A Quest Called Tribe

DAY 1
My friend Shirley and I are in a store in Tuba City, Ariz., stocking up for our road trip when I realize that I'm rushing around. Frantically searching for peanut butter, I look like I have somewhere important to be, while everyone else is moving at a casual pace. I smile to myself—adjusting to the local rhythms might not be so easy.

Navajo Nation is a self-governing homeland for the Navajo people that occupies 27,000 square miles across three states: Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. The lives of the Navajo are difficult; many of the people live in poverty, and the unemployment rate is about 50 percent. I moved here when my husband took a job at a hospital in Fort Defiance, Ariz., near the New Mexico border. Shirley has lived here her whole life, but there are many things even she doesn't know about her land. So we're both pleasantly surprised by the Explore Navajo Interactive Museum, which teaches visitors all about Navajo culture.

NAVAJO NATION See both hardship and incredible beauty while touring the Arizona portion of the Navajo homeland. Photos by reader Kara Lucchesi of San Diego, Calif. • Launch the slide show

We watch a movie on the Emergence Story, which explains how the Diné (the term the Navajo use to refer to themselves) believe the universe was created. At the Clan Wheel, Shirley enters the names of the clans she was "born into" (her mother's people) and "born for" (her father's people). She spins the wheel, and it gives her the names of all the Navajo clans she's related to. She has a lot of relatives! The Navajo believe it's important to know who your relatives are—in times of trouble, you'll know who to ask for help.

Before checking in to the Quality Inn Navajo Nation, we go shopping—but this time for souvenirs, not supplies. The Tuba City Trading Post is one of the few remaining trading posts set up by whites in the late 1860s, when the Navajo returned to their ancestral lands following their forced relocation to New Mexico years before, a tragedy known as the Long Walk. At the time, the posts were the only places where the Diné could trade with whites. Now run by the Navajo, the post sells crafts to tourists. I buy a bumper sticker that depicts Geronimo and a group of Apache warriors and reads: "Homeland Security—Fighting terrorism since 1492."

Lodging

• Quality Inn Navajo Nation 10 N. Main St., Tuba City, 928/283-4545, qualityinntubacity.com, from $93

Activities

• Explore Navajo Interactive Museum Moenave Rd. and Main St., Tuba City, 928/640-0684, explorenavajo.com, $9

Shopping

• Tuba City Trading Post Moenave Rd. and Main St., Tuba City, 928/283-5441

DAY 2
Driving west through the empty red-rock desert, I spy a sign not far out of Tuba City advertising Dinosaur Tracks. Impulsively, we make a sharp turn onto a dirt road to see them. There are so many footprints that Shirley says this must have been "where boy and girl dinosaurs got together to dance."

Back in the car, Shirley pops in a tape of her father singing songs in Navajo. I've barely started to learn a few of the words when we decide to stop at an artisan's roadside stand on Highway 89A near Marble Canyon. There are stands like this all over Navajo Nation, where locals sell handicrafts to support themselves. Shirley is looking for jewelry, and sure enough, the craftswoman, Vera Yazzie, is selling juniper-seed necklaces and bracelets. According to the Navajo, the seeds offer protection from all kinds of evil. We buy six of the necklaces ($5 to $15 each) and wear them for the rest of the trip to make sure that nothing bad happens to us.