Verde Valley vacay
October 20-24, 2012

The ups and downs of life - I am pondering it all: the challenges, the joys, the hardships, the work and play of it all.  So much of it is self-imposed; sometimes it seems as if we set a hard road for ourselves and other times, the bumps in the road just jump up and grab us.

At this moment, though, I am grateful for this special day, one day of four that we are spending in the Verde Valley as a mini-much-appreciated get-away.  The summer has been one filled with sad anticipation and grieving for a loved friend and all the confusion and mixed feelings that go with that - feeling sorry for my own loss and feeling guilty for that selfishness.

That aside now as it is mine to sort out, knowing that each of us has our own path to follow and with gratitude for those whose paths converge with mine.

Public speaking - argh! . . .

We have with difficulty carved out four days that we can be here in the travel trailer doing exactly as we choose at any given moment.  For reasons unfathomable to me now, I agreed to do a one-hour presentation at the Northern Arizona Genealogical Society’s annual workshop on Saturday morning.  Not comfortable as a public speaker but having unbounded enthusiasm for family history, I thought I could pull it off.  In reality, not so much.

The request was for me to speak on doing genealogy research on locality, which is a great favorite pastime for us.  I was nervous, but not overmuch; however, my chosen material was more than could be accommodated in the allotted time, causing me to leave out things I wanted to include and to rush through others.  Generally, it was just not a very good presentation; hopefully, I will refrain from such in the future.

Hummingbirds, Verde River, neighbors . . .

At any rate, it was my last big non-regular commitment for a spell and I am thrilled it is behind me and that I now sit on a bluff above the Verde River, temps in the 80s, a soft breeze cooling us and Anna’s hummingbirds sipping our offered nectar.

Our neighbors, Bob & Donna, just came home and are over for a visit and to enjoy hearing Chris play the keyboard.  They are full-time RVers in a beautiful 35-foot class A motorhome, originally from Ohio (actually, Bob & Donna are from Ohio; I have no idea whence came their RV).

Early morning bird walk, Sunday relaxing . . .

Early this morning, we enjoyed a great walk down along the river to explore this stretch of waterway.  Much of the bank is inaccessible because of cattails and other vegetation, at least for getting to the water for fishing.  We did find a few spots that would lend themselves to angling, so we will give them a try later maybe.

While wandering, we spotted a life bird, a Vesper’s sparrow, in addition to white-crowned sparrows, Abert’s towhee and Say’s phoebe, plus three American coots that were dining enthusiastically on something in the floating aquatic plants.

Our roost for this trip is the Thousand Trails park, a membership group that rents spaces to non-members such as us.  It’s our first time to stay here, but surely will not be the last; after all, it is only an hour from home, warmer than home and right on the river - as fine a combination as can be imagined sans warm-water ocean beach.

We availed ourselves of a generous reasonably priced breakfast served at the park’s clubhouse and were off for another foray further upstream on the Verde.  Here we found better fishing access and will return to drop a line or two.

The cliffs in this area are pocked with caves, grottoes and overhangs, the soil consisting of white limestone. 

Two birds added to the trip list: northern harrier and belted kingfisher.

Friends, pickleball, Big Tex . . .

A lazy Sunday afternoon culminated in a welcome visit from Barb and Bud who ventured over the mountain to join us in conversation, jacuzzi and food.   The swimming pool and spa here are very nice; however, the pool’s water temperature was a bit too brisk for us in the cooling late afternoon. 

It was my sad task to inform the Bs about the demise of Big Tex, which news shocked them severely.  Big Tex is that iconic 40-foot tall figure who greets revelers at the Texas state fair every fall with a booming drawled “Howdy folks!” or that did so until last Friday when the tall Texan was mysteriously burned up (or should I say burned down - I’m never quite sure).  The promise is that the greeter extraordinaire will be restored for next year’s festivities at which time I hope to finally attend that granddaddy of all fairs.

Whilst basking in the warmer climes of the spa, I learned some about pickleball, which appears to be a marriage of tennis, ping pong and badminton.  Another Rita (what a thought!) educated me about the game’s particulars; it sounds like a sport I would enjoy and hopefully will get to try while I’m here.

The Verde, bobcats, snoozing raccoon, Alcantara

Monday morning, as we are bushwhacking our way upstream on the Verde, we find lots of riverbank access, at least for those who are willing to work their way through head-high grass, reeds and thick brush with the occasional catclaw thrown in for good measure.  And then there’s the footing: not so good, lots of river rubble hidden under thick Johnson grass mats.






















