A Little Vacation 5: Winter

It was another morning of being the early bird, but I filled it with blogging again. Not posting. Just composing another first draft, meaning mostly fighting with the auto-corrupt system that somehow got turned on days ago. I swear I didn’t do it! It’s really named autocorrect, but it doesn't actually do that, going left when I’m wanting to go right. So mostly I swear silently at it. Not always silently though. Just mostly. Since I not only didn’t turn it on in the first place, I have no clue how to send to back to the hell it rose burbling up out of.

It was too cold for me to entertain heading out with the camera again, but a grey squirrel (If that’s the exact variety, since it had a brown underside to its very long tail) appeared in one of the trees outside the wall of windows. I eased over to the pool table where my camera had ended up yesterday, took out the camera, sidled up to the window to take a shot. Success! It stayed there. I suddenly saw why. Its mate was just a couple feet away on another branch. We all had fun, them watching me and each other, me watching and shooting them. I culled the results down to three pictures which all showed both of them, the last with the first squirrel’s tail just a blur next to the other one’s face.

With wi-fi back we’d known that snow was expected last night. Worse, it was supposed to accumulate later in the day. Apparently, however, Cornville isn’t important enough to have its own correct forecast, as we found out as the day progressed. Snow hit the high ground above Cottonwood and above Sedona, accumulating there. The few flakes which flew around here just lasted almost long enough to get a couple shots of it for proof you hadn’t been dreaming. The closer we got back to the B&B, the more scattered the flakes were, stopping exactly as we passed through the gate to the property. Because of course. But that was at end of day.

I had hoped for an early shot of the sun hitting that mesa in the background with some rosy tones first thing, but all I got was clouds between the back of the orchard and the front of the mesa. Another no-go. At least the squirrels had made up for that. But what to do today?

Jerome had been discussed again, but the sweater my friend had offered me was not after all going to be returned to the store now that I’d turned her offer down. She’d decided she could make some adjustments - aka darts - here and there so she’d like the fit. So we sat. We told stories. Long showers were taken. No plans were made. More stories were told, childhoods were compared, food was prepared and eaten, more stories shared. The harp was played, song requests were honored.

If we were going out, it had to be soon. Tomorrow was leaving day. Steve and I would head home, they would head to Flagstaff, then a couple nights in Santa Fe, then Kansas, some town they couldn’t recall the name of, before their last leg home. It was decided that another trip to Cottonwood was in order. A few things were needed. My friend was hoping maybe a museum or more could be located and visited before the roads got bad. So we finally headed out after lunch. Steve stayed home again, giving his back some ease. He’d be bouncing enough in my car the next day.

This time I knew where we were going, though not where the museums were, but I was able to give major directions. She discovered as we entered town that it wasn’t how she recalled from her previous museum visits, even though we made several various turns looking for what her memory insisted was the correct part of town. Since we passed the WalMart and a gas station in that process, two needed stops were made along the way. We had just heard about Russia and expected gas price hikes, but they hadn’t happened yet. However, by the time the errands were concluded, she expected that any museums we  might eventually locate would be closed already. We still decided to take a drive through town just in case. We passed an antique store advertising a sale, and circled it to find a parking spot. We women went in. Just in case, you know.

Many little nooks had southwest pottery displayed. Most of those were simply cheap. I could finally show her the tempera paint colored pots made for the tourist trade by the Jemez potters before Mary Small came along and restarted their good pottery traditions. (Yes, I have several of hers.) She found one she liked, a larger pot marked both Casa Grande and Mata Ortiz on the bottom. It was clearly the former in style, so I wondered about the second attribution. Was the Mata Ortiz just a way of drawing attention, now more famous and creative in their pottery? Is it done by Mata Ortiz in the other style? She doesn’t care either way. After nearly an hour inside the very packed maze of a store, enough of a maze I had to go find and rescue her, she bought that pot plus a scarf she really liked.

On the other hand, I went in hoping that perhaps Chinese snuff bottles had made their way into this part of the world, but no. There was some exquisite carnival glass, enough to tempt me even after buying lots of it back when I was working “Doug Auctions” and could buy selectively when the occasional low price came along on something I liked because the regular buyers were all shopped out. I must have been really spoiled by those auction deals because the one piece I was drooling over was ten times what I would pay for it.

So instead I bought a piece of pottery totally unfamiliar to me. It is a large seed bowl, the center hole large enough to hook a finger securely through to hold it from slipping while I carried it through the rest of the store. It has an orange-brown base color, tiny swirls etched through that to the light clay beneath, and a pair of large blue butterflies covering the top. The surface is smooth, sensual to the touch, mildly shiny  without being actually glossy. I asked what they knew about it and found out it’s from Panama, circa 1980. No wonder I was completely unfamiliar with its patterns. Since my pottery cases in the living room are so full they successfully discourage me from buying any more, until this anyway, it is now sitting in one of the nooks covering the wall behind my bed. Besides, it doesn’t really fit in with the pueblo pots.

