Sedona

I took a few days vacation and went to Sedona AZ. I had heard so much about it that I was very interested in seeing it. I arrived on route 179, coming around a corner to see the first beautiful cliff of red sandstone right in front of me. A bit further and I saw a pinker red cliff. These were the first pics I took. I drove into Sedona’s main street and saw the sign for Tourist info. Stopped and got shanghaied into one of those Time Share Pressure Sales promotions. They very cleverly have their hook shop in the same parking lot as the regular info center. You start out asking for maps and end up with all this free stuff if you will listen to a presentation. You know what I mean. Well, the tightwad in me raised its ugly head and I went for the presentation. I earned all the free stuff, believe me!!

Anyway, the main thing I earned was a combo tour with Pink Jeeps. A $115 value for $15. As my son pointed out, when was the last time I earned $50 an hour??? The tour was great off-roading fun. We went thru the part of the Coconino National Forest called Broken Arrow because that is where the movie of that name with Jeff Chandler as Cochise (I think) was made. Anyway, rode the jeep up and down rocks I would be afraid to walk on! Very beautiful views. The guide kept talking about the manzanita bushes which are dying because of the severe drought. These bushes have mahogany collored stems which show through the greenery like beautiful sculptures. Loved it. Then we went to the rim of the valley along Oak Creek Canyon. Breathtaking. We went up to 7000 feet from a base of 4000. Learned that the valley walls are basically sandstone and limestone but on the very top of all this is basalt from volcano activity. The hardest rock on the top means that the sandstone erodes first under the basalt and huge boulders of basalt break off and come rolling down into the valley. I took some pics of basalt boulders in Oak Creek.

I visited the airport twice for sunset pics. Mostly I liked the way the dimming light cast beautiful shadows on the cliffs. But the sunset wasn’t too shabby. The view from there is over the whole town so you realize what a small town it really is.

I climbed up through Oak Creek Canyon first in the dark so didn’t really realize what it was like until the next day when I came down thru it. Tried to get a pic of the switchback road that drops over 2000 feet in seconds! Loved that canyon and took some pics at the Slide Rock state park. At that point the canyon widens a little and the park enables you to walk along the streambed where the rushing water in some seasons still is carving the rocks. Channels have been scooped out by the water and people are allowed to sit down and slide along the rock channels being propelled by the water. This section ends in a deeper pool so seems safe enough but 50 degree water did not invite me. (Temps in Sedona average 50’s this month but it was well in the 70’s each day I was there). It was beautiful just to walk along the rock ledges in the streambed.

When I left Sedona, I traveled further on 89A toward Prescott AZ. I had stopped at Montezuma’s Castle on the way to Sedona and now I stopped at Tuzigoot (TWO-zee-goot). Both of these ruins are believed to have belonged to the Sinagua (seen-AH-wah) people. The name is Spanish meaning Without Water. Those at Montezuma’s Castle built homes under cliff overhangs high above the Verde Valley floor (similar to Mesa Verde). There is some evidence that they practiced irrigation which was similar to that of native civilizations in Mexico. The people at Tuzigoot practiced dry land farming and lived in pueblos on a high hill in the Verde Valley. These pueblos were made of two parallel walls of sandstone and limestone with fill in between the walls. A mud-like mortar was used to hold the stones. Interesting to me.

Tuzigoot is located near the town of Cottonwood. Aptly named as the cottonwood trees are turning golden in this season and you can see the route of the river since they are the only trees in the area. I enjoyed Cottonwood for another reason. I was stopped by a parade as I was looking for Tuzigoot. Suddenly, coming to an intersection, a cop stepped out and stopped all traffic. Then there appeared out of nowhere, Santa riding in the high back seat of a tri-motorcycle. He was followed by about 300 motorcycles in parade! Harley Davidson is really doing things up well!

Two things keep recurring as I tour the Southwest. Of course, I’m always in the desert and I’m always aware of the dry washes which drain the land after drenching rains. Here in Texas, I’ve discovered they are called draws. Now that fits better with the cowboy image of Texas. I always remember Westerns with cowboys driving the cattle out of draws. Don’t you?

Valley of the Sun

This was posted out of order. It should have been posted about 11/15/07.

We went to Phoenix today and climbed (drove) up South Mountain City Park. It is reputed to be the largest city park in the nation. It is located right on the edge of Phoenix and we climbed rapidly up about 2000 feet on a beautiful road. The overlooks were stupendous! We were above the landing and takeoff paths for the busy, busy airport. I think they were using parallel runways because there was a landing and a takeoff about every 30 seconds. Beautiful to watch from above!

