Orange Boulders – Lichen-covered granite boulders have weathered and fell off their tight-fitting stack.
A this week’s featured image shows, the trails of Granite Dells City Park provide diversity you wouldn’t expect to find in a massive formation of slow-cooled lava. This week’s featured image shows a small example of that. It comes from one of the Flume Trail’s spurs. Instead of walking around a ridge, this option climbed over it, before it descends and rejoins the main path on the other side. I’d call it a shortcut, but since it added a climb, it didn’t save any time.
On the ridge, the view opens, and since the granite pile tops were exposed to weathering longer than below, so more of the car-sized boulders lay scattered on the ground. If you’ve only driven by The Dells, you’d get the idea that the rocks are nothing but dirt. As you can see in this image, they’re actually covered with lichen of various colors. Here an orange species grows next to a green varietal. Up close, they give the rocks a velvety texture.
I stopped along the trail to capture this image because this tumbled pile of rocks stood apart from assembled puzzle stacks surrounding them. The distinct orange color caught my attention too. There are other colors that you’ll see as you walk along the trails. We’ll bee seeing some of those in other photos this month. Finally, I included a bit of the trail in this image to add a leading line and some perspective to the image.
You can see a larger version of Orange Boulders on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and come back next week when we show another photo from Granite Dells.
Dells Scrub Oak – The green of a mature scrub oak stands out against the Granite Dells boulders.
This week’s featured image is one that I took while exploring the Flume trail that parallels Granite Creek below the Watson Lake dam. State Route 89 divides Granite Dells Park as it heads north out-of-town, with the Willow Lake complex on the west side and the Watson Lake facilities on the east. Each division has trails that meander through the maze of boulders. The main series of trails around Willow Lake is called the Constellation Trails. I’ve only had a taste of that trail system, but I want to hike there some more. I have hiked a couple of the trails around Watson Lake and I’ve completed the Flume Trail twice.
The trailhead is located along the north park boundary. Access to the parking area is via East Granite Dells Road. The trail is almost a mile long in each direction and has a couple of moderate climbs over a couple of ridges, but a lot of it is flat. At its start, it runs between private properties so you’ll see signs warning you to stay on the path. After the first hill, the trail drops into a wide grassy area where you walk creekside under a growth of Cottonwoods. There is a second ridge you must traverse before the trail returns to Granite Creek and stays there up to the dam. When water is high, excess water rushes out of a flume—sort of an artificial waterfall. The water has been low for several years, so the flume is rarely used.
We visited the Dells on our June Costco run, but I wasn’t ready and made a stupid mistake. We left home early so I could go shooting before the warehouse opened. I wanted to photograph with a low sun for the color and it was around half past eight when we got to the parking area, but the day was going to be hot—even in Prescott. While Anne waited in the shade, I grabbed my camera and a second lens and then headed up the trail without water. It was going to be a hit-and-run shoot lasting an hour, tops. I hiked this trail five years ago without problem when we spent the 4th in Prescott. This time I underestimated the strenuousness of the climb, the morning’s heat, and the extra two-thousand feet of altitude. By the time I stumbled back to the car, I was in such bad shape that I made Anne drive us to breakfast while I downed a quart of water. When we got to Costco, we bought a small backpack that I can carry camera equipment and a couple of bottles of water in. Live and learn, eh?
I came upon this scene at the trail’s beginning. After leaving the parking area and making my way over the first hill, I saw this scrub oak—a rather large and nicely shaped one at that—growing in the rock cracks. The green of its leaves stood out against the tan of the granite boulders towering over it. The wispy clouds made the blue sky interesting, so I included them in my composition.
You can see a larger version of Dells Scrub Oak on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and come back next week when we present another photo of the Granite Dells.
Granite Dells Sunset – Prescott’s city park has two creeks, two lakes, and a bunch of rocks to climb. It’s a playground for adults and a wilderness experience inside city limits.
Welcome to July—the start of the year’s second half and when our nation comes together to celebrate Queen Anne’s birthday. Time flies when you’re having fun … and evidently, even when you’re not. As we tear another month from this year’s calendar, it’s also time to introduce the place we’ll visit: Prescott’s Granite Dells City Park. We were here five years ago during the tragic Yarnell fire, but this time, we came better prepared with experience and a real camera.