While most of this was happening the snow had started falling where we were. Initially we could watch it travel across the mountains in the background, while tiny white pellets struck the car and melted. No road issues at all. By the time we hit Cornville again it had actually turned to flakes. Just as we entered the orchard B&B property it turned back to pellets, because of course it did. No chance of shooting an actual flake or bazillion once we returned and I had a chance to grab the camera.  So of course I did anyway, scouting for some kind of shot with snow. I found pellets in the grass, but the pictures were blurry for unknown reasons. The shots of pellets in the ivy patch were clear, and there were accumulations on the car windows since it hadn’t moved all day, thus staying cold. I looked around with expectation of more shots, but it had already started melting everywhere.

Oh well, time to eat anyway. Tell more stories. And tomorrow, pack and leave.

A Little Vacation 4: Looking For Snow

It was chilly and blustery. Clouds were large but not constant, so some sun made it through large dark swaths of sky, occasionally highlighting just what I wanted to shoot. Yep, despite the unkind weather, I was out early with the camera for a while. I did wait until my friend returned from a walk and announced some snow had fallen. OK thanks bye.

I immediately saw she was correct. There were melted drops on the sidewalk leading to the parking area. Some had landed on ivy next to a small building, and it was the same kind as I’d seen yesterday by Oak Creek. Here it was thicker, but just as much purple running through the leaves, except the few new ones which were bright green. It demanded my camera.

I’d been seeing a beautiful gazebo on the property and headed that way. As described, it did look out over the creek below but no creek photos were possible due to intense brush in between. Hear it, can’t shoot it.

Fine. Be that way. Harrumph! I decided to shoot around the outside of the house and then down the road towards the entrance. The grape vines were gnarly, each one of the several dozen along the fence with several wonderful angles to shoot. As I progressed, a windmill appeared just past the curve over the treetops, just hidden from view from the house or while within a car, but subtly pointing out the small red barn now emerging into view beneath it. Or maybe the red barn drew the eye to the windmill.

It was finally time to scout out the creek access on the other side of our abode. A long series of stairs were the only access point through the electric fence. If only I could actually locate it. There was private property in the way, or so I assumed since I didn’t find access and that’s the only place I didn’t scout. But my restrictions in wandering led me instead to some very tall grass clumps with huge white plumes at their tops, waving in the wind.  Ten minutes or so with them offered me different angles, backdrops varying between red rocks, charcoal clouds and blue sky, and just once getting them actually front lit by a brief peek of sun.

But it was time to come in, warm up, and help plan the day. The forecast had foretold snow starting later (some signals were reaching the smart phones and GPS and bits of news were getting through) with 1/3 to 5” possible. After breakfast, lunch was packed and we decided to hit Jerome, overpriced tourist town extraordinaire. Even though Steve’s eyes lit up at the prospect, he elected to stay at the house, enjoy some alone time, and give his back a much needed rest from being on the road.

With GPS available again, it should be easy to get there, right? Well…. The beginning and end were fine. The middle, going through Cottonwood with lots of roundabouts and fewer signs became a challenge. But eventually our ears were popping with the climb up to Jerome’s perch. We rewarded ourselves for our arrival by parking at an overlook and eating lunch, enjoying the ever changing views of clouds making the light and colors dance over Sedona, across the wide valley. Red rocks emerged and then hid behind rain or snow in mesmerizing patterns. One particular cloud was dumping snow in a broadening pattern as it fell, making inverted “V” patterns within its load. Suddenly it ran out of its load and the entire separated  “V” slowly fell, intact till landing.

By then lunch was over, a few pictures had been shot, and we’d avoided being ticketed by the local cop solely because we stayed in the car - though we did get a dirty look. It was plainly marked as for-fee parking. Now, though, SHOPPING TIME!

I shouldn’t have been surprised by how many of the shops were closed. One restaurant had boxes of merchandise stacked on the booth tops and in the seats as well as lining the floor. The store with the big “Pottery” sign turned out to be a pottery workshop, presumably for local artists, but a sign notified us they had relocated. Somewhere. Interesting pots lined window shelves abandoned by their makers, and were the only pots really worth shelling out for, in my opinion. A few scattered ones in other shops here and there came close. Almost. Nothing worth either the price or finding shelf space at home for.

There were other temptations. One store had highly colorful Zuni wire baskets. While they drew the eye and customers inside, their lack of any hint of pueblo identity in patterns or coloring, combined with their price tags, stayed my hand. I did manage to fall in love with some small clay statues made not by painting the outside of a form but by building them with colored bits of clay in elaborate patterns. The clerk explained that if I broke one - warning: don’t do that! - I would see the the colors went straight through the pieces. An elaborately decorated rattlesnake coiled with head raised ready to strike was very tempting. It’s colors all matched my bedroom decor, including its purple face. I’m sure if I had a spare $15 hundred to toss away I would have found the exact right space for it.

Sigh.

My granddaughter isn’t getting even one of the clay elephants made like that, either. One that would fit in my palm carried a price tag of $200. Even if I felt like spending that much, she hasn't thanked me yet for the last present I sent her, even to acknowledge it had arrived.