You could see the whole Valley of the Sun laid out before you. (If you have the ability to get your hands on a copy of the out of print book called The Weans , even try to borrow one, it would tell you what I am thinking as I write “Valley of the Sun”.) One of the lookout buildings had a wonderful sundial like brass plate with labels and directions to various cities and points of interest. I can tell you there is no dividing line between Phoenix and its surrounding cities. One blends right into another. The only clear demarcations were the desert landscapes and the imported trees landscapes.

We then drove to Scottsdale and toured on the free city trolley. Wow! Now I know how the other half lives. Pricey and then pricier!! No trailer parks or RV parks in that city!! Lots of art galleries but these were the real thing. Not tourist traps. One gallery was advertising that it had Andy Wyeths for sale!! Anyway, all parking in Scottsdale is free – no meters and even parking garages are free. The mall stores were like Nieman Marcus etc!

It was very nice but still desert with an average of 100 days in triple digits!!

This whole area is known as the Sonora Desert. It extends from Northern Mexico into Arizona. We drove to the Desert Museum and to the Saguaro (sah-WAH-row) National Park in Tucson. On the way we saw a large group of airliners parked in a field. It turns out this is called the Pinal (this county) Air Park. Apparently a place to drop off excess or not currently used airliners. Every color of the rainbow was represented but all seemed to be of the same make or model, the ones with the high dorsal fin tail.

Anyway, the Desert Museum. If you ever get to Tucson, you MUST go here. It is unlike any museum I’ve ever been to. A couple of buildings but basically a huge Southwestern garden. Native plants, bushes and cacti!! Now for a little flora lesson ( you’ve had the geology lessons right along). Cacti were always just THEM. A group of undifferentiated stuff but now…

First, everyone knows Kristi’s favorite, the saguaro but do you know the rest?? We saw spiny ocotillo which looks dead but as soon as it gets some rain, will burst into little green leaves which it drops as soon as it gets dry again so it usually looks like dead spines. Peggy liked the fluffy Teddy Bear Cholla (Choya) which you would never want to hug! I liked the Buckhorn Cholla which reminded me of stiffly braided rope. Similar to it is the Chain Rope Cholla which is like braided cable. We can identify Organ Pipe and Senita which is like organ pipe but is six sided rather than round. I almost left out the Chain Fruit Cholla (also called Hanging Fruit Cholla) which is like the Teddy Bear, fluffy, but has fruit hanging from under its top. Now be sure to look at the pics and see what they each look like.

In addition to cacti, the museum had loots of bushes. The palo verde is seen thoughout the desert. It has green bark so the entire bush is green. The turpentine bush is also prevalent. It has white or yellow fluffy flowers on the top. The tree or bush with fern-like leaves and thorns is acacia of one variety or another. The jojoba (hohoba) is used in shampoo. Last but not least is the creosote bush which gives off a pungent odor when wet. People say this is the smell of rain in the desert!!

Then we visited the National park and enjoyed the views of thousands of saguaros marching up and down the hills. No two are alike but the “normal” is not the two armed picture seen everywhere. Normal is multiple arms pointing in multiple directions! Loved it.

Today Mike and Peggy took me to a surprise! We went out to Florence AZ (30 miles) to see a Greek Orthodox Monastery which was founded 11 years ago. Wow!! I’ve never seen anything like it. There is a main church building (see pics) and about 5 other chapels so far. Three or four guest buildings, a dining hall and a building for the 45 brothers. You have to report to the bookshop on the way in where a strict dress code is explained. We were inappropriately dressed so… They provided long pants and shirts with long sleeves for Mike and I and a long skirt, long sleeved blouse and a kerchief for Peg. We got a guided tour of the main church and a self guided tour of the rest. It is a marvel to see the beautiful gardens surrounding every building and walkway. Fountains everywhere. An interesting marriage of Spanish Southwestern architecture with traditional Greek. Beautiful, beautiful everywhere you looked.

We were driving East on I-8 in AZ when suddenly I noticed cars coming toward us on a road to our right!! It seems that at one point to put the road through some mountains, I-8 split and Westbound crosses over Eastbound and continues up the mountains on the right of the Eastbound. Wild feeling!!

Casa Grande

We moved from Yuma today about 180 miles East to Casa Grande. This town was named for the ruins found about 20 miles North of here. When the Spanish arrived in 1600, they found a ruin of a village centered around a huge house (Casa Grande). the building was at least 3 stories tall with rooms of unknown use. Over the centuries, the building has deteriorated but you can still tell it was huge for the era when it was built.

