Comb Ridge Coffee Shop

Comb Ridge Coffee Shop

In the town of Bluff, Utah, you will find Comb Ridge Coffee Shop. It is a small coffee shop which offers you very high quality coffees. Tourists from different parts of the world have commented that this little shop is comparable to Starbucks coffee. There, you will find not only “the best” coffee, but also a short menu of vegetarian foods to eat and art work and jewelry to buy or just to look at.

The establishment started as a post office around1900. From a gas station, it then turned into a trading post. The building was made out of hay bales, sand bags and the walls plastered with natural clay. Its structure was built with natural resources. The floor cement was laid on top of the ground with no foundation and totally laid on dirt. Around 1998, the previous owner built an apartment behind the building as their residence.

In 2006, Andrea and David Carpenter bought the place to start a business that serves excellent coffee and healthy organic food in the middle of nowhere. The coffee shop has been in business for almost 7 years now. It started as a drive-in that served only coffee to locals and travelers. As years passed by, the owners started to add more variety of foods and drinks. The Carpenters also made some renovation in the building; additional structures include the back door, the front porch and the two bathrooms, to meet the expectation of the business growth.

As you observe the place, you can see the colors of the walls are very well planned to make the ambiance very relaxing. The mixture of brown, red and yellow adds an earthy look that blends not only with the outside environment, but also with the color of coffee beans. The outcome of the remodeling of the building enhanced the rustic, authentic and live-in look that gives the relaxed atmosphere to the coffee shop.
  The Coffee Shop has outdoor seating where one can enjoy the sunshine during summer, while drinking your coffee or eating your ice cream or you can go inside and check out the variety of jewelries and arts that are on display. As you enter the shop employees will greet you with a smile and friendly tone of voice. You will also smell the tempting aroma of coffee and the fresh baked goods coming from the kitchen oven.

Comb Ridge Coffee Shop supports local artists by displaying and selling their art work. All kinds of art media are featured at the coffee shop. These include paintings, photographs, pottery and jewelry.

This season the paintings that are hanging on the walls were done by J.R Lancaster, Lancaster’s works with mixed media. It is very textural, earthy and unique. The pottery and clay-made crafts are by Linda Moore and Chris Blackhorse’ works are in Native-American modern designs. The jewelries like earrings, necklaces, and bracelets that are on display are made by Louise Young, Amanda Bouchard, and Ernie and Rebecca Washee.

            The new managers of the coffee shop are Brandon Thompson and Chris McGuire, who were employed just 6 months ago. They made an acquaintance with one of the owners who gave them an opportunity to run this small business in Bluff, Utah.

            “First, I didn’t know what I would respond, I couldn’t imagine myself living in Utah. The fact that I lived on the east coast before I work in Grand Canyon was one thing, but Utah, I don’t think so. But, when we visited and saw the place I fell in love with it, it’s just so beautiful.” Chris McGuire shared.

            The two young co-managers feel that working and managing the coffee shop at the same time, is exhausting, time consuming and stressful, but it is also a very fulfilling for both of them. Though there are some minor problems dealing with some foreign customers, like language barrier, McGuire and Thompson are enjoying their job of running the small business in Bluff.

            Comb Ridge Coffee Shop serves a breakfast menu, sandwiches, and coffee to locals and tourists,  they serve: breakfast muffins, fresh baked goods, Panini, red bell pepper quiche, homemade granola, organic oatmeal and the pancake they are famous of; the blue corn pancake, that has a sweet taste and grainy texture. They also serve sandwiches as healthy snack, they also offer unlimited cups of coffee when you stay for a while, and they also serve fancy coffee such as Americano, café latte, Chai latte, cappuccino and organic tea’s. They also serve freezes that are named after tourist destinations in four-corners, like Hovenweep and Honaker.  The owner and the managers are looking forward to put more variety of food to choose from on the menu.

            While the tourist trade is the main income source of the coffee shop, local people love to stay for a while too, just to relax or to wait for other locals to come around. They usually go every Sunday morning to get a cup of coffee and eat breakfast. Students like to come and stick around for a while for the free Wi-Fi connection .Some people who love to sit on the sofa and read while sipping their drinks. Customers love to come back after they have breakfast just to pass the time again or to get a cup of coffee. You will see some familiar faces coming back again not only once but twice or more.