There was one purchase, a tee shirt. It’s now carefully folded away in my carry-on. While in the fudge shop I picked up a tiny bag of chocolate covered toffee pieces, and had a taste in the car while Mr. Fishing Buddy slowly sipped a chocolate malt. My friend was down the street checking a couple other stores out, arriving back at the car in time to save her husband from having to finish the last half of the malt. (He’s diabetic. It was a true rescue, though his insulin pump was his backup plan if she took too long down the street.)

Once back at the Air B&B, and after going out shooting a plum tree that was suddenly in full bloom, my friend showed me where to access the stairs leading to Oak Creek. I’d thought when she described it that the electric fence stopped and started again on either side. Nope. It droops enough that an agile adult can (theoretically) step over the low spot. But not to the same level on the other side, because that’s down a step. I decided not to risk it, particularly since it would be even more of a challenge with a very high step over it again after the climb back up with a very low likelihood of my missing the wire.

I finally managed to get my laptop connected to the now-working house wi-fi. I could have started posting these, but I decided to wait till returning home again and dump them on everybody a day at a time. No need to let anybody think the house is totally empty that whole time, even though it (theoretically) isn’t, with Rich staying there and taking care of the dog. Still, with the driveway empty, people will draw their own conclusions.

Steve and I try not to imagine how that could go wrong, with Adam back in the picture passing the house with threatening looks and doing some night prowling in the yard after Rich actually spoke to Amanda (Gasp!) once for two minutes, and his latest “guest” ripping him off of his last $50, after yet another one stole his phone and denies doing it to this day. She had the gall to come back that evening and demand access to the house to get the charging cord. She must have found one elsewhere. Yet another friend of his - this time seemingly a real one - asked him to describe the stolen phone. The thief brings it over to his garage periodically to charge it, and this guy has seen it. It’s a weird brand so both guys are sure it’s the right one. He promised Rich that next time she came over to charge it, the phone would be in Rich’s hands when she came back to claim it, along with its charger. Meanwhile there’s supposed to be a few minor repairs getting done inside the house, some pooper scooping in the yard, the recycling going out on schedule, a small plumbing leak which is keeping the second toilet from being used needing to be fixed, etc., etc.

So instead of posting these accounts now that I could, I checked the weather. We’re are supposed to get maybe 1/4” of wet. Sedona, however, likely actually will get/has gotten some actual snow. It might be nice to head there for our last full day up here and do some shooting, but my friend needs to return to Jerome to return a sweater than is, as it turns out, several sizes too large for her slender frame. It would likely easily fit me but a certain set of canine claws would have it ruined in her first lap sit.

We discussed  hitting Prescott. Steve is interested in going and seeing the huge old tree near Yarnell that the Granite Mountain Hotshots saved from fire a couple years before they themselves were killed in a forest fire. What makes the tree interesting is they took a photo of the group after saving it, under, around, and up in the tree. The photo is a part of their memorial, and features prominently in the movie made about them which we’ve seen twice. If you can handle tears, watch “Only The Brave” sometime. Anyway, I looked up how to get there and discussion ended abruptly when directions got to the part about parking 4 miles from the tree for a fairly rugged hike.

Once everybody’s up and thinking, we’ll figure out what’s on the agenda. Since we go through Cottonwood to get to Jerome, my friend was thinking about some museums there.

I wonder if they welcome cameras.

A Little Vacation 3: A Rooster, A Hike, Shopping, Scrabble, & A Theory

It was a lovely wake-up call after a night of interrupted sleep. Such an improvement! This place is not just a huge orchard with scattered houses, a gazebo, and a river running by, it’s got roosters! It was a quick kick back to my childhood. While breakfast was being prepared, one lone one gave a few last cock-a-doodles before giving up apparently for the day. At least one time he crowed yesterday my friend was outside and also heard it. I must be the only one to hear it/them from inside the house. This morning there was no crowing, at least not until after 7:15. Now they are making up for lost time. But it’s very cloudy today, so maybe that’s it. While I’m waiting for everybody else to wake up, it’s time to document yesterday.

We gals decided to head over to Sedona for the day. The end errand was to be shopping for supper and other meals, avoiding restaurants as much as possible. We needed taco fixings, along with a few other staples and the ingredients for Steve’s BATs. This stands for a sandwich, Bacon, Avocado, and Tomato. Tell people you’re eating bats and you get really strange looks, and that’s from the polite ones. Explain, and they start looking hungry. But the tomatoes and avocados have to be nicely ripe, so shopping almost always needs to be done a day or two ahead.

It was the trip along the way that was to be interesting. Camera Time! Red Rock State Park was our first destination, and a hike down to and along the river was planned. By the way, the river in question is the same one that passes here in Cornville, Oak Creek. In Sedona and northward it’s surrounded by lots of the most amazing and beautiful red rock cliffs. Hence the park name.

