Graves in the desert, cold water
February 20, 2014

And we’re off - at the crack of 9:20 a.m.  Southern Arizona is our destination.  This is the first time we’ve hauled the Totee from our home in Prescott, a very different proposition from its previous departure point in Chino Valley.

First, the trailer cannot be stored at our house as we were able to do in the past; however, the Cliff Rose development has a reasonably priced RV storage lot where our trailer hangs precariously over a cliff, but then cheap is cheap, and who am I to complain.

The homeowners association rule is a maximum of 72 hours to have it at the house for cleaning and packing.  We did manage to back it onto the driveway and leave the truck hooked up for the duration, although walkers were obliged to skirt around our intrusion across the sidewalk.  The process is a far cry from keeping the trailer anywhere we want on our previous five acres and the incumbent leisurely pack whenever spare moments occur and the inspiration strikes.

More about this week-long stay near Huachuca City later; before I go off on that tangent, I shall mention a few things about a couple of day trips we’ve embarked on of late.

Our schedules have been maxed out, so fitting in boondocks has gone a bit to the wayside; however, we’ve managed some short days off and gone.  A request from the website, FindaGrave, was the impetus for a drive down to the Congress area.

I occasionally volunteer to photograph gravestones requested by folks out of the region.  This one seemed perfect for me: I could fulfill the requests and visit my aunt’s grave in Congress at the same time.  It would be a relatively simple matter to drive down there and back in a couple of hours and be done with it, but of course that would never do.  Better to view the occasion as a back-roading opportunity.

Managing to get as far as Peeples Valley before stopping, we pulled over at the one-room schoolhouse there that my father and his brother attended in the 1930s.  The building is now on the National Register of Historic Places, it was new when when Dad went there.  Interesting how something that seems to us to be so old really does not have its roots very far back in antiquity.

In this case, it was constructed and opened in 1927, the same year as Prescott’s Hassayampa Inn.  For a part of the time that Ira and Lewis Kelley were students there, they boarded with families that lived closer in rather than "commute" from the ranch.  Among the folks who took them in for the school week was the Hays family.  Margaret (Hays) Rigden taught them for some or all of their time there; I don’t have a handle on more specfics, although I was told they rode horses to school for some of their time there.

Dad took it as a mark of pride that when the Peeples Valley Historical Society hoped to refurbish and paint the deteriorating building, Chris put together an Elderhostel service group to accomplish the task, with Dad participating.

He loved having a captive group to hear his rememberies, and truthfully, it enhanced the Hostelers’ experience to have Dad there to bring life to what otherwise would have been four walls and a roof, historic or not, in need of repair.

Yarnell, Rich Hill . . .

This was our first time in Yarnell since the tragic fire - sobering to be there while heartening to witness the extensive rebuilding.  Foregoing the Highway 89 route down the mountain, we opted to turn eastward and travel the old Yarnell Hill road that winds its washboardy way out and around, up and down.

As we began our descent to the desert floor, we had a nice view of Rich Hill, known historically for its one-time surface gold nuggets.  Along its base is East Antelope Creek, which borders my Grandparents Kelley’s erstwhile ranch.  So now recent forays have taken us to the south of their property and to the west; perhaps next time will find us attempting to return to their homesite.

I say “attempt” because the land has been purchased by Maughan Ranches, who have seemingly bought up most of Arizona’s outback, and I am not sure if they have restricted access.  I hope not.

Stalking Coloradans, gunfights . . .

Somewhere along about in there, we detected a Coloradan prospecting a road cut with his $3,000 metal detector, to no avail.  He was rightly reluctant to venture off the road with the device; people have been shot for less.  In fact, I personally know some folks from a local long-time ranching family who barely survived an old-West shootout, a dispute over claim jumping very near there.  All survived the incident, but not without serious gunshot wounds and a long bleeding-out waiting for helicopter evacuation after their young sons drove them back to the ranch house.

Our northern friend was nevertheless enjoying the Arizona non-winter away from his cold home state.  Hard to imagine what that very same feller thought hours later and many miles away when he returned to his car from a hike and found us munching our lunch right near his vehicle.  His shock could not have been any more than ours that we should cross paths twice in such a random way.  If we had come to the second meeting first, I would have suspicioned that he was somehow following us: undoubtedly too many spy films with GPS tracking devices employed.

Another homestead . . .

A short distance from the top of the pass, we stopped for a short photo op at Grandma & Grandpa's second Arizona abode.  This one was a bit more conventional: a wood frame house Zack & Pearl Kelley purchased (I think from McCleves), surely a welcome step up for Grandma from the previous small tin cabin.

Snowbirds, desert ghosts, rock frog . . .

I was surprised to find so many people on that back road, even a convoy of jeeps, until I remembered that my folks’ old stomping grounds has become quite the haven for snowbirds.  Where once there was the ghost town of Stanton, tightly fenced and empty as my memory conjures it, and other abandoned hamlets, Octave and Weaver, gathering places for scattered ranches and prospector cabins, there are now RV camps and prospecting clubs with 4-wheelers tearing up the desert landscape.

Stanton’s buildings were preserved by dint of access denied for years to those who would deface and dismantle.  Now it is a bustling little movie-set kind of place.  Octave was a special place for my family; my parents met there at a dance, which makes one wonder just what Grandma was thinking to allow Mom to attend a dance there from her home in Prescott at the age of 15 or so.  On the other hand, I possess less than full information about the event - maybe my grandparents were there with her, or possibly some other equally suitable chaperone was on the scene.

At any rate, I remember us all wandering the area in later years: one could then still walk Octave’s main street, lined with rock-walled roofless buildings.  I was fascinated with a sign I photographed back then that warned “Do not shoot at the Thomason’s claim across the creek”.  That was my Aunt Lucille’s family’s house; as then, I remain unsure why that sign was necessary - the house was plainly visible from that spot.

