hundreds of thousands in Las Vegas who have no internet service. Even in New York City, there are over a million people who do not have internet access, and have no cellular service in their homes.

Itʼs especially hard for people from Europe to understand. They live in small countries where people are packed close together, so itʼs easy to provide cell phone service. They donʼt grasp how vast places like the United States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere are and that cell service is not universal around the entire globe.

I ran into a British couple in Monument Valley once who were complaining that their cell phone didnʼt work. They kept saying, “But we bought it in San Francisco!” as if repeating the phrase often enough would cause a cell tower and power lines to sprout from the cracked earth. They couldnʼt be made to understand that they shouldnʼt expect a phone to work in the desert a thousand miles from the Bay Area.

The photograph above is a great example of how many places in America lack basic communications infrastructure (let alone running water and electricity). Itʼs a special pay phone in the town of Shoshone, California. The same California that gave us so much of the high-tech world in which we live also cannot connect all of its towns and cities.

There is no cell service in Shoshone. There is only dialup internet service in Shoshone. There are only a couple of radio signals that reach Shoshone. So the way many people communicate with the outside world is via this payphone.

Itʼs an ordinary payphone that also has special numbers people can dial to connect to essential, and some seemingly sponsored, services for free.

• *10: Chase Bank
• *12: Prayer line
• *13: Payday loans
• *14: Job search help
• *15: Credit cards
• *16: Weather
• *17: Wells Fargo Bank
• *19: Social Security

Local calls are currently 50¢, and anywhere else on the planet is $1.00 for two minutes. Which seems pretty reasonable to me, since I remember when calling my high school friends could cost an inflation-adjusted $3.50 for two minutes, and they were only a few miles away.

Trading posts are still the one of the primary means of commerce and communication on the Navajo Nation. The tribal government operates some of them, but most are owned by white people, like the one Darcie is standing in front of. It's been operating since 1878.

The trading posts still exist because the companies you and I shop with aren't interested in opening stores on the reservations. Indians still actually trade jewelry, rugs, pottery, and other things for food, clothing, and even iPads at the trading posts.

They can also use money, like Darcie did.

You know that adage about “Donʼt use all your film in one place?” Neither does Darcie.

Darcie is standing in front of the Bernie Sanders of geologic formations. Itʼs not The Grand Canyon. Itʼs The Pretty Pretty Pretty Pretty Pretty Good Canyon.

Mitchell Mesa at sunrise looks like a Apple wallpaper.

Today I learned that my Hasselblad has a sunrise mode. Who needs Photoshop?

Getting Darcie to leave the hotel was like trying to pull a six-year-old out of Disneyland.

Oh, good. Iʼve been wondering where I can get a fair deal on a quality, low mileage used cow.

Now all I need is a “Doctor” postcard and a “Lawyer” postcard, and Iʼll have the whole set!

Worst. Souvenir. Ever.

This is the view from John Wayne Point. A sign reads

Yes, thereʼs a gift shop. Yes, it has an entire John Wayne section.

Hogan sweet hogan.

Weʼve never been to a reservation with a McDonaldʼs. But the big ones all seem to have Burger Kings.

I guess thereʼs no icon for “Indian in a wheelchair.”

Now you know how to say “No smoking” in Navajo.

A tart made from local piñon pine nuts. Very good, but awkward to eat because the great big pine nuts roll off the itty bitty forklet.

Darcie was a little startled when the waiter asked her to pick a knife for her steak.

Perhaps it was because he told her, “Choose your weapon.” I shit you not.

Dinner at a Navajo steakhouse. As you can see around her neck, Darcie decided to bring coal to Newcastle.

Evening approaches on the Navajo reservation.

I guess the Navajo Nation is going to buy back Arizona one $350 beer at a time.