First lesson: Az state parks charge per person, not per car like national parks. We left the guys at “home” so it was cheaper. {They were just going to do guy things, which mostly, we thought, meant sitting around chatting about life and fishing and stuff. They wouldn’t actually go fishing. Steve’s gear was in the back of the car I was driving. (Oops?) We figured no problem because no licenses, no bait, and no location known where a flat and short walk to the creek was available. Here it’s lots of steps down. Lots. The owner doesn't know of an alternative site for them. So no go.}

Since our last visit to the park, 2016 as an earlier perusing of my photos attested to, much has changed. The roads are all on high ground, so any hike to Oak Creek has lots of vertical in it. No real biggie, thankfully. The roads are different, the old water wheel is nowhere to be found, and the lovely spot with all the tree roots where I took several shots of those and the creek was… we’re not sure. Somewhere else. Not within driving distance. Likely not within our walking distance. Once we parked, a newly constructed visitor center surrounded by lovely AZ style xeriscaping and feeders for myriads of birds was our first sight on our path to the creek. As we strolled past that into open land, we had a distant view of Cathedral Rock, though at this angle it’s very apparent it's at least three different jutting rock clumps.

Further along a side path presented itself. Looking carefully at the sign next to it, dogs were not allowed, bicycles were not allowed, nor something-something-else already forgotten, but hikers were welcomed. Down we went, zigging and zagging, the path made to keep our descent as smooth and gradual as possible. Sycamores lined this part of it, their bark and branches creating both foregrounds and backgrounds, particularly for orange lichen-covered branches of shorter dark-barked trees in the foreground. The orange was amazingly bright, the contrast incredible.

The hike along the creek was paved with flat red rocks for the most part, but footing could still be tricky for the unwary as the stray one poked up. We were warned away by signs from both the creek and the cliffs rising on our other side. Construction has been going on down there, mostly across the creek from where we were. Large areas displayed felled trees, opening up new habitat, and a narrow bridge across to it had only stubby pylons left to give evidence of former crossing. The creek was rushing steadily along, soothing us with its splashing, in places smoothing out enough for watery photo opportunities of tree reflections. One section had lots of boulders just under the water, making a rainbow of green moss (algae?), red/orange rocks, and bright blue reflections of sky for a bit now that clouds had started breaking up. The photos turned out to show the colors better than I thought the camera caught at the time.

The one disappointment was a sign “pointing to” petroglyphs. The information was great: how, when, and why they were carved along here. Unfortunately, despite an illustration of rock shapes and what the figures looked like, neither of us could locate them. I explored some more while she kept studying the sign, the rocks, the sign, the rocks, hoping for revelation. Alas.  Somebody must have vandalized them long since, and the sign sits there as a memento of what was, a cautionary tale of vandalism. Otherwise, the sign is just a random cruel tease.

I’d reached my limit of desired exploration by that point, so we agreed to head back. We stopped near restrooms, and had lunch in the parked car, discussing the rest of our plans and enjoying the scenery. The road the park is on is a loop off 89A, so we decided to continue on it and reconnect. Hopefully we’d have better views of Cathedral Rock on the way.

First we found a small pullout for long views of rock formations across the valley, and enjoyed some photo ops. Rounding a curve, suddenly a very garish building appeared, perched on the top wall face of a red cliff. Both of us were shocked by that. Most everything blends in to the scenery here, done artfully in the colors of the surrounding rocks. This was offensively tasteless, bright blood red and flashy chrome! It looked likely to fall off and crash onto several buildings immediately below. Was it even safe? Who would build way up there? More to the point, how did they get away with something so ghastly and ugly? Sedona is known for zoning that keeps buildings blending into natural scenery. This perched pecadillo is a blight upon the landscape, dare I say a blasphemy to the rocks themselves, whether one has spiritual beliefs in the weird vortexes there or not. As the road passed under it, we saw the buildings below which had been previously concealed by rocks and trees. Apparently there was some construction company making its mark there. Some features of these buildings shared common characteristics with the monstrosity above. That explains who has the money to get away with this ugliness.

Further around the curve, we finally found a tiny pullout where we could get a decent shot of Cathedral Rock, though not the best, classic one. Turning back to the car I had a view of the back of the monstrosity and took a shot. It was so bad I just had to.

It was time for town. First there was a bead store, where I found the yellow-green seed beads I needed to make the “stems” of the flowers in my current jewelry, and a couple strings of interesting blue agates I thought I could find a use for. During checkout I expressed disappointment on not finding  turquoise beads any more, just nuggets, so she pointed to a back corner of the store.”They’re from China but they’re real turquoise.” Umm, yeah, I’ve bought Chinese ”turquoise” and it’s actually been dyed howlite. China sells "purple turquoise" that way too. I decide to check them out, lifted a group of strands in my hands, and decided they didn’t have the heft to be “really real.” I passed on buying these, but then she offered to direct me to a local store selling AZ turquoise,  cautioning me that those would be expensive.  Of course they would. I declined, needing to sit in my seat in the car while my friend finished shopping, much more than I needed to buy turquoise.

Since we were in town, I called - finally! - a friend back in Minnesota who’s been in the hospital for a while and will be there longer. Explaining the phone situation, we agreed that I’d call her again on the weekend when we returned to a real cell signal- and hopefully wi-fi again. My laptop still gets no signal, and the owners of the property were in yesterday trying to fix their router but no go. It sits here in this centrally located house but serves a few other buildings as well on the property.

