66, left brain/right brain

July 21, 2012

No need to look up the date this day: it is my 66th birthday and began with loving greetings via phone calls, snail mailed greeting cards, electronic greeting cards and facebook messages.  This particular age sends me a message.  I intend to emulate Route 66 and traverse the country.  No idea now how that will transpire, just holding it as my intention.

Left brain is nagging at me to stay home today and get some much-needed yard work done.  Right brain argues forcefully: “It’s your birthday - forget those obligations; get out there and enjoy the day”.  Left brain counters that Chris and I have both been working all week, so chores have fallen behind and must be caught up in case someone (a buyer) comes calling to tour the house.  And besides, L.B. continues, the peach trees are loaded with fruit that needs to be picked and processed.  And there’s that one tree that has broken under the weight of the peaches: do something about that.

R.B. scores the victory, though, insisting that when someone wants to buy the house, those few things will not deter them.  Fun and joy always trump drudgery; well, maybe not always, but they oughtta.  I’m even pretending that we are on an RV trip and bringing along my computer, hence this stream of consciousness drivel that is issuing forth from my fingertips as we drive.

Being responsible adults, we did complete our morning chores, Chris even mowed the lawns that have flourished since the beginning of monsoon rains.  The day is overshadowed by the tragedy in Aurora, seems even more reason to embrace life while honoring those who lives were taken so suddenly.

Rain was forecast for today, my reason for cancelling a planned open house, but now appears not to be imminent.  At any rate, these 360-degree decisions could be made by throwing a dart at a map.  Chris and Ruby have turned us to the northwest, taking Williamson Valley Road to somewhere.

Windmill, garden, Simmons . . .

Photo ops occurred right away with a wood-towered windmill and then a beautifully-constructed raised-bed garden.



To keep out the critters, these folks have fenced utilizing rock corner posts and built up beds with decorative block.  Nary a weed to be seen - my kind of garden, but then I tend toward the obsessive about that.  Passers-by used to ask me how I kept the weeds out of my gardens.  The Santa Claus method, I told them - hoe, hoe, hoe.  Seems that many are looking for a more magical way, such as chemicals, but I figured if I were going to grow my own food, it would be silly to poison it and myself in the process.  I can buy the poisoned kind of groceries at the supermarket.

All of which has nothing to do with day trippin’, but that’s what happens when I am riding in a car with a computer on my lap. 

Okay, here’s a short stop at the site of Simmons, an erstwhile settlement on this back road between Seligman and Prescott.  The place is named for the man who homesteaded here in 1864 and established a stage station on this historic route between the then-mining town of Prescott and the Hardyville and Ehrenberg toll roads leading to the Colorado River. There is little to see at the site, at least from the road (and one is admonished not to enter the property): a cottonwood grove, fields under cultivation and one house tucked back into the trees.


Limb casts . . .
Before chronicling this day, I hearken back to a previous post when I wrote about interesting rock specimens I picked up.  Chris opined that they didn’t fit into the volcanic area in which we were hiking. 

Friend Betty picked up the identification challenge because of her family's lifelong interest in gemology/rockhounding.  She consulted her brother; following is his surmise given without the advantage of seeing the actual rock.  It sounds logical to me.  He says “the picture looks like it could be what is called a ‘limb cast’.  It is true that petrification will not occur after a volcano, as your friend says, and there are also crystals or agate involved. All agate is crypto crystalline, which will not occur during petrifaction, so your specimen is not petrified."

He continues, "A limb cast forms when a tree limb has fallen and becomes covered with mud. If, over time, the mud hardens and a volcano takes place, it can either burn out the center of the limb, or if it has already rotted out, there is a hole there. In either case, there is going to be a hole there.  Solutions involving and caused by volcanic activity fill the hole, and if silica gets in there, it will form agate or crystals.  The limb doesn't have a chance to petrify, but it looks like petrified wood and can even appear to be because it is so hardened. I have seen a lot of these various types of things over my lifetime and many are exceptionally beautiful.  There is a type of opal found in Nevada called Virgin Valley opal that has been formed in much this way. Exceptionally beautiful stuff - looks like the opal is right in the center of the wood.”

Thanks much, Betty and brother! 

Surprise! . . .
Okay, back on the road.  While stopped at Simmons, I want to pull out my binoculars, so ask Chris where he put them when he stowed our gear in the car.  “Right behind my seat under my backpack,” he says, so I reach back there, groping around until I feel them.  Imagine my surprise when I extract a brand-new pair of binocs - my birthday gift.  My surprise is even more profound when I discover that I am holding my first-ever “good” binoculars as opposed to the cheapies that tend to be disposables after using them for several years of frustration at their deficiencies.

