Travel – Page 16 – On the road with Jim

Prickly Pear Fruit Picture of the Week

For September, I’m going to bring you something out of the ordinary. We’re going to put the clouds behind us, pull off the road, and get out of the truck. We’re going to go for a short walk down a path—well, it’s more like a hike up a steep trail. I survived, so you’ll be fine. I promise you’ll be fine.

The subject that I originally had in mind for this month was the Sierra Prieta Range. The name is Spanish and means Cold Mountains. They are an offshoot of the Bradshaws. If we went to the top of Prescott’s tallest building and faced west, you’d be looking at the Sierra Prieta. Then if we turned south, the mountains that we stared at would be the Bradshaws. The best-known icons of the Sierra Prieta are Granite Mountain, Little Granite Mountain, and Thumb Butte.

So, when the rains finally broke late this week, I hopped in Archie and drove up to the Little Granite Mountain trailhead. All I intended to do was get above the treetops and photograph some of the mountain peaks. However, the surrounding chaparral was so dense that I wound up where my trail intersects with the Clark Spring Trail—a mile and a half further and four hundred feet higher than I intended. The good news is that I frequently had to stop and rest, and when I did, I was able to shoot some pretty things around me. When I returned to my computer that evening, I changed my month-long project from an entire mountain range to a single trail—well, the first third of it.

Prickly Pear Fruit - A prickly pear growing in the shade of an alligator juniper in the Sierra Prieta Mountains. — Prickly Pear Fruit – A prickly pear growing in the shade of an alligator juniper in the Sierra Prieta Mountains.

The underbrush along the trail is a transitional zone. It’s where Sonoran Desert plants intermingle with those found in our mountains. This week’s contribution is an example. In the photo that I call Prickly Pear Fruit, a common cactus is growing in the shade of an Alligator Juniper. Y’all should know by now that I’m fond of subjects in dappled light, and that’s what drove me to my knees to get this shot.

I like the soft pastel colors of this plant and the complementary color of its ripening fruit against a background of deeper green ground ferns (or whatever they are). I guess the purple is the prickly pear’s way of saying, “Here, eat this part,” to javelina. They eat it like candy. But, the piggies disperse the seeds in their scat, so both parties benefit from the exchange.

As an aside, the fruit makes a great jam that is getting harder to find. It’s sweet and spicy, and I like that taste combination. Because it’s not widely sold, only local kitchens produce it. Our health inspectors have been shutting down the mom-and-pop shops because they don’t have extensive stainless steel production lines like big food producers. So—like moonshine these days—you have to know someone who knows someone—or roll your own.

You can see a larger version of Prickly Pear Fruit on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, we’ll take a few more steps up the trail until I’m out of breath again, and you’ll see what I found while I rested.

Until next time — jw

Summit Monsoon Picture of the Week

My third grade class picture. — A third-grade class picture from my Catholic School days.

Sister Mary Ellie-Font taught us about purgatory in the third grade—and she wasn’t talking about the Colorado ski resort. Heaven and Hell weren’t enough to cover the petty sins not covered by commandments. So, Catholics came up with alternative punishment to keep us in line. One way or another, we were going to pay for the Big Mac we ate on Friday. Purgatory is a holding cell where we would stay until God had enough free time to sort us out—or someone specifically prayed for our soul. At the age of eight, we learned that you could skate from anything if you had connections.

For the last couple of months, it feels like we’ve been living in that purgatory-like state of limbo. We’re waiting for something to happen. When we got our vaccine shots this spring, we all climbed aboard a trolley to the beach. Now it seems like the streetcar is lurching to a halt, and our confidence in the future is waning.

Back in the spring, Queen Anne and I were eager to get back on the road. We were ready to bring back pictures from foreign lands, exotic cities, and far-off islands. We’re not sure the world is ready for that. With the spread of virus variants and rising infection rates, we’ve decided to play it safe a while longer. After all, we’re still in the same high-risk group as when this pandemic began. Besides, that’s what our doctors suggested.

For August, we’re going to hang around our neighborhood, but I wanted to bring you something different. Last week, I wrote about the monsoons and how they brought much-needed rain and spectacular evening light shows. So, this month I’m featuring monsoon clouds—the prettier side of our summer rainy season instead of the floods and muck on the evening news.

Summit Monsoon - Thunderstorms build over the mountains by day, and then move down to the desert floor in the evenings. — Summit Monsoon – Thunderstorms build over the mountains by day and then move down to the desert floor in the evenings.

