Growing up in Arizona, myths and legends are a part of life.

Native traditions, mystic places, vortexes, UFO abductions, and dozens of other stories of the unknown that I always found fascinating.

I grew up spending a lot of time wandering around the desert and the

mountains, hunting, camping, etc. So I felt very at home in the wilderness. One late spring day on

one of my many hiking adventures, I wandered off the trail and after several hours came upon a

small group of old mud adobe houses. A few people

heard me coming and came out of the houses to investigate, and after apparently making the

collective decision that I was not a threat, one of the elders dressed in old-style traditional

native clothing, and a headdress came over to greet me. The man spoke slowly and told me that I had wandered onto a Navajo reservation and asked

me if I was lost, or if I needed help.

When I told him no, I was lost.

But intentionally, he chuckled and invited me in to eat with his family.

The next several hours were one of the great experiences of my life. The whole thing was

like being thrown back in time. While we ate and talked, others from the surrounding houses

began coming over to join us, and I got the feeling they didn't get many outside visitors.

We shared stories for hours about life, family, their history in the area, and time spent in the wild,

and the longer we talked, the more they opened up and the more interesting the elders' stories got.

Throughout the time, there was one man who never spoke.

He just sat out of the circle listening and watching me.

At one point, I told them I did what I called my walkabouts every year around September,

where I would go out by myself into the wilderness for three to four weeks at a time,

and this got the attention of the one silent old man.

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