Archaeologists have worked the site for most of the 20th century and have pieced together that a civilization known as Hohokam. They settled this area around 300 AD and built the Big House around 1100. They seemed to have knowledge like the Mexican civilizations: irrigation canals, large building engineering, and calendar knowledge with view ports in the Big House for sun solstice and moon events. They ma be related to the Pueblos. Anyway, they built the Casa Grande from Caliche (KA Lee Che) which is calcium carbonate and is found as hard pan here in the Sonora desert. They in effect made concrete and poured the mixture into 2 foot sections right on the walls they were building. They did not use blocks or bricks as is done with adobe. I was amazed to see their efforts. I had never heard of them.

Yuma Crossing/Landing

From the time I arrived in Yuma, I have been hearing about Yuma Landing and Yuma Crossing. The phrases seemed to be interchangeable. Then one evening, Peggy and Mike and some friends took me to Yuma Landing. It is a restaurant. It is built on the site of the first airplane landing in Yuma. It was one of those early biplanes and had to be pushed up the hill so it could take a lot of using the speed of the downhill run. The restaurant is decorated with lots of photos of the era. The next day Peggy and Mike took me to Yuma Crossing. It's in the same neighborhood as the Landing.

However, those two are not related in any way. Yuma Crossing is the historic Park which has been established at this site off the Colorado River Crossing. The mighty Colorado, before it was dammed to death, was an obstacle to transportation East and West. Long before the arrival of the Spanish, the Indians had discovered this ford. The river at this point is divided into three channels flowing around two islands. The river was shallow and men could walk across from island to island. This became critical when the Army established a Fort at Yuma. Supplies could be brought up the Colorado from the Gulf of California and offloaded at Yuma. When the transcontinental railroad was built, a railroad bridge was built over the Colorado at the same site. Later, the last link in an ocean to ocean road was the highway bridge built over the Colorado right next to the railroad bridge. Thus, Yuma Crossing is really a Crossing of the Colorado at Yuma.

The other very interesting thing at that state Park is the Yuma Main Canal Inverted Siphon. Around 1905, the federal government became interested in making the desert bloom. They decided to build a dam on the Colorado called the Laguna dam. It was a good place to build the dam (and steal 90% of the Colorado water) but difficult to deliver the water to the Yuma area. The Gila River flows across Arizona and into the Colorado between the Laguna dam and Yuma. The erratic flooding of the Gila made it impossible to carry the water to Yuma. So an engineering marvel was devised. The water was sent from the dam down the California side (West side) to a point opposite the Yuma Crossing. Then site was built to carry the water and 90 feet down on the California side across under the Colorado River and back up 90 feet where it dumps into the Yuma Main Canal. So the siphon is U-shaped but goes under the river instead of over it!

They had a 1930 model AA truck (so like Vickie's) on display and in running order! And then there were the railroad trucks exactly like those used in Charlestown when I was a paperboy in the papers were delivered to the railroad station. Some of you might remember those hand trucks!

I really enjoyed this and we only left because Peggy and I were hungry. We had not planned this excursion so we didn't have my camera or the crackers so necessary for a Safari!

We leave Yuma tomorrow for points East!

Yuma Prison/Colorado River

Peggy and Mike took me sightseeing to the Yuma Prison. They had visited it earlier and thought I would enjoy it. Were they ever right.

The prison was built when Arizona was a territory, before it became a state. The prisoners mined the granite on the hill and built their own prison. Granite mining remained a primary occupation for the prisoners throughout the life of the prison. The pictures of the Dark Cell I think are unique. Prisoners hollowed out three cells from the living rock with only a small air hole to admit light. These were used as punishment cells! I was uncomfortable being in one with the door open and the sun streaming in!! The first picture is of what the prison looked like in its heyday. Note the wide Colorado River flowing along at the base of the hill then look at the same river today. It has shrunk to a minuscule flow. Most of the materials to build the prison (except for the granite) were brought here on the Colorado River which was navigable from the Gulf of California (by Baja California). Today the stream is small enough to wade, I think. A little research reveals that the federal government built the Imperial Diversion Dam upstream of Yuma and diverts 90% of the Colorado's water to irrigation and city water systems. Mexico gets what is left. So much for downstream water rights.

We have explored the area from here to the Mexican border and I find my old US history coming to life. Remember the Gadsden purchase?? It was a strip of land purchased from Mexico so a trans-continental railroad could be built. If you look at a map, the part of Arizona which extends further south than California is that purchase. We drove into it the other day and drove through the town of Gadsden. We also crossed the Gila River which is ringing memory bells but I can't place it yet. Anyway, living in my history book!

Off to San Diego tomorrow. I'll let you know what I find but don't expect expert pictures as my photographer is not coming along!

