Why Thatcher?
October 27, 2019

Who in their right mind would go to Thatcher, Arizona, to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary?  Me and Chris - that's who.  Why Thatcher?  Well, why not Thatcher, that's what I say.  Granted, it's not a two-week Hawaiian vacation, but this is what we get and I am content, grateful even.

It was not easy to carve out any time away from our crowded schedule, but by changing two appointments and bailing on one other commitment, we get a whopping three and one-half days away.

We love this part of the state and even have family ties here.  I had thought we might lodge in nearby Safford, but when a very reasonable and cute b&b in Thatcher popped up, it seemed like the thing to do.

On Sunday, Chris played for two services at Unity and then we were off on our long drive, ending up in a lovely old farmhouse in the midst of cotton fields.  Our hostess said this house and the one across the drive might have been razed due to their dilapidated condition when she and her husband acquired them, but she was inspired to refurbish our cozy abode, and what a splendid job she has done!

As we headed southward from Prescott, we kept in mind that we had not leisure time for our usual dawdle; therefore we dawdled a good bit less than is our wont to dawdle.

Our conversation was amply salted with dismay at what has become of our beautiful state, mostly as we traversed the crazily huge Phoenix metropolitan area.  It does go on and on and on and on and on.  Towns that once were far separated from each other now share the same space.  Are we in Anthem, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Apache Junction or some other named place?  One doesn't usually know and in my case, one doesn't care.

By the time we approached the alluring Superstition Mountains, I began to feel the tension fall away.  Coming into the wild jagged winding mountain canyons past there, I felt such awe at the landscape; would that I could spend several lifetimes exploring there.

We did make a stop to photograph Picketpost Mountain (below), which rises above the Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  I wrote about William Boyce Thompson (the person, not the arboretum) previously when I was discovering that his nephew was Bill Thompson, the creator of the iconic Wallace & Ladmo television show, and that his brother, J.E. Thompson, developed the amazing multi-vegetated property adjacent to my grandmother's home in Phoenix.  Okay, there's another tangent. . .

Limited time required that stops were few and far between and brief.  I was fascinated to see a remnant of old Highway 60, but was unable to get a photo of it.  Even that short glimpse propelled me into reminiscing about the olden days traveling with my parents around Arizona.  It was entirely a terrifying experience to traverse the very narrow precipitous byways of past years as they painstakingly took us up and down and around Arizona's imposing mountainous terrain.  As children, our usual occupation on those journeys was to be the first to spy vehicles far below where they had plunged from the road and tumbled end over end down the rocky mountainside.  In those days, the wrecks remained right where they landed, thus the rusting hulks would still be visible for years afterward, eliciting horror as we imagined the fate of the occupants.  Those roads were not for the faint-hearted.

Back to the current trip: we called a halt on the far side of the Queen Creek tunnel to look around and snap some shots.  We were cautious at the edge of the cliff; the wind was blowing so wildly that we were worried about being blown over the side.  Even the saguaros were swaying back and forth under the onslaught.

The Queen Creek canyon sides are as rough and steep as any I've ever seen.  Evidently, it is a popular climbing site; in the photo below, there is actually a climber low on one of those cliff faces with a belayer above her.  Based on our observations, she was a rank beginner: despite slowly repositioning her hands and feet repeatedly, she never moved from her spot.

 The 1952 tunnel eliminated one of the life-threatening highway routes.

Our journey took us through extensive copper mining territory and the towns of Superior, Miami, Claypool and Globe with glimpses of the gigantic open pit operations.  Many years ago, my older brother worked in one of those mines and was severely injured when a bulldozer rolled onto his foot, causing lifelong issues. 

One other site of interest at which we halted was a large well-used roadside shrine, evidently of a fairly recent vintage.

Hoofin' it & My Right Eye
October 23, 2019

West Spruce . . .

Ridgetop hikes are fun because they offer panoramic vistas in both directions, and that is exactly what we enjoyed when we drove far out Thumb Butte Road and hiked back toward West Spruce Mountain.  Long time back, we approached that promontory from the north side off of Iron Springs Road, a completely different type of walk through lower elevation plant communities.

When we embarked on a more recent jaunt, we left Ruby safely back in the garage and arrived in our new/old truck - new to us but of a 2015 vintage.  We had scarcely sold the Tundra before we were ensconced in a smaller Tacoma.  I poorly executed a selfie with the three of us - Chris, me and Taco.  The following photo is Taco's first foray out in the woods, at least with us.  He is not a 4-wheel drive vehicle, so will certainly not replace Ruby in that category, but her extensive mileage - 261,000! - has earned her some down time, we think.

The low afternoon lighting cast long tree shadows and illuminated the leafy hardwoods interspersed through the evergreens.

Off to the western horizon across Copper Basin, we saw line after line of mountain ranges, each one its very own shade of misty blue.  That kind of scene leaves me in awe of the vastness of our surrounding countryside and creates in me a yearning to explore every secret within it.

Off to our east, we overlooked the Prescott basin and the mountains beyond.

There's the Mingus range and foothills with Granite Dells dwarfed in the foreground.

Thumb Butte rises from the valley floor in front of Bill Williams Mountain.

Granite Mountain showed up around to the north of us.