Granite Dells—or The Dells—is a “McDonalds’ playground” for adults. The park’s trails take you through or around the rock maze. There are secret rooms to discover, rocks to climb, narrow passageways to squeeze through, and creeks to ford. The only thing missing is the restaurant’s ball pit, where kids pee. The trail lengths vary so that you can spend an hour or an afternoon wandering among the giant boulders all day.
A million and a half years ago, a magma pluton—a six square-mile glob of molten lava shaped like a giant balloon—tried to force its way to the surface as the eruptions in Hawaii have done. Instead, because it didn’t have enough energy to bust through the rocks above, it was trapped and cooled slowly and crystallized into granite. Another famous example of a pluton is Yosemite’s Half Dome. As millennia passed and the forces of erosion and plate tectonics shaped the earth, the pluton eventually made its way to the surface. It has been exposed there long enough for the formation to fracture and undergo spheroidal weathering—the erosion that rounds the rock’s edges. Yavapai County has two other places where you can see these kinds of rock formations: the town of Yarnell along SR 89 and the hilltop where the truck stop of Nothing once was on Route US 93.
The two creeks that drain through the Dells, Granite and Willow, were dammed in the early 1900s as irrigation reservoirs by Chino Valley farm co-operatives. In 1998, Prescott acquired a chunk of Granite Dells, including the lakes, and has set aside the area as an open-space park. The usual picnic areas and sports fields are there, but the backcountry trails lead into parts of the park where you get a taste of wilderness experience. That illusion is occasionally broken when the trail passes a No Trespassing sign along the periphery.
When we visited the park in June, we saw new home developments on its northern flank and another proposed on the east side along the Peavine Trail near Point of Rocks. The development was met with community outcry and packed meetings at city hall. Concerned citizens worry that the new developments will irreparably change Dell’s character by blocking wildlife movements and introducing a sea of roofs to the landscape. It’s another example of a good thing being loved to death. I guess it’s true what they say, “You can’t have your Kate and Edith, too.”
I took this week’s image after a Prescott meeting—not at city hall—that I attended. The sun was about to set, so I rushed to the Dells to get this shot. When I got to the Watson Lake overlook, I knew I wanted to capture this sweeping scene with the most detail. The format is a little different for me because this is a four-shot panorama. I took four shots and stitched them together in PhotoShop. The resulting file size is four times larger than my usual shots, and I can make a print thirty-six inches wide at full resolution. I made a crop of the shoreline tree in actual size to show how much detail I got using this method. This image is called Granite Dells Sunset.
A full-size crop of the shoreline tree in this week’s image shows how much detail is in this image.
Click here to see a larger version of Granite Dell’s Sunset on its Web Page. It’s easier to find the tree in the larger version. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and return next week when I post shots I took while hiking the park’s trails.
English Kitchen – Originally built using adobe blocks by Charley Hong to replace his Connor Hotel kitchen that went up in flames in 1899, was open until 2007. Until then, it was the longest-running restaurant in Arizona. Despite its name, they served Chinese food when Charley ran the place.
To coerce Queen Anne to join me on a photo outing, I have to bribe her with something precious—like food or ice cream. If I schedule everything carefully, I can get away with having to pay for only one meal while we’re on the road. I wanted to shoot in Jerome in the good afternoon light and the drive from our house is a little over a couple of hours, so my cheapest bet was to buy her lunch. When we travel we use the TripAdvisor rankings to see what the popular restaurants are at our destination. It eliminates some guesswork picking out a place to eat. We look at the best reviews and then try to find them when we get to town and for our Jerome trip, Bobby D’s BBQ was their top pick.
Bobby’s is in the English Kitchen Building directly across the street from the Liberty Theater. The old building has hosted various restaurants since Charley Hong built it in 1899, according to the story on the back of the menu. I enjoyed reading the part about the English Kitchen name because—being a Chinese restaurant—it never served traditional British fare. If unwitting diners ordered an English breakfast, they were more likely served a dish of chop suey.