Next port of call was a Crystals store. It holds various shapes of everything crystal you can imagine, as well as lots of other non-crystaline rocks. I fell in love with some slices of ammonites, even dinner plate sized. I’d bought a whole one here back in 2016, opalized to show large swaths of red in proper light. These slices tempting me now were apparently from beds where thousands or more had piled on top of each other, small through huge randomly, and the cuts showed the pileups. I looked at one of the price tags on a smaller one and again decided to spend my funds elsewhere. Suddenly a couple containers of polished malachite rocks appeared and after much sorting I left with the four best small samples in the store. I’d informed my friend earlier that they were formed in caves as either stalactites or stalagmites, thus explaining the circles and stripes of various greens. Mine were spectacular, the features fine enough to demonstrate their origins.

Last stop was the grocery store. By then I was more than ready for using a scooter cart, something I resort to seldom these days, so the process was fairly pleasant. We found a hundred bucks worth of necessities for the next two days, three nights. Much cheaper than restaurants, and my friend is a great cook and enjoys doing it. We let her. Dinner was tacos, hard or soft shelled choices, with about 9 toppings. As soon as we were all stuffed, with just one lone shell remaining, she brought out a bowl of mixed fruit for dessert. Looks great. We hope it still does today, since she was the only one with any room left last night.

We found out that our guys had gone out on their own excursion during the day while we were gone. They now had fishing licenses. And since wires had apparently crossed, they brought a bag of groceries back as well. Apparently Cottonwood has a WalMart, serving both needs. Of course Steve’s shopping scooter cart broke down so he had a long hike through the store and back to the car, arriving back here in misery. His buddy wasn’t in a much better state, but in his case, it was a bad mood due to getting lost on their drive back. (It was too early for them to realize that there would be no fishing after all, due to lack of a place with easy creek access for dropping a line. The licenses are good for a full year, though, so maybe if they come back in less than 12 months...?)

Now here’s where I take my turn to point out that having a mental map of the area, along with a good sense of direction, is the most reliable. It turned out that his GPS wasn't working. Nobody’s was anywhere. No cell service. No internet service. After attempting to head back here - via the wrong direction - they finally pulled into a Ford dealership ask directions. That’s when they found there was no internet everywhere. This time the human-given directions worked, and they arrived about an hour after we returned. I’d been busy using the time going through my pictures, culling and adjusting and cropping. Other than word processing off-line, which is how I’m “blogging” without being able to post, it’s about all I can do on my laptop. No email, no news, no weather, not even my handy Google as a shortcut for spell checking, where by the time I type what I think I'm looking for Google offers me the correct version. Either that or I'm so far off that it has no clue what I'm looking for and have to try a synonym or something.

Now, hearing about the lack of internet in a wide area, I recalled something I’d read on the internet before we left for this trip. I love a site called spaceweather.com. I started reading it years ago for their photos from around the world of auroras. They do so much more however. I never heard of sprites before, for example. Or noctilucent clouds which I’d finally seen last summer. The previous week’s featured event was a huge sunspot explosion of the far side of the sun, but so enormous that astronomers were catching shots of what was being hurled into space. For three days I followed it. While it couldn’t affect us - yet - it was on the part of the sun which was turning our way. My last look before unplugging didn’t show it stopping yet. So, my theory. I can’t check it due to lack of communication, but I figure it’s possible we’ve had (are having) the results of a CME. Better known as a coronal mass ejection. They are known for disrupting satellites and all sorts of communications. Alternately, it’s just a hell of a place down in a hole in the Verde Valley to try to get ahold of anybody for anything.

(Spoiler alert: A CME wasn’t it. Back in communication land, I checked that out. Could the Sedona vortexes be on the move? LOL)

Good thing we brought the Super Scrabble board and scrabble dictionary along. We played until bed. Steve dropped out first, needing sleep and something other than the chair he was in for his back. We three kept on going, until no more tiles were in the bag. I finished mine, but we were playing by “fun” rules rather than keeping score so the game went on. My friend was next and she used her last three tiles. Steve’s buddy was too tired to think, had a full 7 in his tray, and gave up. I asked if he minded if I took the tray to see if I could play any. I could. One letter here, one there, either making two-letter words or filling between two rows for a three letter one. Then bed for all of us.

A Little Vacation 2: !st Morning & Tale Of Getting Here

I must have gotten some sleep last night, since I’m not totally exhausted. I woke the final time around 5:30 and finally resigned myself to not getting any more sleep around 6. Time for that thyroid pill anyway, so I can eat and take more meds, including ibuprofen again, in the not-too- distant morning. The skies now, at 6:45 are slightly lightening. Not that I’ve opened the blinds to look out or anything, but that’s the time they lighten up 2 hours south this time of year. The reason I even bothered to note the time is because there’s a very diligent rooster encouraging the sun to rise with all his masculine charms. He’s been a very busy boy for about a quarter hour now. It might be time to get dressed for a very chilly  morning and take the camera out to shoot those cliffs as the sun hits them. Unless it’s cloudy, of course. Then I’ll just stay here.

