Ten days in November
With scarcely a breather after returning from the whirlwind Israel trip, our daughter Sara arrived from Kansas to spend ten days with us - nearly unimaginable to have that much time with her. Chris' bout with covid - a single day of feeling poorly followed by five quarantined days came too close for comfort to cancelling our planned "any excuse for a party" open house to welcome her back to her home state, but all was well when lots of friends showed up to meet & greet.
There was a serious fly in the ointment, however, when camera lens switches were inadvertently turned to a different setting without our realizing it. The result was the loss of many photos of the fete and Thanksgiving - sad to the max about it, but I am attempting to accept the reality without too terribly much gnashing of teeth.
The party was even treated to live toe-tappin' music courtesy of Louis, Ellen & Chris.
Sara said she channeled me as she spent time in conversation with all the guests, but I think she has her very own socialization gene. At any rate, we ate, drank and had a whopping fine time. What wonderful friends we have who are willing to help us celebrate our daughter!
Bumblebee, Cleator Yacht Club . . .
The season being what it is and all - COLD - our choices for outdoor doin's were primarily at lower elevations in the desert, which brings me to one of my favorite things about where we live: a huge range of climes, geography, terrain and vegetation families.
We spent one day exploring here and there near the tiny burg of Bumblebee. I've blogged about that place previously, so will pass over it mostly . . .
. . . and get on with our back-country wanderings. Whilst we have great admiration for the vast vistas with distant horizontal bands of mountain ranges calling to be explored as they materialize one beyond the next as lines of brown/green, purple, dark blue, then lighter & ever lighter blue, never let it be said that we fail to notice the minutiae at our feet. I suspect there is some genetic component at work there: that curiosity also causes the Kelley clan (no doubt the señor has caught the bug) to try every closed door, peer in every window, continue on past the next bend and over the hill, and certainly is the impetus for desiring to trace family history for every person on the planet.
If not for that insatiable curiosity, we might have missed seeing this tiny possible alien life form disguised as a cactus.
And speaking of a genetic compulsion, we are every one trash pickers. Not just any trash pickers, though: we are discerning in that we are only interested in old garbage. If it appears to be more than 50 years old, that's good enough for us, but of course the older the better.
In our sauntering over the desert hills, we chanced upon an extended camp site strewn over a wide area, and scattered with both historic and prehistoric artifacts, leaving us to wonder about the folks who lived and toiled there.
It was agreed that we must return for more extensive searching. The region saw lots of 19th and 20th century mining activity, and is also a rock hound's dream. In addition to huge veins of quartz, there are many outcrops of beautiful varied stones.
This appeared to be the remains of an old mining stamp mill.
Our throats were dry after all that wandering; we slaked our thirst during a stop at the Cleator Yacht Club. . .
. . . while thoroughly enjoying a bask out back in the warming afternoon sun rays.
As I soaked up Thanksgiving week sunshine, it put me in mind of a book I read to my children long ago - involving various mother creatures enjoining their offspring to "Bask", etc. "We bask, said the eight" was a line from it. And then that curiosity emerged again - my daughter did a bit of online looking, and found to our astonishment that it was an adaptation from a child's counting rhyme written in 1870 by Olive A. Wadsworth!
Granite Dells, Watson Woods . . .
A family Thanksgiving . . .
Through the years, we have hosted many a traditional holiday meal for kin and friends and friends of kin and kin of friends in large numbers. This year was one of our smaller gatherings, but made special that both of our living children were in attendance, and I know our eldest, Darren, was with us in spirit and in our hearts. We were joined by my sister Christie, my stepbrother & sister-in-law Mike & Patty, and my sister-in-law Pat.
Hassayampa River Preserve . . .
Another of our favored destinations that Sara had never been to is the Hassayampa River Preserve down Wickenburg way. Again seeking warmth, we spent part of a day enjoying that peaceful enclave where the intermittent waterway is perennial within the boundaries of a Nature Conservancy-managed area.
See: I wasn't kidding about things near as well as far, small as well as large.
Back in Prescott . . .
Despite one of us not being overly excited about attending Prescott's Christmas light parade, we outnumbered him, and thoroughly enjoyed that light-hearted (pardon the pun) celebration of the beginning of the Christmas season. After four decades of residing in this area, this was the first time we have gone to that particular procession.
After reading Eric Moore's (Jay's Bird Barn) enthusiastic notice about two Mandarin ducks that, despite being Asian natives, are somehow making themselves at home at Lynx Lake, we managed to fit in a trek over there to see them. Unfortunately, it was late enough in the day that their chosen section of the lake was mostly shaded; we will certainly return in hopes for better pictures. The best photos, though, could not compare to an up-close viewing through binoculars. They truly are stunning! Mandarin ducks have never been seen anywhere near these parts prior to now. Their behavior belies that: they act as if they are kings of the roost - ignoring people's proximity and pecking at other waterfowl that get in their way.
Camp Date Creek, the OX . . .
Although the señor & I have visited and photographed both the military fort ruins and the nearby precipitous and rubble-strewn Date Creek canyon, in addition to the OX Ranch through which the stream flows, our children had seen none of it, so the four of us spent a day tromping to and through those areas. We have even videotaped a Yavapai College Edventures tour in the region, and so are very conversant with much of what is there.
Because I have posted extensively about the camp, the canyon and the ranch, I will not repeat myself here. Suffice it to say it was fun to show those places to the kids, and especially just being out in the boonies with them. I have to admit, though, that I had some difficulty with worrying about them getting hurt in that difficult terrain - an issue that may be worsened because of my age, or could it have to do with Darren's accident and subsequent paralysis and death? As he would say, "I am not knowing", but it did keep me on edge when we were doing serious scrambling.
Getting to the fort and back involved some precarious footing, even worse into the canyon to see the inscriptions (more detail in the previous post), but at the ranch, we remained primarily around the lake - beautiful with autumn-hued cottonwoods - and all was well.
We worked up quite an appetite with all that trooping through the boondocks: a stop at the T-Bird Cafe in Peeples Valley allowed us to emulate hungry hordes as we devoured our way through their delicious pizza, stuffed mushrooms, wings and bread sticks as if we hadn't eaten in ages.
It's so gratifying that the younger set enjoys the same kind of random exploring and off-trail hiking that we do. Our week was filled with lots more sharing and enjoying being together. Sara went to yoga class with me (where she had a reunion with her high school science teacher) . . .
. . . and we got to introduce her to more Prescott fun at the Fourth Friday Art Walk downtown. Further attesting to Prescott's status as a small town, we ran into her middle school secretary at Costco, and I continued to show her off to various friends here, there and the next place.
She soundly beat me at every card game we played, but as always, we were good mates at collaborating on crossword puzzles, and enjoyed going to a movie (Spielberg's "The Fabelmans"). She joined me while I got my hair cut and helped me to abandon Chris at work while we were enjoying downtown. He evidently forgave us, because he rescued us when we were stranded with a broke-down car at Fry's. Neither of us had any qualms about leaving him to deal with it, which he did admirably, although the $750 mechanic's bill was a bit of a hit. Probably shouldn't complain; we've put 275,000 miles on the car, and many of them were tough back-roading.
When all was said and done, it felt so perfectly normal and natural to have Sara here for that too-short, but much-loved time. My hope has been, and still is to have her nearby full time. Can't hurt to hope, right?