The gigantic painted-rock green frog perched at pavement's edge was an exciting sight to my childhood eyes - today it brings back memories of family outings through the desert; you see, I do come by this wanderlust in a genetic sort of way.

Cousins, cemeteries . . .

This being a slap-it-together kind of day, I had neglected to telephone my cousins, Rick & Jana Kelley, in Congress to determine if a visit might be in order while we were in the neighborhood, but they graciously welcomed us after a call to say “We’re here; can we come over”.  It was fun to see them at home and later when they led us to the old(er) Congress graveyard.

 

The FindaGrave mission turned up only one of three requests, but we were able to report that no markers were in place for the other two burials, and to put flowers on Aunt Lucille's.  As part of my photographic recording obsession, I now have pictures of the burials there of her side of the family, too.

Watch your step . . .

That entire region was all about mining, at least before snowbirds began their seasonal migrations, and the evidence of it is seen in hundreds of tailings piles pockmarking the mountainsides and relics of mills and miners' shacks.

A locked gate makes photographing this old mill a distant proposition.

A person needs to keep a watch on just where they step - this open vertical shaft is one of many.

A river runs through it
February 27,  2014

Another short boondock day took us to the Agua Fria National Monument.  Some cross-country hiking out that way took us to some quasi-water holes.  Throughout the day, we encountered a surprisingly large number of springs and seeps, keeping in mind this was before the recent most-welcome rain.  Where water was at or just below the surface, there was usually extensive salty or alkalai deposits. 

Our wanders along ridge tops also turned up one and only one prehistoric potsherd, an unusual happenstance.  The presence of broken pottery and/or worked stone typically indicates a long-ago campsite, at least, even possibly a more substantial habitation, but usually is part of a scatter of such artifacts.

Finally acknowledging a commitment later in the day, we determined that if we were going to get to the Agua Fria River as originally planned (yes, we occasionally do make plans, well, more like guidelines to be followed only in the unlikely situation that something better doesn’t materialize), we had best head down the wash-bottom trail to that destination.

A most pleasant hike it was, and a very birdy one.  Varied vegetation as the elevation dropped, along with ample water sources allowed avian life to abound.  In a short while, we identified raven, Brewer's sparrow, black-throated sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, chipping sparrow, verdin, phainopepla, western scrub jay, house wren, cactus wren, canyon wren, northern flicker, pyrrhuloxia, black Phoebe and mourning dove.

As the canyon led us to lower elevations, we dropped enough to get into saguaro country.  I photographed one particularly statuesque specimen.

We were astounded to find the river with a large flow of clear-enough-to-see-the-bottom water and swimming holes deep and large enough to tempt any Arizonan worth his salt.  It was a lovely day, but not really swimming temps; unfortunately, by the time the appropriate weather comes around, it is likely the river will no longer be flowing.

Boulder hopping out to the middle of the river, we savored the gentle sunshine and river’s talk while eating lunch, followed by hiking upstream along the river's rocky course. 

Hiking may be too strong a word for that section: it is strewn with rocks from the size of house-proportion boulders to pea-like gravel.  My slight slip off a boulder down into a patch of dry river rubble, landing on my derriere, was the first time I was grateful for recent weight gain to cushion the blow.  A few weeks later, the bruises are nearly dissipated, so no harm done except to whatever dignity I may have possessed.

It was worth the tumble to see more of the canyon; a bonus was a gander at a canyon wren we had heard calling for so long.  We often hear them, but much less often get to see one; this particular bird afforded clear views as it hopped here and there on the cliff face, but still too distant to photograph.

During the hike back out, I was more consumed by the interesting rock formations along the way: lots of varied types, colors and textures, many with intriguing veins winding throughout.  Encyclopedic partner explained (at length!) about how a thready white vein came to be bisected by a thinner black vein - something about, well, never mind, I don't really remember it all, truly I don't remember any of it; best to just take my word that it was fascinating at the time.

This is an area that literally insists on more exploration; both on back roads and cross-country hiking.  We have been in the region before it was designated as a national monument and will return in the future.  It always surprises me that somehow people don’t generally frequent places until they become somehow official.  Name something a city lake, national park or some such, and suddenly the public flocks forth, as if the exact same countryside was not worth visiting without its designation.

On this particular day, we had the place pretty much to ourselves until we turned to climb out.  We had just been admiring what appeared to be the ruin of a small prehistoric building and turned to hike out when two young men appeared below us in the wash.

What happened next is embarrassing enough that I’m surprised I’m ‘fessing up.  They asked us if we had seen any petroglyphs.  Because we had not, we answered in the negative, immediately after which one of them pointed to a rock face directly behind us that was covered with rock art.  As we turned and saw the array, we stammered excuses about looking down at the ruin instead of at the eye-level cliff.  The very kind young man said he wouldn’t have noticed, either, had he not seen a picture of it on the monument’s website; I am fairly sure he was mentally patting the old folks on the head and giving himself kudos for kindness to the elderly.

I quickly snapped some pictures after which we sheepishly departed.

The next picture has an even more embarrassing story.  Gazing around while chatting on the telephone, I spotted this feline in the back yard - and immediately went into ga-ga land because I thought if was a bobcat, thus the photo.  I realize it is quite easy to discern in the picture that it is the neighbor's cat come to devour my birds, but in my excitement, it was something else entirely.  Why I am opening myself up to ridicule is beyond me, but go ahead and laugh at me - I am.

Next back-yard photo was more exciting when two Cooper's hawks came to call and I managed a shot of one of them.  Norma suggests I do a town blog; she will undoubtedly change her tune when she sees these samples.