As a reward for that work, the scenes are wondrous.  I never tire of exploring and photographing the many moods of the Verde.  Unlike some watercourses, its temperament is chameleonesque, changing from wide and  slow-moving when the canyon opens up to swift falling rapids where it gouges through steep cliff faces.  It can be grassy-banked shaded by willows and cottonwoods or rushing through towering crumbling limestone faces.





We were having so much fun yesterday that we continued to explore up the river despite having no lunch munchies along.  That hunger-fest convinced me to write the Wuehrmann constitution.  This is it: Whereas we never know how far we will hike, explore, swim, kayak or drive and whereas we do not want to turn back from a boondock because we are hungry or thirsty, we will never again set foot outside without food and water.
In the end, we continued on for a long time and even longer distance with rumbling bellies because it was just too choice to turn back solely because of hunger.

The most exciting part of the day was even before we reached the canyon bottom.  As I looked across the canyon that we were winding downward through, I spotted movement, called a halt and was amazed to see two bobcats working their way up the opposite cliff.  They stopped briefly a couple of times to look over their shoulders at us and then on top disappeared into the brush.  We managed to snap one quick picture as the second one topped out.  I was thrilled to see them!

Wildlife bookended our day: Shortly before we climbed out of the riverbed, I glanced up into a tall willow tree and saw a bizarre sight about 30 feet up in the branches.  We soon realized it was a raccoon sound asleep, resting on what seemed to be too few branches for his bulk.  Trying out various angles for pictures, I never saw more than a whole lot of fur from one side and part of an eye patch and one round ear sticking up from the other side.

The fishing was . . . well, the fishing wasn’t, but we were in our element just the same.




Although we never spotted a beaver dam, there was extensive evidence of the critters’ presence, both past and present.  We saw and had to climb over many trees downed by them and even a “drag-way” where they had pulled their prizes over a long distance to the water.  Some of the willows they had chewed through were surprisingly sizable.






Home from the canyon, showered and made decent and we were off to Alcantara, the nearby winery, where we had a great time with Vince.  I liked all of the five wines I tasted (after the third, my meager discernment abilities deteriorated even further) and was impressed with the facility, the menu, Vince, and Charlie Brown, the rescued Chesapeake Bay retriever that scared my socks off with his big bark when I walked up to the door.  Good thing I was wearing only sandals on my feet: no socks to lose.

After all that wildlife, we spent some evening imbibement hours with Bob & Donna, who are not nearly as wild and who filled us in on full-time RVing adventures and their travel blog.


 




























Javelina, anniversary, Su Casa . . .

This morning, we were again off to the river, an area that we saw on a previous trip and wanted to explore.  Once again, the fish were either not at home or not hungry, but what a pretty stretch of waterway.  We added red-wing blackbird and red-shafted northern flicker to the trip list.  As we approached, I got a good look at a large turtle sunning on a raft of reeds.  He was too shy to have his portrait done, so slipped quietly into the water.

This section of the Verde required no bushwhacking a’tall, just lots of precarious slipping and sliding on scary dirt trails and leaping over crumbled away sections of cliff.  One place was bad enough that I took the trouble to scramble above and around it.  I heard it collapse later when a feller who came by after us jumped across and barely managed not to go with it.

Sadly, after I tried to use the timer for a photo of the two of us to commemorate our 33rd wedding anniversary, I lost the handy little squiggly tripod that niece Suzie gave me, and I never did get the picture, at least not with both of us.  In the ten seconds allotted by the timer, I managed to skid down the slope toward the water but not far enough.  The resulting anniversary picture was of Chris scowling up as he watched me attempt the impossible. 

We consoled ourselves by going out for lunch at Su Casa in Clarkdale - a fine meal indeed - a definite return is in order.

This being the only time we could get away, Chris had to take a break from fun and go over the mountain this evening to teach a class at Yavapai, but then he enjoys that, too.  Maybe not the most convenient, but it has been a nice change of scenery for us, and it gave me some down time to do pretty much nothing at all.

Wednesday morning gave us the opportunity to explore more of the jungle-like riverbed below the RV park.  We spooked up two javelina that leaped away from us in a manner more befitting deer than piggies (yes, I know full well they are not pigs, just didn’t want to use the same word twice in one sentence).  This anti-human behavior is very different from the collared peccaries (ditto previous remark) that wander the back yards and gardens of Prescott and lie down to suckle their young on Phyllis’ front porch.

Back home and unpacked by 2 p.m. - we are excited to think about future quick and easy departures from the quasi-civilization of home to the back country of the Verde Valley, brimming with adventures-for-the-taking.