22 x 2

As our 44th anniversary trip winds down, we put the icing on the cake with a few more activities.  The Gila River remains a big draw for us, and it did not disappoint, despite relatively low water levels after the summer "nonsoon" season brought only minimal moisture to the area.  

The road into the Gila Box Conservation Area has been blacktopped, but remains mostly a single lane with long straight dropoffs - slightly offputting but then not as terrifying as some we've driven, and the views are stupendous.

I'm always happy when I'm near water, even more when it's a running stream. 

The weather was clement, would have been perfect for swimming; however, we were all about fishing that day, so fish we did.  I thought we might catch smallmouth bass out of that pool, but it was a successful catfish day.

This was the largest one I caught that day, and he was a good'un indeed.

For future reference, we explored upstream a ways, gaining access around flood debris by skirting along the overhanging cliff edge, where we found more good fishing holes. 

Cranes & Casey . . .

As long as we were kinda close to Willcox, we thought, we should see if our wonderful pal Casey was up for a visit.  We did, and she was, much to our delight.

 

Casey mentioned that some of the sandhill cranes had returned for their winter roost; I could not have been more incredulous when we saw not a few, but thousands at a nearby water reclamation spot.  They were mostly grounded for the night, jostling for space and discussing the day amongst themselves in their usual most raucous way.

As is my wont, I was excited at the sight - very excited - so excited in fact that when I hopped out of the truck for the 300th or so photo, my camera caught and hit the ground - an alarming event, but fortunate in that only the UV filter was broken.

This is a first for my blog: a short video, because it's impossible to convey quite what it's like when these thousands of birds gather.   Give it a listen if you like.

Very cool to see moonrise over Dos Cabezas while we were there.

So, the Solomons . . .

. . . really piqued my interest when I began reading about Isadore & Anna, for whom the tiny town of Solomonville is named.  They were said to be Polish immigrants, and they made a substantial mark on Arizona history.  As I researched more, I discovered that although they did emigrate the day after they wed, Isadore had already been busy in the U.S., Pennsylvania to be exact, and returned to the old country to marry Anna and bring her here.  They were actually German, residing in an area that is now Poland.

They originally settled in Pennsylvania, where their first three children were born, before relocating to Arizona territory where they were preceded by at least one family member.  Impressive indeed what they accomplished from meager beginnings!

This is what Anna had to say about their overland journey:

“We sold everything we possessed except our three children, and started on our journey to New Mexico.  We had a very hard trip even on the railroad, traveling with those three babies was bad enough, but when we reach La Junta, the end of the railroad in those days, and had to travel by stage, packed in like sardines, traveling day and night for six days… When we got there I was so tired out to death.” 

I'm glad that Anna didn't sell her three children.  She may have been exhausted from that difficult trip, but soon recovered, and the family quickly commenced to build a life and a community.

As part of his commercial endeavors, Isadore eventually opened a bank.  As stated on this plaque, the existing building is a two-thirds-scale replica of his original bank that anchored what was known as the Solomon commercial block.

How easy it would be to drive through this or any of a multitude of other burgs that are slipping slowly into decrepitude without knowing the once thriving atmosphere.  The few remaining commercial buildings are shuttered and deteriorating.  Some of the adobe residential structures have been maintained and revitalized; others are left to slowly slump under the weight of weather. 

Anna Solomon maintained a sizable hotel as one of her pursuits; it was the social center of town.  In addition to the bank, promoting the establishment of Graham County and serving as County treasurer, Isadore operated a flour mill, stage line, mercantile establishment, charcoal kilns and farms that supplied various military forts.

To say that they were ambitious seems quite the understatement.  The couple, with their six children, eventually moved to Los Angeles, where they spent their final years. 

It is fascinating to me to imagine the many lives lived fully as we live ours, and that we never have an inkling about - what fun I have learning a bit about some who venture into my radar!

Birds . . .

I will not try to name all the birds we identified on the trip; however, roadrunners were notable in their large numbers, more than I've ever seen before, and the cardinals that frequented our feeders were delightful, and of course those thousands of sandhill cranes put on the most incredible show, even though they were simply settling for the night.

 

An unfortunate addendum . . .

Anticipating an early Saturday afternoon arrival at home, we were tooling along on the 202 freeway through Phoenix when we heard a loud noise from the trailer.  Quick as could be, the señor guided us to a stop in the gore strip, a triangular area where an on ramp merges with freeway traffic.

Thinking we must have had a blowout, a quick check soon revealed something far more dire: the left-side leaf spring had broken, and we were officially broken down with one lane of traffic immediately to our right, and three lanes of traffic immediately to our left.  And when I say "immediately", I mean that each speeding vehicle (and there were sooo many) caused us to rock back & forth.

We felt extremely unsafe where we were, and more so when we exited the truck.  The good news, or so we thought, was that we had roadside assistance insurance.  I even cavalierly remarked, "This is why we have insurance".  

That was about half past noon.  Nearly eight hours later, well after dark, each passing moment filled with worry about our precarious situation, the Wolf Pup was carefully loaded onto a flatbed tilt trailer and taken to a storage yard for delivery to a repair shop on Monday.

During those hours, we became well acquainted with three different DPS officers, DPS dispatch folks and more Good Sam insurance people than we cared to.  I lived through the ordeal and even I would be hard-pressed to explain why it took eight hours to make something happen.  Suffice it to say that we put two cell phones to good use while keeping our seat belts fastened in case some 90 mph vehicle should plow into us.  

What a shame that we were far too distracted and distraught to write the great American novel while we sat there.