SouthWestSlide: _{Spring 2004}

Phase Two_(a)
The Preskit Sperience And Other Joys

(Easter Sunday 11 April 2004)

Easter Sunday, Maureen's xth birthday.

Not much happening here now. So we're doing a low-key Easter in 2004, unlike the past. 2003: Antigua, Guatemala. 2002: The Awhanee, Yosemite. 2001: Amalfi, Italy. 2000: I don't remember, probably nothing.

And today we're On Retreat again. Don't bother us.

Day 14: Into Prescott O Joy O Joy
(Monday 12 April 2004)

Morning: We left White Spar campground just as the loggers moved in. Whack fol a dadi oh! We've just crossed into the city limits of Prescott (pronounced Preskit or Prescut, as the guys on the radio and all other non-greenhorns call it). It was cold there last night, freezing literally. We think maybe we'll be looking for accommodations at a lower elevation very soon. Meanwhile today is for exploration and chores.

Day 15: Still Around Prescott
(Tuesday 13 April 2004)

Morning: We're still in the White Spar cold camp outside Prescott. OK, we looked for warmer lower-level accommodations and there weren't none even remotely acceptable, so we're back here.

And we're in Prescott a little longer than we expected 'cause WalMart did an oil change on the RV yesterday and they broke the dipstick while doing so and won't get a new one in until today (maybe) so we are here until this afternoon (at least). We'll go exploring museums.

Yesterday we toodled around Prescott, poked our noses into some antique stores, came out with a PILE of books, many from a SPRING MADNESS sale from one antique dealer, only a DOLLAR each for some great old stuff and a little more for some even greater old stuff.

There's some beautiful country around Prescott. The town itself is interesting but not really photogenic - just a western town laid out on a broad grid pattern, with nicely restored Victorians widely spaced. Except for some of the building on the historic register downtown there's really nothing worth whipping out a camera for.

Evening: We're out west of Prescott in the Granite Basin area, a new campground, which is where we're staying tonight because the dipstick hasn't arrived yet so we're waiting 'til we get the call from WalMart on that. Had a great day today, looking thru the FABULOUS FABULOUS exhibition of Western paintings at the Phippen Museum: WINDOW ON THE WEST. And we stomped around Prescott, looked around antique stores again, bought just a couple books but I FINALLY got the March 1953 Arizona Highways, the Harry Oliver issue! Got two copies, one's missing a few pages but not the good stuff.

So this evening we're up in higher drier country full of alligator juniper and more rocks and vistas. Back in the piney wood forest we were hemmed-in for the last THREE nights, wow, three nights, our longest sojourn around one place so far this trip. OK, we are at Yavapai campground, very close to a Peregrine falcon habitat.

Today we lunched at the Thai House in town, very good, very reasonable price. Yesterday we lunched at the Maya Mexican - ditto. Two big upturned thumbs. Now there aren't very many Mexican eateries around Prescott, and I get the impression that say AUTHENTIC MEXICAN aren't, and Maya didn't say that but it was. Great fish tacos, non-fried, non-greasy. Mmmm. And both the Maya and Thai had specials even cheaper. At the Thai, lunch special includes two curries or whatever of your choice. Cruising around Prescott as we have for a couple days now it seems like the standard Lunch Special price is around $5.50.

Prescott seems to be burgeoning, looks like its become another arts-antiques-artisans-retirees enclave. 100 miles from Phoenix, not much different than Volcano is to Sacramento. And the air is better up here and looking due north you see the snow-clad San Francisco peaks above Flagstaff. And vast realms of lower desert in between.

Day 17: Leaving Prescott
(Thursday 15 April 2004)

Morning, we're STILL around Prescott in Granite Basin. Yesterday, another grand day in Prescott, saw the Smoki (SMO-KYE) Museum, a wonderful wonderful place filled with Injun Stuff. And our dipstick finally arrived so we can finally leave today. It's very beautiful and pleasant here in the Granite Basin. The place isn't overrun by WooWooErs yet but give'em time... They have a toehold in town.

Later: SO-OO we finally roll out of Prescott which Maureen must be allergic to because she's been sneezing seriously. Roll out past the fabulous Point of Rocks again, across the burgeoning Prescott Valley and up to Mingus Mountain and Jerome, the most vertical town in America. Prescott is a town with three colleges and all the acoutrements thereof. The 2-year JC, the aeronautical university, and thde 4-year liberal arts school.

Last night I determined that is IS possible to get good star pictures with the Sony DSC-V1 camera. Set on Manual, ISO 800, 1/30th of a second, f2.8 and let it sit and yeah, it gets stars and planets and all that kinda stuff. Very nice. Just can't leave it on Auto.

