Toaster House

We woke to a desert morning in the Toaster House, feeling like lottery winners.

The Toaster House was the opposite of the Painted Desert campground. Here was a respository of good karma. Five children had grown up in its rooms; two had been born in the living room. Upstairs, family photos peeked from behind knotholes in the wall. These days, Nita still has the maternal touch. She keeps a fridge and freezer stocked with beer, soda and food for hikers who express their appreciation in her guest book. At the front door, her sign wishes visitors a restful stay, a safe journey and an "Aloha."

Simply put, the place had soul.

It was all around inside — in the paperbacks and National Geographics lining the shelves, in the bottles, mugs and assorted bric-a-brac filling alcoves, in Nita's friendly messages posted around, and in the small library of CDs and tapes for playing on the stereo. Antique pressed tin panels painted green covered the kitchen ceiling.

It was all around outside. A rusting, battered stove, hubcaps and agate chunks created a funky garden in the dusty front yard. On a fence post sat a Mickey Mouse head. In the back, the shell of an old camper van lay buried in the ground, looking like it might have once served as a chicken coop. Two tiny gray kittens emerged from under a shed and blinked in the morning light, not far from a tattered, cushion-less wicker chair. Mysteriously, there was even an old pay phone.

Monks wouldn't have felt comfortable amidst all the stuff. But we felt right at home.