Arizona – Page 10 – On the road with Jim

Parade Grounds Picture of the Week

We Arizonans have it easy these days. Within a matter of hours, we can drive from the beaches of Yuma to the Flagstaff snowfields. We’re able to do that because of our modern cars and roads. With their bridges and gentle slopes, we forget how rugged our State’s terrain is. We sit in our air-conditioned cocoons and watch the scenery pass, without having to wonder, “How the hell am I going to get over that?” And the closest we ever come to getting scalped is from the guy selling souvenirs at The Thing.

Arizona was a different place when Martha Summerhayes arrived at Ehrenburg Landing via paddle-wheel steamer in the summer of 1874. She accompanied her husband—Jack, a Lieutenant—when the Army assigned him to the territory. She writes in her now-famous book—Vanished Arizona, Recollections of the Army Life of a New England Woman—about their travels to posts within our state, including her story of being the first woman to travel the subject of this month’s photo essay—The General Crook Trail.

George Crook was a Civil War officer who was assigned to Arizona to put a stop to Apache raids. Now, I fully appreciate the new awakening in our country about racial injustice, but that’s not the point of my story. I’m merely trying to explain, in my words, the trail’s history. George’s job of managing the Apaches wasn’t easy. They’re not a single people. There are the Chiricahuas, Yavapai, Mescalero, Tonto, and several more in Arizona alone. The tribe’s traditional homes were spread along the Mogollon Rim—the southern escarpment of the Colorado Plateau that slashes across the midsection of our state. It was like playing Whack-A-Mole; he’d quash one uprising only to have another pop-up 50 miles away. It didn’t take long for General Crook to understand that he had a logistics problem. He needed to move troops and supplies quickly from Fort Whipple (Prescott) to Camp Verde, and Fort Apache (near Show Low).

In August of 1871, the General took a company of men to mark out a trail between Fort Whipple and Fort Apache. It took over a month just to get that much done. His route hugs the edge of the Rim because if he went too far north or south, he had to navigate steep canyons. His men took another year to build a trail good enough for pack mules, and another couple of years to make it suitable for wagons.

Today, the General Crook Trail has morphed into a combination of Arizona Highway 260 and the Rim Road (Forest Road 300). The Rim Road is unpaved, and if you travel it, you’ll come across markers for Crook’s original pack trail. You can hike those sections, but a lot of the trail reviews say it’s easier just to walk along the dirt road.

Parade Grounds - A picket fence surrounds the Camp Verde Parade Grounds and make it a lovely back yard for the Commanding Officer. — Parade Grounds – A picket fence surrounds the Camp Verde Parade Grounds and makes it a lovely back yard for the Commanding Officer.

For September’s project, I’m only going to cover the section of A.Z. 260 from Camp Verde to the intersection with A.Z. 77 north of Strawberry. This week’s featured image is from Camp Verde, where they’ve turned the old post into a historical site. The Camp Verde Historical Society has preserved the buildings, built museums, and maintains the parade grounds within the State Park. It’s a great way to spend a day wallowing in history. This week’s image—called Parade Grounds—shows the parade grounds and the surrounding picket fence, with what I suspect is the Commanding Officer’s Quarters behind. How’s that for a back yard?

You can see a larger version of Front Parade Yard on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back and see our next stop along the General Crook Trail.

Until next time — jw

P.S. Martha’s book, Vanished Arizona, is not just a chick-book. It’s got cowboys, Indians, horses, rattlesnakes, and cactus in it. What more can a boy want? I smiled when she lamented how much Arizona had changed from her 1874 arrival to her 1911 death. It is the same feeling that most Arizonan have even today.

Front Yard Trees Picture of the Week

Are you a punctual person, or are you chronically tardy? Our house is split evenly. Queen Anne always manages to be 15 minutes late. Even if I try to compensate by giving her a false time that we should leave to get somewhere, she somehow knows and still isn’t ready on time. One phrase that you will never hear from her is, “Sorry, I’m early.” That is a novel concept to her. It drives me crazy, and she knows it. But then she speaks to me in her low, breathy voice and circles her finger around my remaining chest hair, and then I remember why I love her so much. She’s a good cook—well, she cooks a mean bowl of cereal.

