Life phase
June 24, 2015

The folks . . .

Our much-delayed-by-work-commitments journey finally culminated in getting the trailer set up in Hendersonville and spending our days with Mom & Dad Wuehrmann in Tryon.  Dad is at home in hospice care; lending a hand during this time is ours to do.

The RV park where we typically stay is a 30-minute drive from their home, so we spend little time there.  It is probably the nicest park we've utilized, although during a number of visits here, we have never used the tantalizing swimming pool.  Each visit, I promise myself I will take a dip or two, and each visit, I never get to it.

Friends, a boo-boo, neighbors & Jazzy . . .

A real treat on the last day of the drive was to meet up with Arizona friends Gary & Katy and their traveling companions.  No one could have planned that encounter; how perfect that they were departing their vacation spot and crossing our path along the way.  We met in Asheville for a two-hour lunch and catch-up.

That was the good news.  The bad news was that somewhere during the morning, we bottomed out the back end of the trailer and bunged up the stabilizer jack and bumper.  Chris was able to straighten out the bumper ding; however, the stabilizer had to be replaced.  Luckily, an RV outlet nearby had the part in stock and an RV neighbor loaned us a jack that was needed for the process.

Those neighbors, John & Pat, are Floridians spending the summer in Hendersonville with their poodle, Jazzy.  Good folks to have next door - Pat is sharing her abundant sweet basil - and Jazzy is one of the more amazing dogs I've met.  When they are relaxing outside, the unleashed dog is content to recline on the grass and allow all accolades and attention to be bestowed upon him.  He watches with great interest as dogs are walked nearby, but nary a budge out of his zone.

Yard crew . . .

Often as I wander harsh terrain, whether western desert, southern swampland, mountain forests or any other naturescapes, I am incredulous at the seemingly superhuman exertions the ancestors exhibited as they traveled through to new areas or cleared land to settle and farm.

As Chris and I worked this week to restore Mom & Dad's property to some semblance of order, I once again jumped on that train of thought.  A thermometer reading of 99 and humidity off the charts made attacking the jungle one of those tasks that require putting the brain in neutral (something I'm fairly adept at) and just bulling through.

In the larger scheme of things, the chore was a big nothing, although the gratification from a job well-done was satisfying, as were comments from visitors who wondered if we were the "amazing yard crew"? 

We pruned and sawed and clipped and pulled and whacked and sweated and moaned and dragged, with the resulting landscape looking top-notch.  Now a person can actually get to the blueberry patch that was formerly inaccessible - rhododendron, ivy and a whole slew of stuff I know not the name of, including the most horrid thorny vine ever grown, tangled through the area.  In addition, there was a bunch of other vegetation I did not recognize blocking the way as well as any brick wall might have.

Being a westerner, I am not overly familiar with the green growing things that proliferate here, so I worried that I might be whacking away on "good" stuff, not weeds.  Chris eliminated that concern: "If it's in the way, it's a weed".

The front entry is now shipshape as well as most of the remaining grounds.  That tree on the left is Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, according to Mom, a most fascinating botanical.

Meanwhile, back at the RV park, Ma & Pa Cardinal are not the only takers at our feeders; they've been joined by Carolina chickadee & tufted titmouse and. . .

. . . we had to move the feeders to prevent this scamp from jumping onto them and knocking the hummingbird feeder down.

I hope the hydrangea I planted in my garden this year will be this pretty.

More good news - it's peach harvest time!

The Green River Gorge between Hendersonville and Tryon is often filled with mist and fog.  There's a good reason they call this range the Smoky Mountains.

Fireflies! and Bill . . .
June 19, 2015

I put off beginning a blog post for our trip to North Carolina because all seemed pretty much mundane.  We were doing something we’ve never done before and that is to get on our pony and ride - five straight days of Interstate highway driving, intending to get to Mom & Dad Wuehrmann’s as soon as possible - a trip devoid of our usual lollygagging, visiting and exploring.

For the first couple of days, all was routine, marked only by small occasional instances that might merit a mention.  As we pulled into Oklahoma City, though, we were still feeling fortunate: 100% chance of rain forecast overnight, but we managed to set up and get in a brisk walk just ahead of the promised storm.

Next morning - same thing - we prepared to depart after an overnight deluge but managed to get on the road during a rare dryish window and that’s when it let loose again, the like of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Onto a completely saturated landscape with all rivers and creeks completely backed out of their banks and turned into vast lakes, prodigious more amounts of rain fell.  At every turn nothing but water - water in torrents, water filling inland seas, water, water and more water. 

Notable were the seven cars and trucks that had slid off the highway and were buried axle deep in muck.  Two of them had just happened and the injured parties were being tended by EMS personnel.  A person might think that it would be advisable to slow down while driving in torrential rain, but that concept seems to escape some folks.

By the third day out, we overslept a bit, not rising until 7 - partially because we were two time zones east of home and partially because we had arrived in the land of daylight savings time, but mostly because the sun was no match for the solid cloud cover; the light differential between night and day was negligible.

