Alison and Calvin are very proud, happy parents and we are very proud, happy grandparents!
Dancing, Camping, Cycling, & Hiking on our Public Lands....living in the valley of love and delight
Sunday, October 27, 2019
It’s a girl!
Alison and Calvin are very proud, happy parents and we are very proud, happy grandparents!
Milestones tomorrow: A ZEN life.
Tomorrow morning we will do our usual: Wake up at 2:30 a.m. (that's not a typo), have coffee, and get to the pool before anybody else does.
We will swim in the dark, with only the lights of the pool and the stars and the moon. It is one of the most ZEN experiences a person can have. We are all alone. The hour flies by so quickly that we are both shocked when it arrives.
It will be the 200th time we have swam in this pool since we made the offer on our home in January 2018. 200 times swimming in a few months shy of two years. All the more amazing because we have been in this home only 10 months since January 2018--having spent the rest of the time on Whidbey Island.
Now, when I say "swimming" I need to clarify. Vicky swims a mile each time we go to the pool, and I dog paddle 1/2 mile.
Then we will hop onto our tandem bike and ride in the dark, watching the sun rise as we ride. There is almost no one else on the road, and we feel all alone once again. Another ZEN experience. Tomorrow we will pass 17,000 miles cycling together in the past 8 years. We will also pass 2300 miles cycling this year.
Another milesone we will meet tomorrow: It will be an our 1400th (not a typo: 1400!) time in 8 years we have either cycled or hiked with backpacks. 1400. We can't really grasp this.
Then we are heading out into the desert to camp and hike. We have only a general idea of where we will end up. That's the idea. We will find a spot where we are all alone, hike in areas where there are no hiking trails (or people), and sit in the afternoon and look at the desert. ZEN.
We will swim in the dark, with only the lights of the pool and the stars and the moon. It is one of the most ZEN experiences a person can have. We are all alone. The hour flies by so quickly that we are both shocked when it arrives.
It will be the 200th time we have swam in this pool since we made the offer on our home in January 2018. 200 times swimming in a few months shy of two years. All the more amazing because we have been in this home only 10 months since January 2018--having spent the rest of the time on Whidbey Island.
Now, when I say "swimming" I need to clarify. Vicky swims a mile each time we go to the pool, and I dog paddle 1/2 mile.
Then we will hop onto our tandem bike and ride in the dark, watching the sun rise as we ride. There is almost no one else on the road, and we feel all alone once again. Another ZEN experience. Tomorrow we will pass 17,000 miles cycling together in the past 8 years. We will also pass 2300 miles cycling this year.
Another milesone we will meet tomorrow: It will be an our 1400th (not a typo: 1400!) time in 8 years we have either cycled or hiked with backpacks. 1400. We can't really grasp this.
Then we are heading out into the desert to camp and hike. We have only a general idea of where we will end up. That's the idea. We will find a spot where we are all alone, hike in areas where there are no hiking trails (or people), and sit in the afternoon and look at the desert. ZEN.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Our new garden in our backyard
We decided we wanted a desert garden in our backyard. We had the backyard surveyed and discovered we owned a lot more land than we thought we owned. So we used it!. We put in new plants, a new border, and water spigots to each plant. This will give us something beautiful to look at when we are on our rear patio or are inside our home.
Before:
And she spent a lot of time placing the new plants.....then re-placing them...then re-placing them until they were JUST right! Her part of the project was learning about all of the possible plants that would flower in this area, designing the overall look, purchasing the plants at the nursery, and trimming. My job was to carry heavy stuff. We each have our skills.
We purchased small plants, so we could watch them grow. In a year it will really be something. All kinds of color. Then it will require time to keep it from being overgrown with color.....in the desert. What a problem to have, huh?
Before:
After
Vicky spent a lot of time planning:
And she spent a lot of time placing the new plants.....then re-placing them...then re-placing them until they were JUST right! Her part of the project was learning about all of the possible plants that would flower in this area, designing the overall look, purchasing the plants at the nursery, and trimming. My job was to carry heavy stuff. We each have our skills.