Yuma Arizona

Thanks to my daughter Melissa, I know now that those strange mountains in Southern California are called the Laguna Mountains. They are located between San Diego and the desert, straddling Interstate 8. The mountains are composed of gneiss and schist. They started as sandstone and mudstone, metamorphosed into granitic schist and quartzite. At some time in the distant past, they were turned vertical (tilted) by rising magma and metamorphosed. What you see today is the result of those processes and severe erosion.

Some highlights of our stay in Yuma follow. Peggy and Mike went to a buffet last year and so wanted to take me as soon as we got here. There is Indian Reservation just across the border in California where there is the usual gambling complex. On Friday nights, they offer the best seafood buffet I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in the one armed bandits (they still have some manual one armed bandits in this casino!) But the food! The Food! I ate Alaskan King crab. They were the largest, thickest crab legs I’d ever seen. The shells broke easily exposing beautiful crabmeat which came out whole. Peggy decided that on our next trip, she’s eating crab too. Of course, other tidbits included seafood au gratin, steamers, shrimp in a variety of dishes, and several kinds of fish. Oh, also a dessert table including half a dozen sugar-free desserts. We are going back!

Mike Peggy took me Algodones Mexico. By car it’s about 10 miles. 5 miles back into California and 5 miles south. Incidentally, the border between this part of Arizona and California is what’s left of the Colorado River. Remember, that’s the mighty river that carved the Grand Canyon but now is tapped by the city of Los Angeles and much of its water is siphoned off. Others grab their share and a small stream enters Mexico. The landscape between here and Algodones is essentially desert, even a little bit that’s irrigated on both sides of the state border is really desert.

We parked the car at the border (the same Indians who run a casino offer parking at five dollars a day on the US side of the border. We walked across into Mexico with no questions asked. Two steps of the border and you’re in a border town which seems to exist to capture American dollars. Peggy and Mike wanted to have their teeth cleaned and I wanted to check out new lenses for my scratched glasses. There have got to be 25 to 50 dentists offices, a similar number of eyeglass outlets, again of drugstores, not to mention the plastic surgeons. The sidewalks outside all the shops and stores have street vendors. You walk down the sidewalk with articles for sale on your left, overhead, and on the right. The nice thing about it is this provides shady sidewalks in the hot sun. Every vendor tries to stop you. Every price is set for haggling, at least on the sidewalks. I have been offered so much Viagra that I’m a danger! Some of the vendors include those children who offer to shine your shoes (I was wearing sneakers). We watched for young men painting the most unbelievable pictures with spray cans of paint. There were lanterns whose glass chimney’s had been painted with Southwest scenes. There were frame-able pictures, saws, and other decorated items. I watched them work for quite a while. They were fast, accurate, skillful and entertaining. They mixed colors on torn pieces of newspaper. They used scrunched up plastic shopping bags to apply this paint onto their spray painted surface. They used the edge of a piece of cardboard (like a cereal box) to make lines which turned into a cactus or a bird or a coyote. I don’t think anyone can appreciate the artistry unless they had seen it.

We returned to Algodones twice more that week. In addition to everything above, I was amazed by the customs procedure at the border when returning. It seemed to me that those people in cars had a much longer wait and a better chance of detailed inspection. The walkers didn't spend much time with the border patrol agent. They asked what you bought in Mexico, looked at your passport, ran the number through a reader and sent you on your way. Somehow, I expected more but I was glad it moved well because it was very hot in the sun, waiting.

Somehow, that sentence about being hot in the sun made me think a little about the climate here. I have heard a million times and that "it's dry heat". I always felt, dry or not, hot is hot. Well, I guess I have to confess I was wrong. Hazy hot and humid is uncomfortable in the sun or in the shade. Here, as soon as you step out of the sun, you feel a huge difference in the heat. Since arriving in Yuma, most days have been in the low 90s in the shade. Going anywhere in the sun has been hot and uncomfortable. But I can sit in the shade beside our camper and read comfortably in this heat. I know I can't be comfortable at 93° but I am! Hard to get New England out of my brain! What I really love here is the endless sunny days with beautiful blue skies. The evenings are simply the best. About an hour after sundown, the temperature drops in to the low 80's or high 70's, the air is balmy, there are no bugs and an evening walk about 8 pm is heaven. I could begin to think about this!!

I had planned to take a little vacation from this arduous journey and visit San Diego by myself. Within a few days of making of this plan, San Diego went up in flames! Calamity Jane strikes again. With 900,000 evacuated from the city and thousands of homes burned to the ground, Melissa advised me to rethink my plans. As usual, she's right. So, our drive through San Diego County may be as close as I get to San Diego. I'll let you know. Meantime, my son Erik is planning a Mexico tour for me. Some time ago I took a course on early civilizations in Mexico and he suggested I would enjoy seeing some of those sites. I totally agree. Stay tuned.