A tree grows in Yavapai . . .

We have encountered many venerable trees as we explore the outback, and this hike took us right alongside one of that category.  That impressive juniper appeared to be in very good health and was magnificently gnarled.  Clearly, I could not stop snapping photographs of its various parts.

I greatly admired the tree, its convolutions and age-earned scars.  Later, while perusing the photographs, I began to wonder why we so much revere what the years have wrought on a tree, but feel just the opposite when we see our own age spots, crepey skin and hoary or thinning tresses.  Certainly youth has its own attractiveness, but the beauty of age is earned by our transition through time.  I hope we can learn to honor the singular elegance that is gained by the passage of time and the storms through which we journey.

My Right Eye, Willow Lake . . .

Although I don’t typically publish blog posts about such mundane activities as attending the movies, a recent occurrence at the flicks has me decided to relate it.

There we were, comfortably ensconced at the theater to watch Ad Astra (a good film, by the way), with the lights dimmed when I noticed occasional flashes of light being directed at us.  Lasers, I wondered, but couldn’t discern their origin.  I mentioned it to Chris, but he would not keep his attention on the location between us long enough to see them; naturally, this annoyed me, and I was left to wonder about the issue throughout the film.  Luckily, it was engrossing enough to distract me from the mysterious lights, although it did not alleviate my annoyance with Chris.

I know you are getting it already; however, I may be a little slower than some.  Fast forward to arriving home and walking along the front walk in the dark: eureka!  The lights were not in the theater; they were emanating from my very own eye - My Right Eye, to be exact.

You might note that I have capitalized the nomenclature of that part of my anatomy.  Let me explain the reason for that.  A while back, there arose an issue with my other eye - a hole in the retina that required draining the fluid and surgically repairing the tear, which resulted in a scar in the middle of Lefty’s vision.  That became how he was referred to throughout the medical process and recovery.

Since that time, My Right Eye has carried the burden of allowing me to view our great wonderful world despite Lefty’s best efforts.  Methinks that after his unflagging efforts, he has wearied a bit and wants to have his share of attention and deserves it, thus I have self-diagnosed his condition as a vitreous separation and now refer to him respectfully as My Right Eye.

Dr. Google informs me that this condition is not uncommon, typically does not lead to anything more serious and that there is nothing to be done other than waiting it out.

In the meantime, it makes life more interesting.  In addition to light flashes, vitreous separation results in a condition known as Weiss ring, which is a circular (as you can imagine) ring of cloudy material floating around inside My Right Eye, along with oodles and oodles of other floaters, causing some cloudiness of vision.  I have long dealt with a plethora of floaters in my eyes, but this bunch takes the cake!  They're having a veritable convention in there, dancing, darting, jumping back & forth, jinking and diving - okay, you get the idea.

Thus my extended solo walk around Willow Lake on a recent irresistibly glorious day was enhanced with lots of activity in My Right Eye, pretty much making bird watching a guessing game.

“Wow”, I think, “Look at that flock of birds”.  Never mind, it was a flock of floaters and I don’t mean the waterfowl type.  No matter, I quite enjoyed myself gazing at the larger scenes of great autumn beauty everywhere I turned.  Naturally, I had to wander away from the nicely maintained trail to the wash bottom pictured below.  The autumn hues were mere days away from being full-blown, and down in there, I encountered a nice little steam of water that was flowing into the lake.

Once I slogged my way back out of there, I pretty much followed the trail.  Oddly enough, I encountered only two other people in two hours of walking out there.

Check out all the floaters in the next photo - they are actual waterfowl, not intruders in My Right Eye.

Although Willow Lake is just a few minutes drive from home or perhaps because of its proximity, I don't get out there a lot, but I was so happy I did this time.  The trail takes a person through quite a variety of scenery, every bit of it beautiful in its own way.

Granite Mountain is off in one direction . . .

. . . with Granite Dells and Mingus Mountain in another . . .

In some of the lower boggier places, grapevines create a tangle as they climb their way up into tree branches . . .

. . . and cattails prepare to burst open with the next autumn breeze.

That pall of smoke across the eastern horizon was said to have emanated from a prescribed burn on the Coconino forest near Flagstaff.  No one in Prescott will soon forget what it did the very next day when the wind shifted and we were choking as it settled into our region, dropping visibility drastically.

I took the photo below, ostensibly of Thumb Butte, from Gateway Mall.  It's ghostlike appearance belies the crisp clear skies of the previous day.

And back to the lake walk: As I crossed over Willow Creek, I was mightily impressed with the bridge.  "Self", I said (there being no one else present to hear my musings), "this bridge isn't going anywhere for a really long time."   I wondered at its impressiveness, and learned about its origin when I spied a sign on the other side.

I learned via the signage that the bridge was constructed by volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!  What an undertaking!  According to the notice, "The City of Prescott greatly appreciates this contribution" . . . and so do I!

I climbed down the embankment to get a closer look at the creek bottom and revel in the atmosphere.  Although not flowing, there were substantial pools of water and lush greenery, the miracle that water offers.

Meanwhile, back at the hacienda, we still note the visits of occasional raccoons in the back yard.  Much easier to discern in the front yard are when deer have decided that my roses are delectable, but I don't do photos of that sad scene.