Getting here was such a challenge, and I made the mistake of relying on my skills, thoroughly checking a map and redrawing it for myself to show the meaningful parts, and logic to locate it. The other couple had cell phone navigation. They also had the code for getting through the gate to this place. Nobody mentioned that would be necessary. My skills got us to the exact spot it should have been, but the street ended at a cross street just before the numbers got to this address. I tried a couple things, since the signs for streets mostly only show one name and not both for the intersection, and some turns are more guesswork than signage, but this name didn’t pop up again. 

It was a fairly interesting drive... the first time through. It was a mix of medium homes, ranches with horses, showpieces homes on hills hogging the view for themselves, and a large section of a community where hundreds of worn out mobile homes came to die - while still holding families. Recliners lined the roadway, not to be taken away but for neighbors to congregate. The yards looked like junkyards, but considering the likely income levels of the residents, the contents of the yards were probably still very much in use. Our destination was supposed to be on the other side of that... but where?

We thought we’d try our friends to see if they were here yet, since Steve got a text a bit before that they came north early and hit Sedona for some shopping. Groceries mostly. Unfortunately, this part of the world seems to have no cell coverage whatever. We punch the right  keys, and get “call failed.” Steve tried his cell’s navigation system which sent us off where we’d already tried with no results. We asked three different sets of locals, and nobody seemed to know where the road went after it hit the cross street, but one said it “divided” without clarifying how or where. Another pulled up a map on his phone and sent us down a different rabbit hole. We finally headed back into the center part of “town” looking for an open business (Sunday, doncha know), or somebody else to ask.

Meanwhile I was completely frustrated by having no communication with our friends. The rental was in their name, they had the local phone number of the owner in case of… well, anything. How do we tell them we’re hopelessly lost, we’ve exhausted every avenue, and please come find us at… hopefully somewhere. By this point I was almost in tears. How on earth would we connect?

Just before getting back to the highway Steve recalled seeing a cop car parked at a house we passed on our way in, so we started looking for that, figuring we’d stop in and see if they could be of help. I  spied it just as I was driving past and couldn’t stop quickly because of a tailgater. We continued to the highway, found a (closed) place to turn around in, and headed back. I had my turn signal on for the turn into the home with the cop car this time, and just as I was stopping to turn an oncoming car honked at me. Loudly and repeatedly.

WTF?  Did they think I didn't see them and was going to turn right into them?

Steve announced delightedly it was their car! They’d come to find us! Lead the way! This was especially wonderful since the cop car was for the next town over, so who know how much they'd know about the town they lived in. Where they worked, you bet they'd know all the roads, but once home?

Later conversations at the house informed us our friends had set out just as soon as they realized they also had no cell service in the area, and figured we’d have problems. Not only that, we’d need the code for the gate to get in to the area! He just had to slip in the comment that it would’ve been so much easier if we’d caravanned up and stayed together. Of course it would have! The previous afternoon before they left for  our house for the night, suggestions were rolling around as to how and where we’d meet up. Our house? Their B&B? I had a scenic but efficient route in mind. It was his choice to head up separately, and their combined choice the next morning to leave a couple hours before they’d told us we should go up.  Everybody knew I was relying on maps, that Steve’s cell had navigation, however inefficient that was. But the kicker was nobody knew yet that cell service was nonexistent. (As it turns out, we have the wi-fi code for this place. Just no wi-fi is detectible by my laptop. None. Zero bars anywhere. So none of this will be getting posted until we return late in the week - unless the landlady has a fix for that.)

Recall that the street ended before the numbers got to where we were going. Turns out that’s not precisely the truth. The paved part ended, but a little gravel driveway continued downhill on the other side of the cross street but after just a little jog. It doesn’t look like a road but a large gravel parking area with a commercial-looking building on each side. Not being homes, they were obviously private and we had no business being there. Except we did, since at the other end was the gate we needed to go through. The gate we didn’t have the code to. But we were here at last!

Oh, Steve’s phone navigation system? We used it right next to that gravel parking area, and it told us we were 4 minutes away, pointing us back north. Exactly opposite of where we should have headed. Naturally, like everything else about locating this spot.

    *     *     *

A couple hours have passed while I've been writing this, waiting for the rest to wake up. Seems I'm an early bird. While waiting for the thermostat to decide to kick in some heat again, I got chilly and went back under the covers to warm up again. After a while I decided to actually get dressed in my winter gear for indoors. I had moved around a bit, raising the living room blinds to see the sun hit the cliffs across the way. Nope, not cliffs after all. Yesterday afternoon it was just a backlit blue wall. The rising sun now  hitting it revealed a typical low mountain,  dotted with small trees with few spots so vertical nothing showed but bands of rock.  So, large mesa then. I still haven’t been out with the camera, having finally just warmed up enough under the covers to brave getting dressed. There are enough clouds that’s it’s still not an inviting prospect. I’ll just wait a bit longer for everyday else to start moving before making my coffee.

Meanwhile I’ll try to recall just where my camera landed last night in all the chaos. There is a tree just outside the big window wall that has a growth on it that from this angle looks exactly like a lion’s head. There’s an eye, long snout with a dark nose, mouth that curves up in a grin to the cheekbones, bearded chin, and a nice 3-d mane around the sides. I pointed it out to Steve and he agreed it’s a lion. It will likely change completely from any other angle, so I’ll shoot through the window. Once I find that camera.