A reason that I’m writing about punctuality is that this year’s monsoons have finally shown up to the party—six-weeks late. One thing that makes Arizona summers bearable is watching majestic thunderheads build up over the mountains in the day and then enjoying the evening thunderstorms from the porch. When the summer rains arrive, they break the extreme June and early July temperatures by about ten degrees. This year, our first rain didn’t come until last week, so it stayed hot through July and August. We had 50 days of temperatures above 115º, a new record. June, July, and probably August will go down as the hottest recorded, and without the refreshing rain, brush fires have plagued the state. The smoke from California and Arizona fires has added to this summer’s miserable conditions.

Things changed last week. Between the gulf flow shifting west and a tropical depression off the coast of Baja, there are pretty clouds in the sky, and the temperatures have dropped—the last couple of days have been under the century mark. As I write and look out my office window, I can see cumulus clouds building towers over the Weaver Range. Maybe we’ll have rain again tonight. I think I’ll go to the car wash and improve our chances.

Front Yard Trees - Tall cottonwood trees grow along the road-side in front of a Ferguson Valley ranch. — Front Yard Trees – Tall cottonwood trees grow along the road-side in front of a Ferguson Valley ranch.

Looking back at the photographs from this month’s portfolio, I wonder how different they might have been, had the skies been more dramatic. Take this week’s featured image; for example—the treetops stand in for clouds. Had the sky been brimming with fluffy cumulus clouds above Baldy Mountain, would I have seen the scene differently? I can visualize that image being less about giant cottonwoods along a rancher’s fence line and more about the mountain in the background. In any case, I have to work within the given conditions, and so I took this week’s photo—called Front Yard Trees—as it was then.

You can see a larger version of Front Yard Trees on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week we’ll begin a new adventure out along another Arizona road, so come back and find out where the trail leads us.

Until next time — jw

Ferguson Valley Lichen Picture of the Week

The Queen and I went to the big city for provisions last week. We don’t get to town that often these days. We usually drive to a Costco or Lowe’s at the edge of the Phoenix suburbs, do our shopping, and then immediately get out of Dodge. Because the pandemic had us cooped up in the house for several months, we took advantage of the summer hotel prices and had a mini-vacation. I even brought my camera to take some tourist shots. That was a waste of time.

I often write about the quality of light in my posts, and during our visit, the atmosphere in Phoenix was the antithesis of light quality. With a combination of record-breaking heat, high humidity, high ozone levels, and residual forest fire smoke, it was like walking on Venus (OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration). Of the sky we could see, it was more milk than blue, and there wasn’t any cloud definition. The sky was a homogeneous white, but 100 degrees hotter than you’d experience in an Arctic blizzard white-out.

Those kinds of hot-foggy conditions not only mute the colors, but they strip your ambition to do anything outside, so I packed my camera away. We wound up buying some wine to pack into the refrigerator, turned down the air conditioning to 68º, and watched HGTV all day before switching to the Food channel in the evening. What a vacation. We were relieved to arrive home where at least we could pick out the blue sky between the clouds.

Ferguson Valley Lichen - Green lichen growing on a granite boulder in Ferguson Valley, Arizona. — Ferguson Valley Lichen – Here is green lichen growing on a granite boulder in Ferguson Valley, Arizona.

That brings me to the subject of this week’s featured image; lichen. When we lived in town, we bought several landscape boulders to decorate our yard, and I tried to pick out specimens that had lichen on them. Unfortunately, the smog is toxic to the fungus. It quickly dies, leaving no trace of its existence.

On our Ferguson Valley visit, I initially stopped for a different reason. As the dirt road passed through a wash, there was a rock formation—much like last week’s rocks—that had been eroded and fractured, like a single broken tooth remaining in a jawbone. But, as I worked the stone, I wasn’t getting a composition that made me happy. As I walked around the structure, I saw some large patches of green lichen, and that pleased me. I call this week’s photo Ferguson Valley Lichen.

You can see a larger version of Ferguson Valley Lichen on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week for the last stop on our Ferguson Valley tour.

Until next time — jw

Standing Rocks Picture of the Week

Do you remember my buddy, Fred? He’s been an actor in several of my adventures when his wife allows us to go out together. The truth is that his wife—Little Deb—and I have been longtime friends. We first met when we were both decorators at a local curtain shop, and have counseled each other through our serial marriages. I think well enough of her that I asked her to be my best man when Queen Anne and I tied the knot.