Rural portions of Prescott Valley are covered little ground-hugging platyopuntia, which implies that it either gets real hot here in the summer and real cold in the winter, or that these get stomped by cattle. They're interspersed with low agaves, a foot high or less. Agaves or stalkless yuccas.

Climbing a bit higher we see that besides agaves there are big clumps of bunchgrass. Now we're ascending back into a juniper zone, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some piñons around too. Yep, there's one! Familiar environmental terrain.

Crawling up Mingus Mountain but we're not listening to Charlie Mingus, I don't think we brought any, we have to substitute Art Blakey. Oh, the irony. (Maureen laughs.)

We peak-out just over 7000 feet. Coming down from Mingus there's a point where you can look across the Verde Valley at the steep cliffs of the Mogollon Rim and then the snow-capped San Francisco peaks off off behind those cliffs and unfortunately there's no place to stop to take a picture DAMMIT!

Crowing: AHA! If there isn't a wide spot I'll MAKE ONE!! NYAH HAH HAH!! And I got the picture.

A couple miles from Jerome the road becomes a series of *very* tight hairpins, very steep, and we start seeing evidences of old mines - tailings and deserted structures and abandoned equipment. The drive is especially slow because there's a SPECIAL EVENT happening, the cop here says its the filming of a BMW bike commercial.

Evening of 15 April 2004, tax day for other people. We're a couple miles out of Clarkdale Arizona. Just out of the beautiful Verde Valley, below the Mogollon Rim - yeah, this is under-the-rim country (cf Zane Grey.) Near a scenic site called Sycamore Canyon, downstream I guess from Sedona.

We had a wonderful time stomping all over Jerome in midday. Five hours, up and down the hills. Jerome feels like the Amalfi Coast without the ocean. Partly because it's a mild day and mostly because of the sheer verticality of the place and the necessary adaptations. The winding winding narrow road lined with tall structures - at least one side they're short, on the uphill side they're short.

Growth: The Verde Valley like Prescott is experiencing the expansion of Phoenix. And so more and more people come up here to buy residences or to visit because the weather is better than down there. And it's a quaint place so artisans, craftspeople, artists, merchants show up here to separate those folks from their cash. We were separated from some today. Maureen got a nice bracelet. Navaho old-pawn turquoise-and-silver, handcut facets.

But enough was enough. We rolled down the hill into Clarksdale and Cottonwood, scouted out paid accomodaions - no good. Scouted-out the train, got reservations for Saturday morning to cruise up the Verde Valley.

Solitude: Meanwhile we're out here in this high cattle country. We know there's cattle around, I can see the cowchips. And scattered everywhere are more ground-crawling platyopuntia, other small cacti too - mammilaria maybe? I'm really rusty on my cacti now. For shame!

Piñon-juniper woodland, just above the scrub level, and below the more forested mesa tops. I do believe we will laze around here tomorrow. Catch the train Saturday morning, see Tuzigoot on Saturday afternoon, and from there, ¿quien focking sabe?

In the twilight, the elongated lights over the western hills, contrails of planes *far* away, almost at the horizon. The first bright planet has come out, that must be Venus up there, about 35° up in the west-west-northwest. Aha! A second bright planet is visible further east along the ecliptic. Probably Jupiter. This is the season when a string of planets should be notable along the ecliptic.

Across an arroyo to the north I hear an owl hooting. Off to the south I see the lights of further Cottonwood but nearer Clarkdale, maybe 5 miles {straight line} as the crow flies, 10 miles if the crow has to walk and push a flat tire.

And when daylight hits us again, the hills around here will be red.

(Friday 16 April 2004)

Campering in Verde Valley. Had a fairly nice day laying around camp, reading and computing. Couldn't get the new cellphone-modem function to work, on either computer. Bummer. And this afternoon I set up the V1 camera on a tripod for some nature photography and the wind caught it, blew it over, and NOW IT DON'T WORK!! WAH!!! SHIT SHIT SHIT!! The nearest shop is probably in Phoenix, and who know how long it'll take to fix? And just when I had figured out how to do some pretty fair nighttime photography too...

Day 19: Doing Verde Valley
(Saturday 17 April 2004)

ON THE TRAIN: Verde River Canyon AZ. On the train ride, beautiful ride. Start off in the open desert and then drop down into the canyons, past eagles' nests and ancient ruins and cliff dwellings - farms er excuse me, ranches. Now we're at the little nothing Perkinsville station in the beautiful middle of pristine nowhere, where we'll turn around and head back.