Lotawatah . . .

As we passed Lake Eufalah, we saw a sign pointing to Lotawatah Road, which gave us a good laugh; there was indeed a lotawatah.

Winding up our fourth day of boogie, boogie, boogie in Newport, Tennessee, we again set up (that process includes placing a leveler under one side or the other of the trailer wheels, extending the jack stand - we’re not unhooking from the truck on the long day/short night stopovers - and cranking down four corner stabilizers and extending the slideouts), and got inside seconds ahead of yet another storm. 

More forecast for tonight and tomorrow when we will be in Asheville . . . lotawatah . . . evidently, the abundance of precipitation is all due to Bill, a tropical depression that is inundating the southern region.  We are fairly certain we could rent ourselves out as rain magnets; we have RVed through two hurricanes with “I” names and far too many tropical depressions.

Green and flowers are two results of these wet climes.

The South, Ancestors always . . .

I have had to steel myself to passing through the South at a breakneck pace.  It is my favored region and there is so much to explore and discover.  And of course there are the known and cherished areas where my ancestors lived - places where we have visited ancestral home sites and graves, places that I want to return to again and again, but this time am thinking of kinfolk with regret as we pass the places where they lived, loved and labored.

I am writing at our fourth night stop, looking forward to a not-as-long-and-arduous drive tomorrow (at least if the rain lets up) and arriving at our Hendersonville, North Carolina, destination to see Mom & Dad in nearby Tryon.

Despite the rapid pace of our drive, we still enjoy the beauty of the countryside, so unlike my beloved West that is beautiful in an entirely different way.  I get so excited when I see the first cypress swamp, and notice the magnolia trees in bloom, and delight in the magic of fireflies sparking under the trees in the dusk.

Our fourth night park is a lovely KOA.

Henrietta Lacks . . .

My task of choice as the miles disappear beneath our tires is to read aloud the story of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, a fascinating tale of science, social interaction and medical technology.  Thanks to Crystal, whose book it is and to Khristine for making me next in line for the loan in time for our trip.

Oh no! . . .

Words I do not want to hear from my spouse on an extended sojourn: “Guess what we forgot?”  Unfortunately, those words were uttered; the left-behind item was our eastern bird book - quite a blow in my mind.  I carely packed both pairs of binoculars, the spotting scope and the bird book that we use regularly with nary a thought to visiting a region of avian life not represented in the western book.

“Rats”, I think (worse, really), but remind myself it’s not world-ending, although important enough to us that we will buy a replacement while we are here.  We have our computer lists to tell us whether the bird in question is a life bird or not, but I do love checking in the book and reading our notations of where else we have previously spotted a bird.

So far, the few feathered friends we have seen in the rare dry moments include grackle, house sparrow, cliff swallow, robin, cardinal, turkey vulture, mocking bird, starling and a great egret that flew back & forth overhead.

Chris has adeptly manuevered the big behemoth through several cities worth of heavy rush-hour traffic.  Look ma, no rain . . .

Big game in Tennessee.

Did I mention we have new kayaks after one of our old boats sprang a leak?

Old still, old tourist

Cute

Old haunts
June 9, 2015

Changes, always changes . . .

Changes in the air with the way I do business, that is to say how I live my life.  I am reaffirming my way of approaching things as if I were remembering today from a future date.  Viewing today from the perspective of some tomorrow gives it a whole different slant.

Will I look back at today and say, "I wish I had . . ."  or will I be able to say "I'm glad I did . . ."?  Not unusual for me to weigh my activities in such a way; however, I have noticed of late there have accumulated a plethora of the former, thus the decision to pack even more into an already wonderfully full life.  In other words, "Self: get with the program and stop procrastinating".

Rusty & Betty . . .

All of which leads me to a recent day's travel into the desert of my youth.  Our friends, Rusty and Betty, carved out a day from their schedule to spend with us on an explore of their section of Arizona, the region where my paternal grandparents and my parents ranched back in the day.

Meeting at their Lake Pleasant camp, west of the lake itself, we encountered our first dilemma.  The "mule" we were to head out on was out of gas.  Some finagling and siphoning later, we four loaded up along with Shaggy Dog and proceeded off to see what we might see.

A permanent fixture in my existence, Rusty Hastings knew, ranched, cowboyed and mined with my grandparents and my parents, and is actually kin in the peculiar way that I count kin.  His sister was married to the brother of Lucille Thomason, who was my aunt via her marriage to my Uncle Lewis Kelley, a union that ended in divorce: therefore, Rusty is my former step uncle-in-law once removed (or something).  Don't even try to argue; it is absurd enough without putting more energy into it.

Castle Hot Springs . . .

In and amongst my numerous requests for photo stops, we had the opportunity of going to Castle Hot Springs.  By way of history: the place was developed as a resort in the 1800s.  An interesting aside I learned from our useful friend, Wikipedia, was that it was used for rehabilitation for wounded soldiers after World War II and that John F. Kennedy stayed there for three months to recover from his combat injuries.