The interior of the original building is simple with about dozen wooden tables and historic Jerome photos decorating the wall. There’s not much room inside and since it was a pleasant day, we opted for seats on the deck. Our friendly hostess quickly found a spot at one of the many picnic tables. We enjoyed a nice breeze in the shade of the orange canopies and gawked at the Verde Valley panorama while the aroma of the smokers seduced our appetites. Our pleasant waitress brought menus and took our drink orders before we finished looking around.
Bobby D’s is a BBQ joint and the staff proudly proclaims that they’ve won a Best in Arizona award. The first page of the menu is all BBQ, but we weren’t that hungry so instead, we split the Arizona Cheesesteak from the second page. It consisted of brisket, sautéed onions, pepper jack cheese and (Ortega) chilies stuffed into a hoagie. It sounded different. It came to the table dry along with four house-made sauces for us to sample.
I’m a guy that likes BBQ and I’ve cooked a mean rib a time or two. I like a lot of flavor. A good sauce should singe your nose hairs but leave a sweet taste. The sandwich was good, but it surprised me at how little smoke and rub seasoning was in the meat. While I’m picking nits here, the mild chilies they use are lost in such a bold sandwich as this—jalapeños would have been a better choice. Their BBQ is southern style so one of the sauces is mustard-based, but it was too reminiscent of honey-mustard dressing for me. A second blend they have is called Jalapeño Molasses and again the chilies were missing in the sweet syrup. That leaves their Little Miss Tango sauce as my pick among the three. Anne liked it too—so that alone shows that it wasn’t spicy enough.
Bobby D’s is a good place in Jerome for lunch or an early dinner. It’s fun to eat in and learn about the historic diner. Our service was very good, and the staff was attentive. The food was also very good even if I felt it was on the bland side. Is this the best restaurant in Jerome? The reviews say it is, but I haven’t tried the others. Is it the best BBQ in Arizona? I’ve had better, but BBQ is always a safe bet. Because Jerome isn’t an overnight destination, many of its restaurants close by 2:00 while Bobby’s is open until 6:00. If this were a Yelp or TripAdvisor review, I’d offer four out of five stars.
The Summer of Love was 51 years ago. It was 1967 when a hundred-thousand flower children converged on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District and challenged our worldly perceptions. At the time, I was on duty overseas, so I missed it. When I returned to the States the next year, I got married and had to pass up the free sex movement. Four years later my first wife divorced me and by that time, the movement was over. My timing has always been impeccable.
School Bus 11 – An old school bus repurposed for other uses reminded me of the Summer of Love.
Before we retired, Queen Anne and I had the pleasure of attending seminars in the Bay area several times. On our last visit, we signed up for a walking tour of the historic old houses. On the tour, we learned that a by-product of the hippie period was the Painted Ladies. Needing a place to live, the invaders bought the cheap dilapidated Victorian homes that no one else wanted. Like any respectable homeowner, they began to restore and personalize the homes by painting them. Instead of using the traditional way—one muted-tone color—they made the house’s details pop with bright contrasting colors. These paint schemes shocked traditionalist, but it drew attention to how much craftsmanship went into building these old houses. It gave them character and made you appreciate them more, so the style of painting Victorian homes in multiple colors has become the norm. We even painted the shed we bought here in Congress with three colors and that shocked the neighborhood then.
Last month, when I turned a corner in Jerome and saw this repurposed bus, it reminded me of those resourceful hippies and when I first visited the ghost town. There was a bit of tension in the old towns like Jerome and Bisbee then. People of my generation rejected the social norms and consumerist values of the period. They didn’t want to live in ticky-tacky tract homes and instead wanted a house that had character. They moved into Phoenix’s Encanto district and the abandoned shacks they found in these historic towns. They were perfect for making arts and crafts away from the rat race in Phoenix. The entrenched community pushed back. “We don’t want those weirdos living here, they’ll ruin everything.” Town hall meetings were often very heated and vocal and sometimes even made news in the Phoenix papers (yes, at one time, there were two papers). The conflict seems to have eased and there’s no apparent evidence of tension in today’s Jerome. It’s become a nice place to visit with the family, shop for mementos, and enjoy history—sort of a light version of Main Street, Disneyland.
The photo of the bus that triggered these recollections is called School Bus 11 and it’s my picture of the week. In it, I’m showing the essence of the school bus and its colors. The lights, the faded yellow, the rust, and the graphics tell stories about school children and—to me—the flower children of my past. I moved in to emphasize the patina, faded paint, and letters. From this close perspective, they become the composition and a story of yesterday.