We purchased small plants, so we could watch them grow. In a year it will really be something. All kinds of color. Then it will require time to keep it from being overgrown with color.....in the desert. What a problem to have, huh?
Thursday, October 10, 2019
"But I swear in the days still left....We'll walk in fields of gold"
---Sting
Can you believe these acres and acres of gold flowers? Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? We never have, even after over 3600 miles of hiking. It is truly awe inspiring.
I have kept my promise to Vicky that we'll walk in fields of gold.
Can you believe these acres and acres of gold flowers? Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? We never have, even after over 3600 miles of hiking. It is truly awe inspiring.
I have kept my promise to Vicky that we'll walk in fields of gold.
Welcome July 9, 1959
That is what someone inscribed on wet cement that was used to make the porch on their home.
On our maps we saw something called the V Lazy Y Cabin. Of course we had to find out that that was.
Well, it was an old home, built out in the middle of nowhere, 60 years ago, and abandoned probably shortly thereafter. Some family thought they could probably make a living running cattle in the area, but found they couldn't. The land and grass can not sustain that many head of cattle.
But they had high hopes. The engraving, "Welcome," showed to us someone with dreams like we all have. They didn't just engrave the date, but fully expected to have visitors and happiness, and wanted everyone who came to their home to see that engraving of "welcome."
Their concrete welcome mat.
We can't find any history on this home or on them, but hope those dreams came true. We suspect, with that amount of hope and optimism, that they did somewhere.
They are probably no longer alive. But in an odd way, in this abandoned homestead in the middle of nowhere, we indeed felt welcome.
On our maps we saw something called the V Lazy Y Cabin. Of course we had to find out that that was.
Well, it was an old home, built out in the middle of nowhere, 60 years ago, and abandoned probably shortly thereafter. Some family thought they could probably make a living running cattle in the area, but found they couldn't. The land and grass can not sustain that many head of cattle.
But they had high hopes. The engraving, "Welcome," showed to us someone with dreams like we all have. They didn't just engrave the date, but fully expected to have visitors and happiness, and wanted everyone who came to their home to see that engraving of "welcome."
Their concrete welcome mat.
We can't find any history on this home or on them, but hope those dreams came true. We suspect, with that amount of hope and optimism, that they did somewhere.
They are probably no longer alive. But in an odd way, in this abandoned homestead in the middle of nowhere, we indeed felt welcome.
General George Crook National Recreation Trail, Coconino National Forest
For the past five days we have been camping and hiking in the Coconino National Forest. Vicky found several possible roads, we took one, drove for awhile, found a great campsite, and stayed there.
We had an average of two people pass by on this road each day. Just the type of seclusion we seek. Every night packs of coyotes would run by our spot, yelping in that other-worldly way that packs of coyotes yelp.
And we took four great hikes.
One day we followed some roads to a spot where we thought we could tie into a trail called the General George Crook National Recreation Tail. So we headed across country to see if we could find it.
It was interesting. On one of our maps it was called the "Strawberry Road." There is town of Strawberry some 5 or so miles away, and maybe 100 years ago this road was what people took to go from Camp Verde to Strawberry. Who knows.
The road was easy to follow for about 1 mile, but then it simply disappeared into the prairie. We could see where the trail used to be because years ago someone had built cairns, although the signs on the cairns were almost all faded away. If you look carefully you can see the wording on the sign. There were also some "straight lines" made of rocks, marking the two sides of the trail, and one of our principles for investigating nature is that "there are no straight lines in nature." So we knew we were on the road from that.
The trail had clearly not been walked on for many years. No footprints, and the grass had grown all over it:
The trail is so little used that at one point a fence had been installed right over it. Can you believe that? We had to crawl under the fence to continue on it.
We did some digging and found that this road/trail was in use until 1928, almost 100 years ago. This is from a website about the road/trail:
In 1871, General George Crook came to Arizona Territory as Commander of the Department of Arizona. His orders were to subdue the Indians of the Territory and place them on reservations. General Crook realized at once that in order to accomplish this goal he must be able to move troops and supplies into the haunts of the Indians with swiftness and surprise.
