For my 71st birthday celebration we headed north to the Mogollon Rim in the Coconino National Forest. Since it is June and getting hot in the desert lowlands, we wanted the cool temperatures we would find at 7000’ elevation on the rim. And we wanted the shade that the high desert plateau trees would provide.
We found the perfect spot for a celebration....and it even had a “dance floor!”
The first thing we noticed was an eerie silence, although it was not really quiet. The sound of wind blowing high above us through the tops of the pines was soothing. When we talked our voices echoed from the hills on both sides of us, and although there were no human noises, we had to be close together to hear what the other was saying. But we have NO problem being close enough to touch the other at all times.
This trip to the rim was absolutely perfect, and Dan gave me the most wonderful birthday to celebrate me and the life that we have created. Here is our blog entry for my birthday, “Vicky’s seventy-one(derful) birthday.”
We thoroughly enjoy camping in an area where we have never been before. There is a special thrill in hiking and exploring a new desert at 2-3 miles per hour where the world unfolds before us slowly. We are continually amazed at what unusual, strange, and beautiful things we find when we slow down and stop to “smell the flowers!”
And this high desert plateau did not disappoint us.
We left on our hikes as the sun was rising over the treetops. It was cool and fresh with the smell of the mountains in the air.
I discovered patches of mountain wildflowers along the rocky dirt road. What I didn’t know until we arrived back at the Turtle (i.e., our camper) was that Dan took a picture of me every time that I headed happily off the road to get a photo of my latest flower find.
Dan enjoys watching me when I am so thrilled to find a new variety of wildflowers. When we met ten years ago he started calling me “Flower Girl,” because my email was LupineLady (after my favorite children’s story Miss Rumphius, The Lupine Lady, that I have read to my children and our grandchildren countless times). Dan still calls me his “Flower Girl.”
The very first morning I found hillsides covered with tiny lupines!
Dan made some discoveries also.....hundreds of spiderwebs in the grass shining brightly in the morning sun!
And under each web was a hole about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. The spider’s den!!!
One thing we didn’t expect to find out in the middle of nowhere was a porcelain toilet—but we did. Wasn't it nice for the Forest Service to provide a toilet for hikers? :)
Dan caught a ray of light illuminating me as I admire the beauty and glory that nature has given to us.
On this plateau where we were hiking there is evidence of at least two forest fires in fairly recent history. The fires appear to have been separated by many years. Most of the trees are new growth, but there were also many majestic towering pines that have survived previous fires.
Dan is in awe of this gnarled, ancient stump. This tree would have been hundreds of years old.
A most amazing cactus....
We have looked and looked for a cool, vintage “close the gate” sign. Unbelievably we found a broken one buried in the dirt just like the sign on this gate. We will display it in our activity room, under our road trip map. We are stoked!
I love old fashioned paper maps. I have collected several boxes of detailed maps of all the public lands where we camp and explore. Dan carries our GPS, but I always have a map of the area where we are hiking in my backpack.
I am constantly on the lookout for antlers. Since I found my deer antlers in Kofa Wildlife Refuge, I was hoping to find an elk rack on this plateau where we heard and saw evidence of elk.
But look what I found instead!
Dan was not to be outdone. A few days later he found his own rib cage attached to the spinal cord of a coyote (we think). We didn’t bring either of these finds home. There’s just not enough room in our activity room (and they are kind of gross).
On our last day hiking, we decided to explore a road that Dan could see on his GPS. It was puzzling because we had previously hiked by the area where the GPS indicated there was a road, and we couldn’t see any evidence of it.
So we hiked to the opposite side of this mystery road to see if we could find the other end of it and then hike back to our campsite on it. And that is what we did!
It looked like no one had been on this abandoned road for at least 50 years. It was fenced off with no gate, so we had to crawl under a fence to search for it. At times we could see a slight depression on the ground, and at times we could see what looked like a line of rocks along one side (an easy sign because of our rule that there are no straight lines in nature).
And out in the middle of nowhere we found a tree that had fallen years and years ago near our ancient road. But obviously that tree had been accessible years ago as someone had nailed boards to be able to climb it (kids or hunters), and then after it fell people had done a lot of carving and writing on it. It must have been a special tree to someone, since we saw no other tree like this. Who, when, why?
I love this picture of Dan. He looks so very happy. It shows the joy of hiking that we experience.
We spend every moment together every day.
Our hiking “together picture....”
Remember when we were children and we would blow three times on a dandelion that had gone to seed. Then we would count the seeds that were left on the stem, and that would be the number of children we were going to have. (Dan, upon reading this, said he never did this number-of-children thing--too girlie. Instead, he and his friends would wait for someone to start talking and then shove it in their mouths. If I had known this about boys, I would have changed my dandelion thing to the number of girls I was going to have).
I found the most beautiful dandelion gone to seed that we have ever seen.
Neither one of us was tempted to blow on this gem (or shove it into anyone's mouth). It was so precious and beautiful. We already have just the right number of children and grandchildren, and each one of them is so very precious to us.
I collect rocks. They intrigue me as much as the flowers that I photograph and grow in our gardens. My unusual and beautiful rocks and fossils decorate our home—both inside and scattered about among our flower gardens. (Ask Dan about this hobby--he always volunteers to carry them for me. True love, right?)
I cannot resist searching for a new exotic rock. I actually found a 30-milliion-year-old fossil of a prehistoric mammal in Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and shell fossils from when the Mogollon Rim was a vast sea. We found several 30-million-year-old turtle fossils in the Oglala National Grasslands. I even found a well used natural rock mortar in the grasslands. So I’m always on the lookout for new rock-like treasures. (by the way, we always contact the Park Service when we find a fossil, respecting the fact that they should not be collected).
Our campsite was near a dried-up stream bed. The perfect place to hunt for new rock specimens. It was like camping next to an ice cream store for me (Dan says he prefers an actual ice cream store). So in the afternoons off I went on my rock hunt, while Dan lounged in his camp chair and sipped on wine.
Unbeknownst to me, Dan took pictures of me in the stream bed. (I actually think he was watching me to make sure a mountain lion didn’t eat me.)
Every afternoon we sat together in the shade. We listened to the wind in the trees and marveled at the beauty surrounding us. And we listened to the silence.
Dan began building several model cars. He paints the body and completes the fine detailing work at home. The finished cars are quite delicate and would never survive the bumpy trip out of the wilderness in our Turtle.
Note some of my rock treasures near Dan’s painted undercarriage.
While Dan built his cars, I completed knitting a baby blanket and hat for our newest grandson, Easton, who is to be born in October.
I also knitted a warm wool winter hat for Wilder’s December birthday. Note the absolutely cool “head”rock that I found!
Our “ head” rock now lives in our living room, where it is a bookend for our memories—our blog books, “Dan and Vicky: our life.”
This birthday trip to the Mogollon Rim is a story that will be in our next book. It is a time in our lives that we will want to always remember. It is a memory that we already cherish.
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