Miss Deb—as we call her now that she’s a grandma—has a caring heart, and—unlike me—will drop everything to help people out, sometimes to a fault. She must have been a nun in a past life, and she’s shorter than Sally Field (so, two and two equal Flying Nun). At one point in her life, she went through a goose phase. The art in her home involved all kinds of poultry. I think it influenced her maternal instinct because she fusses about her kids, and now grandkids, like an old mother goose.

She does have one idiosyncrasy—well, maybe more than one, but we’ll talk about those some other time. She collects rocks. Each time we’d go camping, we’d drive home with a backseat floor full of rocks—pretty rocks, interesting rocks. When she got back to the house, she would wash them, label them like an archeologist, and then carefully place them out in the yard. She’s trained Fred well. Each time we go out together, he kicks at the dirt, looking for pretty rocks to bring home. So far, they’re working on their yard’s third layer.

I tried it, and it works for me too. When I’m out on a shoot, sometimes I’ll pick up a hardened piece of dirt and toss it in the truck. When I get home, I’ll present it to Her Majesty and sincerely look her in the eyes and tell her, “I found this pretty rock, and thought of you.” Then I tell Anne that I think there’s a gemstone hidden inside. She always says, “Thank you, honey,” before she rushes to the sink with her Waterpik and tries to erode the stone to expose the jewel. It keeps her busy for hours.

Standing Rocks - A cluster of upended granite boulders that we found at the edge of a field in Ferguson Valley. — Standing Rocks – Here is a cluster of upended granite boulders that we found at the edge of a field in Ferguson Valley.

That’s the story of why—whenever I’m out on a photoshoot—I always wind up with pictures of rock piles—like this week’s featured image that I call Standing Rocks. “I saw these and I thought of you.” On our August outing to Ferguson Valley, we passed a group of granite boulders at the edge of a field. These are the same granite boulders found scattered throughout central Arizona, except some cataclysmic event upended these. They could be the Jolly Green Giant’s headstones in a cemetery overgrown with scrub oak. Anyway, when I saw this scene, I had to stop and snap a picture just for you.

You can see a larger version of Standing Rocks on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy your rocks. I think there may be a jewel hidden in them. Be sure to come back next week for another Ferguson Valley image.

Until next time — jw

Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks Picture of the Week

Queen Anne and I had only ventured into the Bradshaw’s once before this month’s Senator Highway adventure. We borrowed a friend’s 4wd tow truck and wanted to see how well it performed on dirt roads. We decided to drive to Crown King for Sunday brunch. It was a horrible experience—lunch was nice, but the track was one long washboard. The truck bounced so much that it took a week for our eyes to stop vibrating. That was before Google Maps—actually, it was before computers—so we added another unnecessary 50 miles to the trip. Anne swore off dirt roads forever.

That’s too bad because the Bradshaws (named for trailblazer William D. Bradshaw) fascinated me since I moved to Phoenix. From the valley, they’re the high range to the north. When you head Flagstaff, they’re the first pine-covered mountains that you pass. The Sunset Point rest stop, which is at the range’s eastern flank, is where I feel that we’ve at last got past the city limits. Finally, during the summer monsoons, they create the storms that bring rain to the valley (as I look out my window today, I see what could be our first seasonal storm—and it’s moving south from the Bradshaws—if it gets here at all).

Whenever we’ve stopped at Sunset Point, and I had to wait for you-know-who to finish up in the bathroom, I always looked up at the mountains and mistakenly thought that they were dry and deserted. I’d think to myself, “It’s too bad there aren’t any fishing lakes up there.” On our recent trip, I found out that I was wrong because back roads lace through the range leading to former mining towns filled with summer cabins. There are even a couple of small lakes—but they’re so close to Prescott, I’d classify them as town lakes. Perhaps it’s just as well that there’s no destination up there, because if there were a big lake up there, then there’d be freeways and planned communities around it.

Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks - This is the simplest essence of what I found interesting about a pair of granite boulders south of Groom Creek, Arizona. — Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks – This is the purest essence of what I found interesting about a pair of granite boulders south of Groom Creek, Arizona.

As Anne and I continued exploring Senator Highway, we came across a boulder field south of Groom Creek. I find these large lumps of granite interesting, but they’re all over the state, and my rock collection is vast. I hear people say, “Meh. It’s another rock picture.” So, for this week’s featured image, I tried to show just the part that made me raise the camera to my eye. In the case of this week’s featured image, that I call Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks, it was the texture of the massive rocks, the delicate shadows of the deciduous trees, and the fracture that splits the right sphere in half. Even without seeing the entire boulder, you instinctively know that you couldn’t skip one of these pebbles across Goldwater Lake.

