are on one of these roads and you get to the edge of a cliff, you can see that it's easier to go dowmaybe 20 feet over to your left, but they go right down the cliff. and you look down the cliff and there are stairs carved into the cliff face so that this road stays absolutely straight. my take on this is that out in the desert, the ultimate commodity besides water is visibility. and if you set a line across the desert, you are going to see it from everywhere. every butte top, you are going it look down on this desert and see these bold lines coming across the desert and you know that line goes somewhere. you get on it, you stay on it, and it will lead you to what are called great houses, up it 3 acres in size. these great houses are often aligned in a certain way so that at certain times of year, say summer solstice, light comes through certain windows. i have sat in these at different times of the year and watched this light show start at sunrise where lights start appearing on the walls all around me and you realize this is how you tell time out in this landscape. this is the way they