Gorgeous day, blue sky, a few white clouds, bright red rocks, bright green foliage on the cottonwoods and mesquites and junipers, and sycamores and willows down along the river. We're in deep cuts going thru layers of sandstone and limestone, and layers of basalt - this was all volcanic some time back. Huge piles of big platyopuntia around. Ocotillas and yuccas still in bloom. .

Features: We passed named features: Eagle Rock, Elephant Rock, Turtle Rock. If ya look real close, well they MIGHT look like that... Ancient caves and natural caverns. The rocks are layered like and Inferno Cake with a sprinkling of green sugar.

The river pours over little cascades, thru deep pools, around small islands - never too wide, this is not the flood season. The train runs at 10 mph. We go thru a tunnel of Stygian blackness, those of us in the open observation cars are warned to keep our arms in, the walls of the tunnel are no more than six inches away. Don't need no spontaneous amputations here...

People: Passengers are a mixed crowd from around the states, around the world. Mostly Anglo-Euro. We did hear German spoken. An AARP chapter meeting could be held here.

We've taken First Class passage, which means means free eats (or the eats are paid for), and a comfortable seat if you choose to sit down - unlike the Cattle Car and Bread'n'Water accommodations at the other end of the train. (And of course First Class people are BETTER than 2nd class, with all their screaming tots and sweaty armpits.) But except for scarfing up the rather good biscuits'n'gravy and fruit crepes, almost all MY time is spent out here in the open observation car, sucking up the excellent air and scenery.

Blooms: Some pencil cholla in bloom and more mamillaria, here'n'there a little black sage, buttercups and goldenfaces and desert asters, sunflower family plants in pale blue and bright yellow and white. Little poppies, lupines, mallows, whatever.

More puffs of cumulus in the south, looks like some weather is blowing in fom the west. It certainly is breezy enough up here, both on the train and off. But the predominant theme is of the Red Rocks, in places as prominent as the Nova Scotia Highlands of Cape Breton Island in fall color. Too vast to photograph meaningfully. All this Red Rock and we ain't even at Sedona yet...

This wind is cool but dry, sucking me out, leaving me dessicated, a comfortable husk. If it wasn't for the covering of the observation car I'd be out in the sun, fried with goosebumps. (wind noise)

We round another bend, the landscape covered with prickly pear, mesquite, all looking burnt except for their greenery.

OFF THE TRAIN: Finally we get to Tuzigoot, interesting hilltop ruins but most of the masonry here loks as if it's been reconstructed so it's hard to tell what it would have actually looked like. Magnificent overlook of rugged countryside. Those strange patterned fields below are settling ponds from the copper smelter.

From the plant guides here I see that some of what I took to be juniper was actually cypress, some of what I took to be mesquite was cat's-claw acacia. I am REALLY really rusty on my desert botany. It's time for a brain transplant.

Rolling: After Tuzigoot we looked thru the meagre antique offerings in Cottonwood, we DID find a couple good books. Then we got BLOWN WAY - very strong winds. We reprovisioned, headed over thru McGuireville on the InterState, now we're heading up towards Montezuma's Well, Along the way passing TOP OF THE MORNING DRIVE, RED BARON DRIVE, the Montezuma-Rimrock Fire Dept. And a fast-food place called EATROGLYPHS!

Still awesome country. Maureen sez she thought maybe Maynard Dixon was exagerrating in his paintings of the Mogollon Rim but after what we've seen she has dropped that notion.

At Montezuma's Well we turn off on Forest Road 119 and then FR 121, the highway to (or from) Rimrock. Highway, eh? Well. the rocks ain't TOO big. We go across a flooded roadway, a stream's flowing right across the road but it's paved right there (as we washed the RV's tires in it). It feels like driving some of the more adventurous routes on Kaua'i. Except of course this is bigger. Portions of this road have a very rocky pavement but no hu-hu. And we blast on thru going past all this high-country, still in the piñon-juniper zone, lots of beavertail cactus, bunchgrasses, buttercups. And The Wind Doth Blow.

Country's getting gnarlier, we expect to see the Frisco Kid and his gang come ridin' outa the hills at any moment. The road gets pretty gnarly here'n'there. especially at that last cattle guard, whew! The sign for the cattle guard, somebody shot the shit out of that! And I'm thinking OH! MY! We didn't bring any guns! We could do some SHOOTIN' out here!

O here's an interesting rut, let's see if we survive it, gotta put this tape recorder down now. (scraping noises) Ooo-wee, that was a squeaker! But my indominable skill and perseverance and good luck and finesse and all that shit, NO PROBLEM!