You can see a larger version of Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week when we present another image from the Senator Highway going south from Prescott.

Until next time — jw

Road Bend Picture of the Week

Although I’ve tried my best to hold back time, the season has changed, and it’s summer again in the desert. Summer’s dog days are the worst time to be photographing our arid home. Except for the brief respite at either end of the day, the bright sun and ozone combine to wash the colors away. It’s like seeing the world through a 2% milk bottle—the glass ones, not the cartons. You need polarizing sunglasses to force the blue to show in the sky again.

We desert-rats are nothing if not adaptive. Like all of the other Sonoran critters, we hide in our holes during the day. For example, the Round-tailed Ground Squirrel escapes the day heat in his den by sleeping splayed-out on his back. I do the same thing, and I’d show you photographic evidence except I’d be banned forever from the Internet. The other thing we do is migrate. Even during this pandemic, Highway U.S. 93 was a parade of boats heading north towards the rivers and lakes on this holiday weekend.

When we were deciding on a project for July, Queen Anne and I followed a similar logic. We looked for someplace cooler—trust me, 90º is cooler than 110º. We scoured our maps for a place nearby in the mountains, a location that wouldn’t have crowds yet be accessible. We settled on the Senator Highway that runs from Prescott south into the Bradshaw Mountains.

Road Bend - Bright yellow-leaved deciduous trees obscure what's beyond the road on the Senator Highway south of Prescott, Arizona. — Road Bend – Bright yellow-leaved deciduous trees obscure what’s beyond the road on the Senator Highway south of Prescott, Arizona.

Until this month, I didn’t know why there was a dirt road called the Senator Highway. I imagined that it was a route that our state assemblymen traveled when Arizona’s capital swapped several times between Prescott and Phoenix—foolish me. Instead, it’s just another mine road that the miners built it to transport ore and supplies between the Senator Mine and Prescott. If you’re skilled at navigating the Bradshaws, you can technically get to Congress via the Senator Highway.

I find the pine-covered mountains, like the Bradshaw’s, hard to shoot. The trees get in the way. I mean, how many different ways can you get an image of ponderosa pine tree bark? I hunt for edges—splashes of color, an opening to the horizon, or building ruins. That’s what I’m showing in this week’s featured image. At a bend on the highway, I saw some trees (I believe Arizona Ash) with bright yellow-green leaves shinning in the sun against the duller blue-green evergreens. I liked how they obscured the path. My mind wants to find out what’s beyond. It’s a classic leading-line perspective trick, and I find the dappled shade on the road a bonus. I named the first image for our July project Road Bend because it’s a simple title for a simple photo.

You can see a larger version of Road Bend on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week when we present another image from the Senator Highway outside of Prescott.

Until next time — jw

New Drone Film – The Weaver Mountains The third film in my ongoing series of Arizona Desert Mountain Ranges

I have some excellent news this morning. I posted my third YouTube Video, and it’s ready for you to watch. I admit that in these troubling times, my films are little more than eye-candy, but I’m hoping they give you something nice to watch on TV for a change of pace.

The video is the third in my desert mountain series, and this episode features the Weaver Mountain Range. Those are the mountains that I see every day from my front porch, so in these times of stay-at-home orders, they were a convenient subject.

The reason that I’m producing these films is two-fold. When I look on the net for background on my weekly blog posts, I usually only find a two-paragraph entry in Wikipedia, and if I’m lucky, it may have a photograph or two (usually of historic value). I’m trying to capture these mountains in the ‘now’—a specific season and year—so viewers can see their aesthetic beauty as I do. I’m trying to fill the void of context that these lower ranges are missing. My other reason for these projects is purely selfish. Queen Anne said I could have a drone if it got me out of the house and left her alone. Done and done!

You can view this seven-minute film in several ways. The easiest is to click on the embedded link here in the post above. Or you can see it on your computer by typing this link in your address bar: (https://youtu.be/09knCZ9HY4c). And finally—and I think the best—is to watch it on your smart 4K TV by going to YouTube and search for Jim Witkowski (there are several, but I’m the old guy in the baseball cap). Then, navigate to my Arizona Desert Mountains channel. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Please consider sharing it with your friends and family and clicking on the thumbs-up icon (like-button).

Until next time — jw