Non-travels
October 19, 2019

This business of being home all summer has its good points, despite my yearning to travel.  Prescott, of course, is a travel destination for those who are not fortunate enough to reside here, and the myriad attractions for them are also a source of enjoyment for us, so staying put comes down to making choices from so many possibilities.

At the same time, there is a phenomenon that causes this person to become involved in more than this person can keep up with, and sometimes precludes enjoying the surrounding countryside as much as might be preferable if this person could cease and desist overextending.  On the other hand, what’s the point of being home if this person cannot attempt to do all the things this person would wish she could do if she were away traveling? 

Presuming anyone could follow that paragraph, I think I will move on to relate a bit about a few recent forays locally.

Fain Lake, Lynx Creek . . .

The over-extension mentioned previously often results in days partially taken up with chores around the homestead and more, leaving a few hours open here and there.  On one of those afternoons, we thought we might head out to Fain Lake, a pond, really, on Lynx Creek, just because we had not been there for eons.

It is within Prescott Valley’s boundaries, and that entity has created a park of sorts there.  The lake is stocked with trout; we saw several people fishing from the banks and other folks were enjoying the grassy expanse or wandering area trails.

The lake is perched above the country to the south of it, thus affording nice distant views off that direction.

Historically, Lynx Creek was the site of much placer gold mining, and the evidence of the creek being dredged is clear in places.  Massive piles of gravel line the banks in some sections where dredges hydraulically dug up the creek bed so that the material could be sluiced to separate gold ore from gravel.

An attempt at rusticity (There's an awkward word for you!) was made when signage was developed for Fain Park.  While I appreciate the intent, the result is weathered signs that are hard to read.  The one below employs a series of planks to outline the history: 1140 Prescott Culture (native), 1891 The castle (refers to the Barlow Massick mansion (glimpsed in the following photo but closed to the public), 1917 Fains arrive (early family that owned and ranched Lonesome Valley where Prescott Valley is now located and who remain active community members), 1930 Fitzmaurice (the date of the first archaeological dig at the Indian ruin of that name, a significant prehistoric site, also not generally open to the public), 1997 Fain Park (established).

Another structure at the park is the Chapel of the Valley, which is open with limited hours.  I believe both are property of the Town and maintained in conjunction with the Prescott Valley Historical Society.

The chapel's highlights are German stained glass windows manufactured in 1906 for the Sisters of Mercy's hospital in Prescott, which was completed in 1898, and where incidentally, my older brother was born.

When Mercy Hospital was destroyed by fire in 1940, the windows were salvaged from the chapel, purchased by Henry Brooks in 1972, and later donated for installation in the chapel, in addition to an 1870s vintage Estey Reed pipe organ Brooks gave to the facility.

My missive has wandered far afield from the Lynx Creek mining activities: those enterprises are recognized in a lakeside display of artifacts, including a three-stamp mill that has had its burned timbers replaced and been moved from where it had fallen near the waterway.

The dredging was facilitated by water being pumped from the creek via large pipes up the nearby hills to create enough pressure when falling to propel the heavy river rocks up and out of the creek bed.

One section of the park has been set aside for display of mining equipment artifacts, also known as old rusty things. . .

. . . and which Chris inspected carefully.

Even though the little lake's water level has not dropped, the creek itself was not flowing when we were there.  We hiked up some hills above it and also up the stream bed past where the last standing water was and through beautiful granite formations.

The park has created trails that go out into the surrounding land; I am thinking it might be a good jumping-off point for hiking up Lynx Creek.

As we departed, we were alarmed at seeing another large smoke plume; there have been so many this summer and sometimes more than one simultaneously!  This one was new and by my reckoning was somewhere off in the direction of the home of friends who were away, so Chris indulged me by driving that direction to reassure me that their place was not in danger.

When it rains . . .

How to fit it all in?  The answer is: it was impossible to attend all the possible events of a recent weekend so we settled on seeing the airshow and enjoying the folk music festival - two of our favorites.

Wings Out West was produced by our local Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; what a well-done event - can't say enough good about it, both the aerial performances and the static displays!

The Commemorative Air Force did a marvelous job of providing WWII-era aircraft: a B-17, which was flown, and a B-25 on the ground, and we were allowed to tour both, if tour is not too misleading a term for crawling into the fuselage on hands and knees and then scrunching oneself through the extremely cramped quarters.