My childhood memories of Castle Hot Springs may mirror what it was like for resort visitors of old who traveled there in horse-drawn conveyances over many miles of desert terrain.

Before we were told it was a bad thing, we children were often relegated to the pickup bed, leaving the enclosed cab for the adults.  Don't get me wrong - we youngsters were just fine with that and had great times back there with no parental interference.  That method of travel paled a bit, however, when long distances in summer heat were involved, especially on roads like the Castle Hot Springs road from which voluminous clouds of dust boiled into the pickup bed.  That was when we kept our eyes squinted and our mouths closed and numbly awaited arrival at a destination, any destination that would allow us to breathe freely again.

It surely was not much different for stagecoach passengers whose goal was that wonderful resort oasis.

I shall never forget how astounding the sight was when we would have been for what seemed like hours (and probably was) in the dust and heat, and we would come around a bend in the road and there, as if a miracle, was green lush grass lawns, rows of tall palm trees and beautiful historic buildings - an incredibly welcome respite from the harsh desert surrounding it.

In the interim between then and now, the main hotel burned, sadly, and the place has not been open as a resort, so we were grateful to have the chance to revisit those lovely grounds.  For me, especially, it felt like a step back in time to even before my childhood visits. 

My parents' first ranch - the AD - was headquartered at nearby Hell's Gate, and I have photographs of them "taking the waters" in the 1930s, the occasion of the pictures evidently being a visit by kin from Texas.  I will share copies of those photos with the current Springs owners and with Sharlot Hall Museum.

I found this shot online of even earlier visitors in 1908:

The grounds are well maintained, as are the remaining buildings.

A palm-lined road conveys us from the grassy flat up to the canyon where the hot water pours out of the rocks.

I love the color streaks left on the rocks from the water's minerals.

Here water is flowing through the bathing pools; a metal gate can be closed to allow the pool to fill.

We enjoyed some relaxing and visiting in that lovely canyon.

The flow continues past the pools to nourish the grounds before it disappears under the sand.

Obviously, not all the structures have survived intact.

 

 Hell's Gate . . .

Another stop along the way was for photos of the upper end of the massive rock cleft known as Hell's Gate.  When Mom & Dad married in 1938, he took her to the ranch there.  Aged 15, she was in love with her cowboy, and a darn good thing - it had to have been quite a shock for the Prescott-raised girl to be out there with no electricity or running water and a new baby within the year.  She cooked for the family and ranch hands and dealt with it all one way or another; I never heard any complaints from her about those times, difficult as they must have been.

Rusty and I were photo hogs of the day!

Our mule for the day. . .

. . . ably maneuvered by Rusty all day long.  At age 88, he continues "a-goin' and a-blowin", as my old Pappy would have said.

Morgan City Wash . . .

Throughout the years, Rusty has prospected and mined in addition to his other endeavors.  One of his mines was located on Morgan City Wash in the vicinity of a small settlement long crumbled away to nothingness, and in that one, he and Dad collaborated.  

Somewhere back in the '50s/60s(?), they set up an arrastra to crush the gold ore.  Over time, that mechanism disappeared only to be rediscovered recently; evidently, the same elements of nature that covered it from view revealed it once again.

Our day was filled with tales upon tales about the folks who have passed through this hard country, some who remained for a spell and moved on and others who spawned generations to know and love the region.  Even before Anglos populated the region, sparsely though it was, Spaniards sought gold here, too.  Rusty talked about a Spanish mine just above the wash where he and Dad explored and Dad smoked them out when he lit off the masses of pack rat nests in there.

Little remains of Morgan City itself; its boundaries are marked off as private property, so for a change, we did not trespass.

That country is rugged and beautiful to behold.  I like to think about Dad, Grandpa, Uncle Lewis & Rusty riding and working out there, and all the folks who made it home and wrested a living from the land.

Jojoba beans ripening.

Our desert jaunt included the obligatory snake.  This bull snake was a great big ol' feller, but he wouldn't straighten out so I could measure him.  We escorted him to safety off the road.

Sad to bid our friends farewell, but grateful for the time with them.  Anyone interested in horseback excursions, searching for gold or any desert adventures can contact them through Betty's Trail Rides at http://www.yourarizonamoments.com/index.html.

Meanwhile . . .

I have received some chastisements of late about our not being out & about and blogging thereof.  It is true that we have been more stick-at-homes than usual because of work and landscaping the back yard plus a "few" other activities, but we have been out a few times.  Most recently was a jaunt to Granite Basin Lake and a hike along Mint Creek.

 

The hike took us up high enough to see out to snow-capped San Francisco Peaks with a nice view of the colorful Sycamore Canyon rim in front of the mountains.

This spectacularly handsome dude was up for a photo.

Back at home, this tiny king snake has been spotted lurking around our property several times; however, he is quick to take cover when I show up with the camera.