I took this week’s picture in our town’s natural amphitheater—where the old mine and pioneer cemetery is. It shows one of the Date Creek Range’s low peaks and thunder clouds building over the distant Weaver Mountains. The storms only happen when enough moisture moves up from Mexico. Then, the billowing thunderheads form high over the Bradshaw Mountains and flow into the desert. The rain cells are not particularly big, so we never know where it will rain—some nights, we get dust and wind, and other evenings we get drenched. However, the winds cool off the air enough to watch the show from the front porch, making the summers bearable.

You can see a larger version of Summit Monsoon on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week to see the next image that I bagged on my cloud hunt.

Until next time — jw

Burro Creek Canyon Picture of the Week

There is the phrase Grand Canyon State on every Arizona license plate—it’s our state slogan. I find it ironic that the biggest thing we brag about is something that eroded millions of years ago. Sure, we have the World’s biggest hole in the ground, but there are many other sights in Arizona that we can be proud of.

I think that the slogan can have two meanings. First is obvious; the Grand Canyon State—we’re the state where the Grand Canyon is. The other interpretation that I see is; the grand canyon state—meaning that we’re a big state with lots of canyons within it. It’s true. We have pretty canyons all over the state. There’s the big ditch, of course, but there is also Canyon de Chelly, Salt River Canyon, Oak Creek, Madera Canyon, Sabino Canyon, and too many others to list here. Actually, I looked for a comprehensive list like the one I found for our mountains, but it alluded me.

Burro Creek Canyon - An awesome view that most people miss because they're in a hurry to get to Vegas, or back home. — Burro Creek Canyon – An awesome view that most people miss because they’re in a hurry to get to Vegas or back home.

Our stop this week along Highway US 93 is Burro Creek Canyon. The view of the canyon is spectacular, but it’s hard to see from the road. The bridges over the chasm are short, and the walls are high, so unless they’re in a semi-truck, most people don’t get to see over them—a gripe I share with the new bridge at Hoover Dam. The highway department didn’t build a scenic overlook, and you’re not supposed to walk across the bridge. You can take in the vista in my shot by parking in an unmarked lot accessible from the northbound lanes. Then, a short hike up a trail will get you to the south wall.

Canyons have always been important to Arizona travelers because you usually find water in them. After all, that’s how they were carved. Burro Creek is one of those exotic desert waterways that always has water (in normal years). As you can see in my shot, a couple of surface pools reflect the blue sky even during our extended drought. That makes the creek a reliable water source for wildlife, cattle, and even the wild burros that are pervasive in western Arizona.

I’ve considered adding canyons to my projects list. There’s enough subject matter to fill another of my book fantasies. However, my to-do list already has mountains, old towns, historic hotels, deserts, farms, Colorado Plateau, and the Grand Canyon on it. How do I prioritize them? Where would I ever find the time to photograph them all? I’d have to clone myself because my time is getting short, and the list keeps growing.

You can see a larger version of Burro Creek Canyon on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week, I’ll turn the camera around for a nice look in the other direction.

Until next time — jw

Skull Valley Station Picture of the Week

It’s been a while since I pointed my camera at an old building. The last time I did was before we all got locked up last year. I did publish that shot of Oatman’s empty streets last year, but that image spoke about desertion rather than historic buildings. I missed this genre because I hung around and worked on other Skull Valley buildings after I shot the train depot in the previous week’s photo.

Shooting architecture is a discipline different from nature photography. That’s because lens distortion is more noticeable when you’re shooting boxes. That’s why view cameras have movements that allow the artist to correct for perspective distortions. These days, you can fix that in Photoshop—to a degree. A photographer can use a couple of other secrets to minimize camera distortion that I could reveal to you, but then I’d have to kill you.

As I grow old, history becomes increasingly important to me, so I wish to tell you the story behind each building I shoot. However, most of my subjects are ordinary, and they’re only historic because they survived the wrecking ball. As a better researcher, I could visit the local museums and city halls to uncover records. Unfortunately, I’m not going to because I’m lazy. If it doesn’t exist on Google, then it never happened.

Skull Valley Station - Located on Iron Springs Road in Skull Valley on the north side of the Peavine tracks. — Skull Valley Station – Located on Iron Springs Road, it winds through Skull Valley just north of the Peavine railroad tracks.

Take this week’s featured image, for example. Up until this year, tenants used this building as a feed store. The pandemic was terrible for their business, and they closed shop early this spring. I don’t know when someone last sold gas here, but the pump is set to 33 cents per gallon. I did find this article from The Daily Courier that suggests that a previous owner—Bob Colbert—didn’t know he owned a service station until he uncovered the original sign under layers of paint. Someone has slapped more paint over the sign again (I wonder what happened to the other two pumps).

We drive by this building each month to the Prescott Costco. It’s on the right immediately after Iron Springs Road crosses the Peavine tracks I talked about last week. I never stopped to take a picture because of the feed signs, and newer vehicles were always parked outside. They kinda ruined the old-gas-state motif. This time, with the early-morning light in the cottonwoods and speckled on the orange façade, I took time to shoot the station from several angles. This week’s featured image is the version I liked best. I called it Skull Valley Station. What else could I call it?