It was quite an eye-opening experience to try to imagine those young airmen of not-so-long-ago taking to the skies in machines that seem to be little more flying tubular tin cans.  There they were with no pressurization, no heat in icy-cold elevations, with the noise of engines and air rushing past, machine guns rattling while the plane maneuvered to avoid being shot.  And of course there's the adrenaline rush; in the end, I could only marvel; no imagination could conjure the reality.

The show was honoring the 75th anniversary of D-Day even to having paratroopers reenacting the invasion of that time and one parachutist who opened an American flag as she floated down.

I was dazzled by the aerobatics!  It is mind-boggling that the planes and the pilots can withstand the pressures of the jinks and dives, crazy to watch and dizzying to imagine.  My head would be spinning for weeks afterward if not the rest of time! 

Seeing those planes pinwheeling upward and then turning to dive straight toward the earth at such high speeds is enough to take a person's breath away, and watching a plane whoosh past at 300 miles per hour 15 feet above the ground makes me hold my breath.

Incredible precision and athleticism!  Wish the photos could convey the awesomeness.

In addition to the aerobatics, some of the vintage planes flew, including the B-17 and P-51, the amazing Mustang; we were treated to re-creations of the Mustang protecting the larger more cumbersome airplane during World War II.  Throughout the lengthy show, the announcer clearly talked us through everything that was happening while he explained how activities related to D-Day. 

At long last, we relieved the kinks in our necks when we checked out the ground displays.  I am not particularly an airplane aficionado, but I was completely wowed by it all: the beauty and ingenuity of the planes, and then the step back in time was of course a highlight for me.

Make no mistake: those were machines of war with all the necessary armament - guns mounted atop and to the sides with bombs and torpedoes below.

This was literally the entrance to the B-25. . .

It was fun to see more of the nose art; while in Odessa, Texas, quite a few years back, we greatly enjoyed the Commemorative Air Force museum that had an extensive section devoted to the nose art that those incredible men devised to lift spirits.  Below are photos of D-Day Doll, Maid in the Shade and Sentimental Journey.

My genealogical senses were quickly awakened when I spotted inscriptions penned inside the bomb bay doors!  Those autographs were not from just anyone; they were made by those who had somehow been associated with the airplane or one of its ilk: pilots, gunners, mechanics and so on, and usually indicated the location or action, such as Corsica, China, Burma, India, Tokyo, Dolittle's raid - I was in awe!

Folk music . . .

In stark contrast to the intensity of a morning at the air show, we headed on over to Sharlot Hall Museum to savor the sounds of folk music on that lovely historic campus.  I was a bit surprised that the annual event has been drastically reduced in the number of stages and performers.  No idea why they have done that, but it is pretty disappointing to have only four venues when there used to be at least seven or eight, maybe more.

Despite that, I enjoyed the lovely campus, as always . . .

. . . and the special treat was that my cousin Jim Pipkin was performing this year!

The amphitheater is my favorite stage there . . .

. . . and just as enjoyable were the spontaneous jam sessions.  Unfortunately, those were also not as plentiful as they have been in the past.

A plaque on the grounds that refers to the "old Orchard Ranch" is, in my opinion, a bit misleading, in that it alludes to the named ranch being "here" when actually it was "there".  The "there" is far east of Prescott on the Agua Fria River where Sharlot Hall resided with her parents until their deaths, at which time she relocated to the site of what is now the historical museum she founded.

I love to think of my maternal grandparents walking the same grounds where we now go to hear music.  They - Clyde & Grace (Rhodimer) Catron - along with my mother, Mary Louise, lived immediately adjacent and south of the site.  I have a newspaper clipping that lists Grandma spending an afternoon as part of the first group to visit Ms. Hall in her new (1935) home near the original log territorial governor's mansion.

Grandma saved this clipping in her scrapbook; the underline and date are hers.

Feedback . . .

I was so pleased that my last post elicited a response from a favorite cousin, James Chilcoat.  He referred to the concrete phone booth that I had likened to a sarcophagus.  Barbara and I saw it outside a museum in Casa Grande and I included it in the September 17 blog post.

James remembered just such a phone booth from his younger days in Phoenix.  His research discovered that the one near his home was possibly constructed in 1926 in California by the Southern Pacific Railroad.

I knew nothing about their use, so James filled me in about the one that was between 67th & 75th avenues (then known as laterals 19 & 20) and between Van Buren & Buckeye roads: "The Southern Pacific Railroad used them at their switches. It had a metal door and a big SP stamped lock. The one located near our house even had desert landscaping."

Thanks for that interesting information, cousin!