the painted desert, dispatch 1

wow.  what a long day.  i awoke early this morning.  andrew awoke shortly thereafter.  we stayed in phoenix last night with friends.  nick landed around 12:30 this afternoon.  after scooping him up, he and andrew decided they were ready to go north.  nick really wanted to stop in sedona to get lunch at a spot where he did a mural about a year ago.  i'm not a big fan of sedona but we went.  and in truth, the spot where we had lunch was super cool.  we ate out back under the shade of a tree with the red rock canyon wall visible in the distance.

we got back in the car and headed to the painted desert.  when i told them we were in the painted desert, nick finally got the name of the project.  we drove for about and hour and 1/2 before arriving at mrs. woody's food stand about a mile from my house, i stopped so nick could meet her as he'll be painting her stand.  

the vibe was a little funky.  i wasn't sure what was going on.  i walked over to mrs. daw's food stand and learned from her that a six year old child who was unattended attempted to cross the highway by himself and was hit and killed.  that happened at 2 p.m. today.  mrs. daw and her family and mrs. woody and her daughter sandra were the only people left at the flea market site.  they were deeply affected by what happened earlier.  mrs. woody and sandra knew the little boy who was killed and had spent time with him 3 days earlier.  

mrs. woody went on to tell us how her stand was vandalized recently.  besides spray painting the wood part of the stand, the kids who hit her stand also spray painted her screen.  she said they even tossed a blazing bottle of gasoline into her little cooking stand trying to burn it down.  she and her daughter were confused as to why anyone would want to do that.  nick attempted to help them feel better saying that often when he paints murals, people don't tag them.  

before going to my house, i took andrew + nick to the canyon in back of my house.  they dug it.

exhausted, i give thanks we made it back safely and am excited about where this may all go.