You can see a larger version of School Bus 11 on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and come back next week when we move onto a new location for July.
Jerome Iris – One of my better selling images. It was taken in 2004 on a Jerome trip I made with my friend, Russ Good.
I took this photo of iris in front of a cracked foundation wall in 2004 when my friend, Russ Good and I went to Jerome on a photo-shoot. It’s a popular image and has sold well. The photo’s story is the contrast—the softness of iris petals against the hardness of the concrete foundation and the vibrant purple flowers in front of dull concrete. It also speaks about longevity. The family that planted the flowers and the house they decorated are gone but the bulbs put out new flowers each spring without a caretaker. Getting this shot was difficult. I remember lying on my stomach in the street to focus the image on my 4×5’s ground glass while Russ stood guard over me. Each time I visit Jerome, I look for similar setups and I found another one that is this week’s image.
Art and Flowers – Not just a pretty flower picture. Someone watches that you don’t pick them.
I titled it Art and Flowers and I shot it from the sidewalk in front of the Hilltop Deli building on SR-89. Because my newer camera has a folding view-screen, I didn’t have to get down on the ground this time. Getting down is one thing but—at my age—getting up is another set of variables entirely. The hollyhocks seem to be popular in Jerome this year, they were in gardens everywhere. I selected this specimen because of the jagged wall behind it and the dark crawl space it frames. As you study the image, does it seem like someone is watching you? Well … you’re right. As I was shooting this, I tried different angles and in the middle of shifting positions, I noticed a painting on the wall inside the crawl space. It’s a portrait of a young lady—her chin resting in her hands—painted inside the opening in such a way that you don’t see it as you walk along the sidewalk. I don’t know who the artist was or how long it’s been there, but it’s not just graffiti. After I saw it, I knew I had to frame my last shot so that the hollyhock was in front—but not obscuring the painting—and I set my exposure to make the eyes barely visible in the background. It’s like one of the apparitions that Jerome is famous for. If you visit the version on my home-page—while this image is on display there this month—more of her shape revels as the image lightens.
You can see a larger version of Art and Flowers on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and come back next week when I post another Jerome photograph.
Until next time — jw
Ps: Thanks to Glenda Meyers and Sharon Roberts for flower identification.
By now, you know that I’m a history buff—or perhaps I’m only interested in trivia. I don’t see the distinction, but I know I’m not cut out to be a scholar. I don’t have the patience to spend months in the Vatican Library tracing the origins of … anything. If Google or Wikipedia doesn’t explain, I move on. However, if someone mentions Hannibal, I think of elephants, not fava beans. I even watched all the James Burke’s Connections series—twice. I’m the only person that I know who has a personal copy of Arizona Place Names—and uses it. This probably explains why I write blog posts instead of novels, and it is the reason behind this thought I had when I published this week’s image—I wonder how many young people know the history of the sidewalk’s stamp.
While scurrying up and down Jerome’s hilly streets last week, I went into the Holy Family Catholic Church on Country Road for an interior shot. After that, because the day was late and I was out of breath, I returned to Main Street, where Queen Anne awaited me. A few stairs were at the end of the street, so I looked down to prevent falling. That’s when I first saw the stamping and decided that I needed to take another photograph. I call it WPA Sidewalk.
This section of sidewalk in Jerome is a museum piece that people walk on daily.
This is only the second existing example of a Works Progress Administration—renamed in 1939 as the Works Project Administration; it was the depression era program that employed people for public works projects—that I have cataloged in my brain’s world map. The other is a bridge on the US89 north of Flagstaff. (Maybe finding and shooting WPA sites would be a book-worthy photography project.) Jerome has already replaced many of its walkways with ADA-compliant versions. They had to because of age, winter freezing, and earth movement, but this one is still in good shape and used daily. With the hand-scribed lines (for better footing?), it’s certainly different from the sterile versions that machines spit out today. Since it’s over fifty years old, it probably qualifies for protection under the American Antiquities Act. This sidewalk is the only museum piece I know you can leisurely stroll down.
You can see a larger version of WPA Sidewalk on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing my newest entry and return next week when I post another Jerome photograph.