Uranium in Monument Valley

Uranium in Monument Valley

Uranium has affected a lot of Navajos in the Monument Valley area for a long time. For decades people have suffered many types of disease, and just recently the government made the decision to clean up the Uranium mines.  Uranium is very dangerous to humans and live stocks. Uranium is a silvery metallic chemical element that could be made into bombs.  Being around it is not an ideal thing to do. People from the Monument Valley area have suffered lung cancer, heart disease, brain disease, and liver problems, etc.

In 1942 it is known that a Navajo that discovered Uranium on the Navajo Reservation in Monument Valley, Utah. Monument Valley, Utah is a rural area many Navajo people call home. At the time, there was a nuclear arms race going on between America and the U.S.S.R. Discovering uranium on the Navajo Reservation lead to mining beginning in 1948. Many private companies came and hired Navajos in the local area. It was good that Navajos got jobs so they could support their families, but the bad part is they were not informed that Uranium was so unhealthy to be around. Mining was done near homes and contaminated the area such as plants and water which was vital part of everyday necessity to the local people. The United States Atomic Energy Commission and the private companies did not tell the people that breathing in uranium can affect their health. 

More than eight million pound of uranium oxide was produced.  In 1969 mining in the Monument Valley area was stopped. It has been twenty-one years since the first mine was opened and now hundreds of worker that worked there have been exposed to uranium. The majority of the workers were Navajos. Twenty-one years have passed and nobody had told them that uranium is very toxic to the body. Years went on before researchers noticed that people around the contaminated areas suffered major health problems.  

After the Uranium workers discovered their health problems, the mine workers filed for compensation. Not all were successful, due to poor paper work by the companies that operated the Uranium Mines and due to the fact that not all workers were English speakers.  Finally in 1990 they got what they had been asking for. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was passed by Congress to provide the need for compensation.

A five year cleanup was authorized by the U.S Congress, and one of the first big projects was to clean up the Skyline mine area. The Skyline mine is located four to five miles north of Goulding's Lodge. Goulding's is located five miles northwest of the Utah, Arizona border in southeast Utah.  The families who live there are glad that the cleanup is being done and feel a lot safer living there. With the cleanup being finished, they have removed twenty thousand cubic yards of contaminated dirt and rocks. The cleanup was a success and the people that lived near the area are thrilled that the cleanup was done.

It’s a good thing the Skyline area was cleaned, but the people around the area believed that it should have been done much earlier. There are families that live near the Skyline mine who have been seriously affected by the uranium in the area. One mother has lost two of her sons due to brain tumor and the other with lung cancer. If they had informed the people around the area and the Navajo workers that uranium was toxic to the body, I’m sure the workers would have made more intelligent decisions. Perhaps it would have even saved some lives. 

--Harrison Louie

Ways to Solve Drug Addictions

Ways to Solve Drug Addictions

I had a drug addiction of all sorts of drugs for about three years straight, until I decided to quit. I had seen too many people that I was close to either die or go to prison for the use of drugs, so that’s why I decided to quit. Quitting a drug addiction is very hard but it could be done. One way to quit is to fight the temptations. For example, I fought my addiction by saying no whenever I was offered some drugs, even though the temptations were still in play. I was able to do this because I sat back and looked at a drug-filled life and a drug-free life. I saw the negatives of the drug-filled life, which are people who used to be good-looking, transform into an ugly person, and the drug overtakes the user’s daily life. But for a drug-free life I didn’t see any negatives. So that helped over come my wanting of drugs.

A second way to help solve the drug addiction is counseling. There are a lot of programs out there for people that don’t think they have the will power to quit drugs. For example, they offer a twelve-step program, which I believe is a good way to get your confidence back to where you really want it to be.

Another way is to isolate your self from bad influences. Such as friends, family, or any other people that may put drugs in front of you, and even places that remind you of using the drugs. Back when I realized that I had a problem, I signed up for Job Corps, which has a zero tolerance program. This helped me take it one day at a time. Even though it was tough, I stuck with it.