Chris purchased this pair at Jay’s Bird Barn in Prescott, our favorite-ever emporium for all things wild-bird-related, and they are whing-dingers - lifetime guarantee!  The difference when I use them is astounding; I am thrilled.  Thanks to Eric, proprietor of Jay’s, for great advice.  I am inspired to do a Vanna White display.

Our drive continues northward through ranch country that is posted “no trespassing”.  Nothing makes me want to explore a place more than someone telling me I cannot, ergo, I whine piteously until we are past that very large, incredibly enticing slice of Arizona.  When at last we are beyond the property on which I am not (legally) allowed, we try out a couple of side roads until we find just the right one, a la Goldilocks and the Three Bears, except that our reward is a great hike, not a bowl of porridge.

Our path takes us upward to elevations that afford wonderful distant views of mountains and gorgeous Arizona monsoon skies.  We see off to Black Mesa, the northern boundary of Big Chino Valley, with Bill Williams Mountain beyond,















Granite Mountain in another direction (don’t ask which; I have lost my bearings), Picacho Peak (it means Peak Peak and yes, I know there is another of the same moniker in southern Arizona),










and Juniper Mountain with its alluring wilderness area.  Already I drool to explore each and every one of these places.











As we work our way up through the brush and just enough catclaw to slow us down (wait-a-minute vine according to Dad, and aptly so), we spook up two magnificent elk.  Surprisingly, they stop to look back as I holler to Chris who hasn’t seen them yet, and I am able to snap a couple of photos before they disappear over the ridge.

It is not too long before thunder sounds in the distance (well, not really distant enough) and I seek the safety of the much-too-far-away vehicle.  Chris is leading, but oh so slowly.  My lightning fear spurs me to go into overdrive and I find our way off that mountain lickety-split.  So what if I am torn up from hurried carelessness in the catclaw - at least I am not struck by lightning.

I was not always this paranoid about lightning; it was that long-ago monsoony day when a lightning bolt shot out of the ceiling ten feet away from me.  That was plenty close enough.  I choose not to make a better acquaintance.

My stampede slows somewhat once we get to lower ground, just a rapid steady pace until Ruby comes into sight. 

As we motor more northward, we outrun the storm front, so stop at the Walnut Creek bridge to peruse the water below, what little there is.  Just upstream is a high metal dam that has been there long enough for it to have completely filled in with soil behind.  The result is an extensive wetlands riparian area that extends far upstream, a completely overgrown area that would allow some fine birding opportunities.


As we pass the home place of the K4 Ranch, a pasture inhabited only by a few bulls offers a bucolic scene.  Suddenly, the story changes abruptly as the field erupts into a melee: one bull attacks another, then continues to paw up dirt in anger, and continues and continues while his pasture mates seem quite unimpressed and go back to grazing.  I wonder what burr he got under his blanket.  





 




We have met not another soul anywhere along our route, so it is with great surprise that we encounter a couple stopped for a look-see at the bridge.  The great surprise part is not that they are there, but that they are friends from Prescott.  What are the chances?  Anyway, we pause for a chat before proceeding on yet another side road that takes us across Apache Creek just above its confluence with Walnut Creek.

I have declared this will be a shorter-than-usual jaunt.  We are both tired from our schedule and I wish not to arrive home completely collapsed.  We pull out creekside for a bite to eat and I immediately spot an exceedingly strange blob on a nearby tree.  Closer inspection does not explain what it is (hopefully, a helpful reader will know), but I pick and prod at it for a spell.  It’s about six feet in circumference just over my head in a walnut tree.  It appears to be composed of bits and pieces of juniper growth but walnut leaves are growing out of it.  Even Chris, that inveterate story-teller, can’t think of an explanation.

As he peruses it from the other side, he urgently calls me over there.  He has spotted a snake in residence.  As it turns out, while I was poking and prodding and plucking and photographing, I was nearly touching the snake and had even gotten it into one of my shots without realizing it.

Not sure what kind of snake: it is docile (obviously, since I was disturbing its habitat with great abandon and it never struck at me), slender and very long.  We are never able to see its entire length, but the part that is visible is easily three or four feet.

We have stopped but the storm has not, so has caught up to us.  As the rain begins to splatter, we set our sights for home, enjoying quite a deluge as we go.  Ruby is completely trashed from our dash along the dirt road turned quickly to sloppy mud and we are exhausted after all, but it’s a good exhaustion - a happy birthday for me.