EVENING: And after many travails we make it across the mountains past Rimrock, wherever that was, to the nearest campground. And it's full. So we come up to a closed road and drive right thru the flimsy baracade and go off up a nameless track, and we just camped up here in the brush. Looks like a forest of big, not ephedra, cassia trees maybe? around us. Yeah, cassia, the source of henna. Dark ominous clouds overhead, the sky's settling down on us. Earlier we had late sun casting huge slanting shadows across our track and now it's gone and there's just this gray covering that threatens rain tonight.

Last night we had a few, no many many stars to behold. Tonight, none, just the heavy overcast. At the horizon, dull glows off in the distance - maybe Sedona and Flagstaff, or towns along the InterState which is only a couple miles away. And the sky collapses, the rain descends, lightly. The desert is washed while our ship is tied to port, a wild port on a scarcely-charted island.

Day 20: Outa Verde Valley
(Sunday 18 April 2004)

Morning: Early morning at our camp, the clouds had moved away to the horizon, stars were visible overhead, and we got up and it was a beautiful and coolish day. After a bit of personal maintenance we went down to the magnificent Montezuma's Well, a limestone sinkhole about 150 yards across, 20 yards deep. Full of many things, but receiving 500 or 600 thousands of gallons of water per day, which then trickles out and was used by irrigation. Many cliff-dwellings, ruins are built into this giant hole in the limestone. A most awesome sight.

From there back to the Verde Valley and Montezuma's Castle, which is crowded this Sunday for some reason. (That's supposed to be ironical.) The site is of course spectacular in a small way, the fine cliff dwelling just above the verdant creekside riparian habitat. We made our way past the crowds, then came on down to Camp Verde.

Lunch: We stopped in at Ming House Chinese Restaurant for lunch. We got STUFFED with absolutely great stuff. It's in a dilapidated old shopping center and it's painted pink and red but BOY the food is good and reasonable. Yeah, nice people - thumbs WAY up. Yeah a superior little buffet.

And in Camp Verde we passed by Top Shelf Liquors Archery. And we wondered: do you use the bow and arrow to shoot your bottles off the shelf, or do you get durnk and then shoot the bows and arrows and see where the arrows land? Hmmm...

Camp Verde is being upgraded, the main street is being widened, they're putting in curbs and sidewalks. That means all the businesses along here are closed. So no antique hunting today. And somewhere here there was a sign for a place that said YUCKY STORE. And I wonder about that.

Rolling: Heading south out of Camp Verde on the InterState we go up a steep steep grade up to elevations somewhere north of 4000 feet, up to a high grassland where even the mesquites are spare, scarce. Lots of opuntia however and some junipers are visible here'n'there. And as we drop down a bit more, mesquites show up again.

After nightfall, Bloody Basin Road, Agua Fria National Monument. Leaving Arcosanti at Cordes Junctions we were just going down to the next offramp which was here, about 12 miles or so. It took awhile because within a mile of the Bloody Basin Road, everything on southbound InterState 17 stopped. And there was a party there for about half an hour, folks running around talking to each other, exchanging liquids, wondering about the cause of the delay. It was rumored that a kid wave a BB gun and was shot by police.

I wandered down the freeway a bit with binoculars and cameras to explore. And as I'd gotten about, oh a quarter-mile off, traffic started moving. So I had to jog (ha ha) back.

But we finally made it, rolled on over this dirt road to a ridge top. We're a couple miles from the InterState. I can look down and see it, see the lights, the traffic, And in the other direction is, not. Heh. There's what looks like a mist or just light pollution around the horizon, and overhead are stars and planets, the configurations I've seen these last few nights out here in the desert where the sky is clear and unobstructed by trees etc.

Tomorrow bodes to be a mixed bag. Into Phoenix, ugh. Camera shop for repairs, and minor shopping, and also a couple museums. And then Out Of Town, we don't want to stay around there any longer than necessary.

The good news is that Maureen doesn't hurt, no pain pills today, and that's with yesterday at Tuzigoot and today at Montezuma's Well doing a bit of climbing. So hopefully she's on her way to recovery. And what do I want to recover? Youth. Agility, Health - o I'm pretty good, pretty close. Time - can't recover that. MY CAMERA - I WANT TO RECOVER MY CAMERA! (he railed) But enough of that. Good night.

The Wild West
by Tom Lehrer

'Neath the sagebrush and the thistles
I'll watch the guided missiles
While the old F.B.I. watches me, yee-hah!
Where the scenery is attractive
And the air is radioactive
O the Wild West is where I want to be