Faith in your life is a good way to help you set your mind to realize the consequences that you put yourself and others through by using drugs. Praying every morning and night just to say thanks for another day to fight your addiction is an incredible way to show appreciation to the creator that you actually care about your life and the people around you that care for you. Just a reminder, is that the creator wont help you until you help yourself out first.

The main keys to succeed in fighting drug addictions are to be positive and confidant. It’s all in your mind. If you think that you will never be sober again then you are setting your own standards too low. You have to remind yourself that you are in control of your life and that drugs are not. You have to be confidant about your life and know that you have a purpose in this world in a positive way. I am one who believes that I had the will power to quit cold turkey after three years of using. I have a saying that it’s “mind over matter.” It’s just like when your parents tell you that, “You can do anything if you put your mind into it”. Quitting is possible, if I can do it anyone can, you just have to want it for yourself.

--Kory Van Enkenvoort

Tsé Bitʼaʼí

Tsé Bitʼaʼí

Located out in the Southwestern desert plains by the town of Shiprock, is Shiprock Rock, the feature the town was named after. It is a huge disabled volcanic rock on the Navajo Reservation. Rising almost two thousand feet from the high desert plain, the rock sits in the center of the land of the ancient Pueblo civilization and a prehistoric Anasazi culture.

Tsé Bitʼaʼí is the Navajo name for it, meaning Rock with Wings. From a distance, Shiprock Rock looks like a gigantic sitting bird with its wings folded to its sides. Behind the Navajo name for the rock, the story goes that a gigantic bird carried the Navajos from the cold northlands to the Four Corners area, this is substantiated by other Native American stories and history that can explored among the Navajo people.

Captain J.F. McComb, an explorer in 1860 immediately named the rock The Needles, because of its pointed height. Despite this, the name didn’t last as long as he thought, because the rock was also called Shiprock by the locals. The locals were the Navajos that lived in the area where Shiprock can been seen; they called it Shiprock Rock because of the stories (explained in paragraph two). The name Shiprock has been stuck to maps since the 1870’s, and has always been used, because the rock’s resemblance towards the nineteenth century clipper ships.


In Navajo folklore, Shiprock is a sacred landmark to the Navajo people. It plays a role in Navajo religion and tradition. The legend of Shiprock is that the Native American people were running away from an invading tribe, so the Navajo people prayed for deliverance. The ground beneath them transformed into a gigantic bird that carried the people on its back for one day and night, then landing during sunset, it folded its wings. As the people were climbing off from the bird, a giant dragon looking creature, named Cliff Monster, built a nest on the bird’s back, trapping the bird. The people sent Monster Slayer to fight Cliff Monster in a battle; during the battle the bird was injured. Monster Slayer killed Cliff Monster by cutting off its head. It now lays at the east Cabezon Peak. The bird was fatally injured. To keep the bird alive, Monster Slayer turned the bird into stone, and today it is a reminder to the Diné of the birds sacrifice in their deliverance.


More tales of the rock have surfaced, telling of Diné people who lived on the mountain, planting food and watering their fields. During a lightning storm, lightning struck the only trail, destroying their passage way. Marooned on the mountain, the people starved to death, and they are now considered ghosts, ghosts that still haunt the mountain today. Presently, it is illegal to climb Shiprock.


A rumor that was spread in the 1930s that whoever climbed to the top of the peak would be rewarded one-thousand dollars, which inspired both experienced and inexperienced climbers. It became illegal to climb the mountain for several reasons: in March, 1970, an accident happened that resulted in death because of a failed attempt to climb the rock. Also, it is forbidden to climb Shiprock, so the chindi’s won’t be disturbed nor have their remains taken as souvenirs.


As I mentioned in the beginning, Shiprock Rock is a sacred landmark to the Navajo people. In today’s century, Shiprock has been made into several cameos in Hollywood movies, like Transformers, John Carter, The Host, and The Lone Ranger. With Shiprock’s appearances in these movies, it caused conflicts with the Navajo people, who say, “Shiprock Rock is a sacred Native American landmark; they are exposing our tradition to the world.”


Shiprock will always be part of the Navajo’s daily tradition and worshipped as a reminder of the stories that this rock holds. Later, in a time of need the great bird itself will soon come back to life, and then carry its people to new land.