~~Click here to see a larger version of Skull Valley Station on its Website~~. We’ll be around Skull Valley for another couple of weeks, so come back and see what else caught my attention.

Until next time — jw

Skull Valley Depot Picture of the Week

I’m not considered a sociable person, so you may be surprised that I joined a car club back when I was a younger man—more than half my life ago (oh jeez, where has it all gone). This club’s existence was based on owning a particular brand—which one isn’t important for my story—but the club member’s general attitude was that no one should drive one of these cars because the mileage brought down their value. Insane, I know. Despite that, the club put on well-attended events like parties, tours, meetings, and track days.

The club event that drew the most participation was their annual progressive dinner. If you’ve never heard of that, it’s a three to seven-course dinner served at the volunteers’ houses who prepared each course. So we’d meet at the appetizer house, have a glass of wine, and when the food was all gone, we’d jump in our cars and drive to the next course. The club paid for the food and a couple of jugs of Carlo Rossi wines, and members paid a flat per-head attendance fee. The club made a lot of money. Things were different then. Phoenix had few roads north of Northern Avenue, and traffic was nil on Saturday nights, so by the end of the evening, the drive between houses turned into a Targa Florio race. Half the club would wind up in the slammer on DUI charges these days, and the insurance companies would cancel their policy.

Now hold that thought in the back of your head while I talk about the other part of another one of my grandiose ideas. I’ve written before about the trains that pass our house. They run less than a half-dozen times each day (and night), so the tracks are empty most of the time. The route runs from Phoenix to the northern town of Ash Fork, and it has so many twists and turns that it was dubbed The Peavine Line when it opened a century ago. The tracks run through the heart of Arizona’s historic gold mining country.

Historically our little train used to carry passengers with depots in Phoenix, Wickenburg, Congress, Kirkland, Skull Valley, Prescott (now bypassed), and Ash Fork. Most of the town’s stations are still there in one form or another. And—unlike the routes between Phoenix to Tucson and Phoenix to Yuma—there is some interesting backcountry scenery and at least two climate zones along the journey.

Skull Valley Depot - The townspeople of Skull Valley have put their abandoned depot to good use as a local museum. — Skull Valley Depot – The townspeople of Skull Valley have put their abandoned depot to good use as a local museum.

So, after my photo outing where I shot this week’s featured image in Skull Valley, I began to fantasize about having a progressive dinner—on a train. The trip would start in Wickenburg (or maybe Sun City West), then make scheduled stops where the old stations are. At each stop, you could peruse the local museum, enjoy the designated course, spend money on useless trinkets in the gift shop, pee, and get back on the train. Between stations, the guests could taste wine samples (from Arizona vineyards?) and purchase bottles that they would pick up at the evening’s end. At the end of the line, the train would make a leisurely two-hour trip back to the station. The night will have fallen by that time, and guests would enjoy non-alcoholic beverages to sober them up.

I only know of two train excursions in Arizona; the Verde River Line and the trip from Williams to the Grand Canyon. There once was the White Mountain steam train, but that closed a long time ago, and Durango bought the engine (which fell off the trailer along US 89—however that’s another story). I think there’s plenty of market for another train ride in our state, and the dinner would make it a unique experience. Think of it as a dinner cruise on rails.

If this lame-brain idea sounds good to you, then it’s yours. On the other hand, if you feel it’s a stupid idea, I never said anything. My brain hurts too much to work on stuff right now. I’m too old and penniless. Besides, it’s time for my nap.

You can see a larger version of Skull Valley Depot—the picture that set my brain on fire this week—on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week when we continue with another Skull Valley artifact.

Until next time — jw

Grazing Horses Picture of the Week

I’m a flexible person. Not in the word’s literal sense. You’ll never see me wearing my onesie running and flopping about on some rubber mat at your gym (try to get that picture out of your mind soon). I mean that when I’m presented with valid alternatives, I can change my priorities—like with this week’s image.

I got out of bed extra early this Thursday to drive up the hill and take sunrise pictures. I knew what subject I wanted to shoot and had planned my outing before I ever got out of bed. When I left the house with my cameras and thermos of hot coffee, the light was beginning to break in the east, and I knew that I could get to Skull Valley just as the sun rose over the Sierra Prieta Range. After all, this is the way we go to Prescott all of the time. The trip was as routine as a run to the corner store for a pack of Chesterfields.

I was right, of course. As I hauled my equipment out of the car, there was no one around, not even on the busy highway. Only me and my subject were there, so I quietly got to work. Fifteen minutes later, I put my junk back into the truck, and I began the drive home.

