Teddy Draper Sr., Arches National Park (Border to Border, Day Four)

It's Memorial Day and the day my traveling companions return to southern Arizona and I continue on to destinations north. We eat breakfast at the Junction Restaurant, the only one in Chinle, but despite their monopoly, the food is good and the service is excellent. And the Dineh are wonderfully congenial if you make the slightest effort to be likewise. The Dineh couple at the table next to us strike up a conversation, and we learn that most of what our guide told us yesterday is true. Eventually, they finish their meal and leave, just as a "Navajo" Dineh Code Talker walks in to have breakfast. He is evident by his battle and service insignias on his chest, red cap and jacket.

Feeling emotionally overwrought by seeing an actual Code Talker  (one of four living) and my personal  sadness of leaving my family behind on this journey, I asked our congenial waiter to convey my thanks to the man, which he did. Having eaten and gotten my runaway emotions under control, I summoned up the courage to stop by his table as we left. I shook his hand and thanked him. He is hard of hearing from his war experiences, so I repeated my thanks. He smiled broadly and continued shaking my hand. He asked where I was from and said he was from "here," Chinle, and laughed. We talked a few moments longer while he continued to hold my hand. I was torn between letting him get back to his breakfast and sitting down and grilling him, like a good journalist should. In the end, my humanity won out and I let him return to his breakfast. His name is Teddy Draper Sr. and you can search his name on the internet to learn all the struggles he has endured to achieve recognition of his service and his wounds.

I continue to be awed by this experience. With only four of these remarkable gentlemen left, and those well in to their 80s, we might not have much longer to honor them for their service to the United States. It is no overstatement to credit them for the country's success in winning World War II, the atomic bombs notwithstanding. They need financial support in building a memorial. Go to navajocodetalkers.org to learn more.

We, my companions and I, left the restaurant, and I began the  pleasant journey north to Moab. There is little to say about the journey, especially after the emotional waterfall of meeting and talking to a Code Talker. The landscape was typically "Navajo" Nation, that is, gentle rolling grassy hills and mesas dotted with junipers, until Bluff, UT, where Moab area red rock country seemed to start.

 

Red rock hoodoos between Bluff and Moab, UT

Since it was not quite time to check in to the Apache Motel in Moab, I headed to Arches National Park and hiked around for several hours, seeing Double Arch (featured in an Indiana Jones movie), Delicate arch and various other sandstone features.