    *     *     *

Later shots with different angles revealed the lion head from the front is a lamb, and from the other side is an elephant. Later I’ll have to see how they show once I’ve cropped and edited the photos. I’ll know what I’m looking for anyway.

A Little Vacation 1: Day Before and Night One There

I both want to sleep and don’t. Want to because it’s been a long day and I’m tired. I woke at 4:30, and by the time I got back from letting the dog out I was fully awake. I turned on the TV and got last night’s (recorded on the DVR) 7-day weather, concentrating on the area we’re now in. The forecast is for cooling, with rain likely Tuesday and as much as maybe 5” snow on Wednesday. It  was helpful knowing how to pack since we were leaving after a day of near 80 back home and a forecast by the time we left in early afternoon of fairly close to that for our two hour drive north. We had to wait that long because the Air B&B they rented was only available at/after 3.

Our Minnesota friends - Steve’s MN fishing buddy and his wife - arrived in the Phoenix area two nights ago after four days of driving. Not being used to it they spent their evening recuperating. We went out to lunch together yesterday at a restaurant everybody liked. The guys stayed at our house for several hours that afternoon to do their thing and I showed her the Gilbert Water Ranch. We hiked over a mile. Silly me, thinking it was a good idea to go on a Saturday afternoon, but it was that or nothing. Three tours of the regular parking lot convinced me I needed to head over to the library parking lot on the other side of the lake, adding significantly to the walk. Both ways.

We both loved the area, and it has benches placed regularly along the paths where one can sit, often long enough for the wildlife to become active again while we watched, at least so long as no more people pass in the meantime. Yep, watching the wildlife, that’s my excuse for sitting. I had my camera along of course, and she settled for her cell phone camera while bemoaning being unable to zoom in on the birds.

 Many of the birds were new to her, others were also down from “back home” to  winter in milder climes. Literal snowbirds. She couldn’t get over how everything smelled of nature.  They left the frozen northland of ice and snow, where nothing smells except the city, and that not very nicely. So leaves, flowers, and open water, even with floating algae patches, are a treat. Our friends have visited several times here, and are funny in that when they come down here to the Phoenix area they bring us north to join them in the winter part of AZ. I keep telling them if they really want to get away, come in March, stick around, and see the desert in bloom. Last trip up to the the Verde Valley area was the day after a nice snowfall in Sedona, which turned out the have the makings for our picture X-Mas card that year.

They are great company. He and Steve have known each other at least a couple years longer than I’ve known Steve. I’ve only fairly recently come to know her and we find so much in common each time. We both have some artistic streaks. I do photography, she sketches. I love to make earrings, she loves to wear earrings. We both love music. I k kinda sing and she plays harp. Both of us appreciate the local cultures, especially the original ones in either locale, love the scenery, take in the world with much the same sensibilities.  Where we differ is I’m more practical and organized, she’s more spiritual.

There have been times while driving alone that I will start humming a tune circling my brain and start throwing in variations until it’s something completely different and yet somehow the same, so I can comprehend how she might be doing that with her harps. Yes, plural. Just the little one travels. That is the reason I don’t quite want to go to sleep yet. She is out in the living room of this little Air B&B  house playing it. The sounds are so soothing, I don’t want to miss a note. None of it is familiar to me and I need to remember in the morning to ask her if she makes it up as she goes or has everything memorized.

I’m sure I’ll get some sleep soon. Just as soon as my shoulders quit aching. I’ve taken ibuprofin, but the bed and the pillows are just wrong. I can’t refluff the pillows to support my head to ease the shoulders because of - you guessed it - the shoulders. My body has adapted to what’s at home, which includes a very firm pillow that is in one piece and doesn’t ease away from me while I sleep, unlike both of mine on this bed, so even on my worst nights at home I can manage sleep without too much pain. When that’s not possible, I head out to my living room recliner and spread out there. This place is wonderful but has no recliners. I assure you the ping pong/pool table in the living room with the panorama wall of windows behind it looking out over the field and orchard to the as-yet-unidentified mountain/cliff/wall the sun recently set behind do not quite make up for the lack of a good recliner to sleep in when the shoulders are acting up. I blame tonight’s pains on carrying in all the luggage we brought along, since Steve’s now added hip problems to his other aches and did well to get himself over the stairs and into the house.

Unfortunately harp strings have been replaced by the sounds of running water while they settle in for the night, so it’s time for me to stop writing and try to also.

In An Awful Day, A Glimmer Of Good News

The awful? Russia in Ukraine. Can't do anything about that. And personally the day has been - divorced from news - pretty relaxed. See future posts, delayed because... well, read them. They'll be getting posted.

The glimmer of good news comes from Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. The Interior Department is working towards replacing all the place names using the offensive term "squaw", hereafter by their request to be referred to as "sq---" in future communications, with non offensive language. Witness that it has already been done in the Phoenix area in 2003 by renaming Sq--- Peak to Piestewa Peak, after Lori Piestewa, a Hopi US soldier serving in Iraq was killed. They noted several states have already banned sq--- in place names, just like the n-word has been removed, though embarrassingly recently. The necessary 60 day comment period is beginning, and they want to offer 5 alternative names in each of - can you believe it? - 660 places on the US maps. 