In August of that year, General Crook left Fort Apache with a unit of cavalry troops to locate and mark a supply road from Fort Apache to Fort Whipple in Prescott. As they moved westerly across the Mogollon Rim, then called Black Mesa, Crook realized quickly that he must stay close to the edge of the escarpment, otherwise, when he moved north, he encountered deep and rugged canyons. It was rough going but the trekkers found water in small lakes. Crook pushed on, and in early September of 1871, he reached Fort Whipple in Prescott. Actual construction of a road started in the spring of 1872. By 1873, supplies began moving by pack train from Fort Verde to Fort Apache. One year later in September 1874, the first wagon supply train left Fort Whipple for Fort Apache.
Martha Summerhayes, the first woman to travel over the road, was on that trip. She later wrote the book, Vanished Arizona, telling of her experiences on the road and describing her travels in Arizona Territory.
During the next 22 years, Crook Road was used by troops patrolling across the Territory and the northern boundary of the Apache Reservation. The road was in continual use for 32 more years, until the Rim Road was built in 1928.
When we got closer to the camper we left the "trail" and headed toward it. You have to look carefully in the photo, but you'll see us!
We had an average of two people pass by on this road each day. Just the type of seclusion we seek. Every night packs of coyotes would run by our spot, yelping in that other-worldly way that packs of coyotes yelp.
And we took four great hikes.
One day we followed some roads to a spot where we thought we could tie into a trail called the General George Crook National Recreation Tail. So we headed across country to see if we could find it.
It was interesting. On one of our maps it was called the "Strawberry Road." There is town of Strawberry some 5 or so miles away, and maybe 100 years ago this road was what people took to go from Camp Verde to Strawberry. Who knows.
The road was easy to follow for about 1 mile, but then it simply disappeared into the prairie. We could see where the trail used to be because years ago someone had built cairns, although the signs on the cairns were almost all faded away. If you look carefully you can see the wording on the sign. There were also some "straight lines" made of rocks, marking the two sides of the trail, and one of our principles for investigating nature is that "there are no straight lines in nature." So we knew we were on the road from that.
The trail had clearly not been walked on for many years. No footprints, and the grass had grown all over it:
The trail is so little used that at one point a fence had been installed right over it. Can you believe that? We had to crawl under the fence to continue on it.
We did some digging and found that this road/trail was in use until 1928, almost 100 years ago. This is from a website about the road/trail:
In 1871, General George Crook came to Arizona Territory as Commander of the Department of Arizona. His orders were to subdue the Indians of the Territory and place them on reservations. General Crook realized at once that in order to accomplish this goal he must be able to move troops and supplies into the haunts of the Indians with swiftness and surprise.
In August of that year, General Crook left Fort Apache with a unit of cavalry troops to locate and mark a supply road from Fort Apache to Fort Whipple in Prescott. As they moved westerly across the Mogollon Rim, then called Black Mesa, Crook realized quickly that he must stay close to the edge of the escarpment, otherwise, when he moved north, he encountered deep and rugged canyons. It was rough going but the trekkers found water in small lakes. Crook pushed on, and in early September of 1871, he reached Fort Whipple in Prescott. Actual construction of a road started in the spring of 1872. By 1873, supplies began moving by pack train from Fort Verde to Fort Apache. One year later in September 1874, the first wagon supply train left Fort Whipple for Fort Apache.
Martha Summerhayes, the first woman to travel over the road, was on that trip. She later wrote the book, Vanished Arizona, telling of her experiences on the road and describing her travels in Arizona Territory.
During the next 22 years, Crook Road was used by troops patrolling across the Territory and the northern boundary of the Apache Reservation. The road was in continual use for 32 more years, until the Rim Road was built in 1928.
When we got closer to the camper we left the "trail" and headed toward it. You have to look carefully in the photo, but you'll see us!
OK. This trail is a National Historic Trail. And it is wonderful. General Crook was an important historic figure in the old west. This part of our history is being lost. This trail is neglected. It is sad and it is wrong.