They are looking for suggestions. One idea is to to change the offensive names of geographical features to that of a nearby feature. So "Sq--" River might become White River since it flows by White Mountain. (Those names are pulled completely out of a sleep-deprived hat. I have no knowledge of any such features with those names in likely combinations.) Another idea would be to put the actual name of an indigenous woman of note from that area on the feature. Or perhaps a name acknowledging an event which happened there. And on and on.

There is already a minor backlash from people who believe that sq--- is simply an Indian word for woman. In this confused state they imagine how forward thinking we already by honoring all these native women this way. It is in fact easily replaceable with what we delicately call "the c word", denigrating native women by reducing them to the single part of their anatomy that the men naming then found useful. Imagine, for example, if any landmark, road, bridge, county or state named after a famous white man had instead been named by an enemy who wanted the world to know that person was nothing, a disgrace, a vulgarity. Can you see the George Washington Bridge going by the moniker "Limp Dick Bridge"? Or saying, "I live in Drippy Dong County," and, "Our nation's capitol is Teeny Penie D.C.?"

Perhaps, if this goes through well, we can point to ourselves and justifiably claim we're starting to grow up as a culture. Just a bit.

Thank you, Secretary Haaland.

Scamalot

They're at it again, and it's been so long on some of these that old ones are resurfacing in hopes of new suckers. 

Some are boring, the kind of robocalls that ring twice and drop the call, or hang up in 3 seconds after you answer. I figure most of those are just checking to see if the random set of numbers their software generated are legit phone numbers. But if that is the case, at least one has a flat-line learning curve. I recognize the number now, since it's my own area code and the same set of four end numbers. The middle? Who cares?

Some are simply irritating, like the ones who claim to be raising funds for some police something-or-other. The first time that one came through, I chatted politely for about a minute, then idly asked where he was calling from. He gave me a location that I was supposed to recognize as local - except I know the area code there and his wasn't it. I looked it up later and he was calling from Las Vegas. Nice try. The next time that one came through, again asking me to support the local police, I replied simply that I already do and hung up. It's true, I do support our local "posse" which is a volunteer organization that does things like check on empty homes while the owners are gone, and put their own lockboxes near a door with the homeowner's key inside if they need to get in, say, for a fire, a trapped dog, somebody too hurt or ill to come to the door, or whatever. They don't get much from me each year, but I don't have a lot to donate.  We get along just fine. But those "police" guys persist in calling, as often as 4 times a week. I just flip my phone open and closed and cut it off.

Steve got a goodie early this week, an email alleging to be from Amazon. Somebody had supposedly been tapping his account there, and he needed to verify he was the real Steve by giving all kinds of information including his mother's maiden name, etc., etc., etc. As soon as he informed me, I called Rich in to assist, since I can't do anything on his computer and Rich can. We all agreed this was "phishing", and Steve was ready to dump the email. But I've gotten these before, and any legitimate company wants to get a copy forwarded to their special department dealing with that crap so they can halt it. Maybe even prosecute the phishers. It took half an hour in all, but they didn't get any info from Steve that they shouldn't have.

An oldie came in my email earlier this week. This one came in the guise of a Japanese elderly woman who had a lot of money to invest in a good business. "She" addressed me as "Dear." I typed back something to the effect I couldn't believe that old scam was still around and people were still falling for it. I didn't dignify it with a name since my email address doesn't actually give mine. Why give them any extra ammunition?

Even the club isn't immune. There are all the usual junk mail solicitations from people looking to place employees or offer services. If we were an actual business and looking for employees or insurance or CPA services or whatever, these might not go straight into the recycle pile. As it is, the main organization covering the rec centers in Sun City might actually hire people or secure insurance policies. We don't. We're strictly a club, all volunteers as well as participants, and any funds go straight into supporting the club with repairs, new equipment, etc. Any truly professional help we need starts with a call to the head organization to see if they have staff which either does that or can recommend somebody. End of that story.

Today I popped my head in for a minute, and checked the emails on the club computer. There was a dilly sitting there. I've seen it before in different guises. They claim to be  (wheel out the pity party balloons, folks) disabled and working on behalf of somebody else who's also disabled. That person needs a wedding ring at a discount. No budget, doncha know. Would we get back to them with what's available in gold and diamonds and list our prices? And "lest they forget" the reason they are contacting us is they've heard about us from a good business review.  Oh, and any "homemade" items would be "worthy" of their consideration.

Uhh, sure, a business review. Where, I wonder? I figure they're searching for information on who they might scam or even rob. I'm not biting. I just sent a brief note back that we are a hobby club, we teach our members from scratch, and nobody here is skilled enough to work in either gold or any gemstones. Again, I don't even bother to give a name with my reply.

I'm betting with myself (fits my budget, win or lose) that we'll hear from these folks again. Or some other cons who want to see if they can get better results from it.