As I drove south, I wondered if the Ranch House Restaurant would be open when I got to Yarnell. They don’t open until seven, and that’s only on the weekends. It’s a good breakfast stop. Then, as your mind wants to do, I began deciding what to order. I love their ham and eggs, but their serving is so large, the ham comes on its own plate. I usually take half of it home and make another meal from it. I decided on chorizo and eggs—with an extra dash of cayenne cause I like it spicy.

I happened to be driving past the horse ranches in Peeples Valley as the great breakfast debate raged within my head. Suddenly, I felt that something was out of place, so I had to come back to earth to discover what caused the disturbance in the force. Out in the west pasture was a brilliant white horse, and it stood out like a search beacon in the tall green grass. My hunger wrestled my creativity briefly before I stopped Archie. Breakfast would wait.

Grazing Horses - Domestic horses grazing the still green grasslands in Peeples Valley on an early spring morning. — Grazing Horses – Domestic horses grazing the still green grasslands in Peeples Valley on an early spring morning.

I know next to nothing about horses and only rode one time. That nag was rude as it actually said, “oof,” when I got on. Most of them are brown around these parts, as in this instance. When I walked up to the fence, he/she/it ignored me and munched its way through the grass. That shot presented me with a great contrasty shot of the south end of a northbound horse—if ya’ know what I mean. I began to walk the fence line, chirping and whistling—trying to get its head up.

As I walked more, a mare and her foal moved into my frame and messed my composition. The mare continued to graze and ignored my presence, but the foal was timidly curious and circled behind her. Just as I thought I had enough frames—and this always happens with animals and me—the foal stepped in front of the mare and shouted, “I’m a cute baby horsie, why don’t you take my picture too?” So, I did.

Meanwhile, back at the office, when I saw what I had, I decided to push my intended shots back a week or two and publish this one first. It goes with last week’s picture and should make the complaining commenter happy. The animals in this week’s photo are more than specks on the landscape.

I call this week’s featured image Grazing Horses, and you can see a larger version of it on its Web Page by clicking here. Be sure to come back next week and see what else we dug up around the ol’ homestead.

Until next time — jw

Shiprock Picture of the Week

Wickenburg’s traffic has worsened over the past couple of months—especially during the weekends. People might feel more comfortable traveling now that Covid restrictions are easing, or maybe folks are just sick of staying home. In either case, going to one of the town’s grocery stores becomes annoying.

There used to be three US highways that ran through our downtown—US 60, US 89, and US 93. That all changed when the feds built the interstates (yes, children, back in my day, there were no freeways). Today, only US 93 remains a significant commerce route—lots of big trucks still pass through town. It starts downtown at the intersection of US 60 and Tegner Street and ends in Jasper, Alberta (the Canadian part isn’t part of the US highway system, but they used the same number on their side of the border).

I have a lot of mixed feelings about US 93. It’s the main link between Phoenix and Las Vegas. It was a narrow two-lane road with twists and turns that made you slow down. There are little white crosses littering the roadside. So many that it was designated the country’s most dangerous road. So, the highway department began inserting four-lane sections over thirty years ago. Even then, they knew it would become a freeway someday (sometime this century, they promise).

When I thought I had extra money to burn, I looked forward to the five-hour trip to Vegas or Bullhead City for an evening in the casinos. Other times, I’d drag my fishing rod to Black Canyon or Lake Meade with dreams of bringing home a whopper. Then, when my folks retired, they’d pull their trailer across the country, alternating between Atlanta—where my sister lives—and Kingman (it was far too hot in Phoenix). As they aged and became unwell, driving north on US 93 became less fun. I can’t begin to count the times that Queen Anne and I made that drive.

One of the landmarks along the road that I always looked forward to was along the Joshua Tree Parkway as the highway descends to the bridge crossing the Santa Maria River. Some large sandstone formations are hidden behind small hills just south of the bridge, and there’s a small gap where you can glimpse Shiprock. For decades, I planned a photography trip out there. The light was never right the couple of times that I tried.

Shiprock - Not the famous one on the Navajo Reservation that is spelled Ship Rock, but the lesser known one in our back yard. — Shiprock – Not the famous one on the Navajo Reservation that is spelled Ship Rock, but the lesser-known one right in our backyard.

The formations are at the eastern toe of the Black Mountains (yet another range with the same name—these are in Yavapai County) and on the other side of Black Canyon Wash, away from the highway. They’re too distant to get a good shot from the road. I found a Jeep trail that got me over the hill, but I needed something like Fred’s Toyota to go down the other side. However, our friends ran out on us for the summer before I could bum a ride.

I took this week’s featured image from the hilltop, and I think it gives a pretty good long view of the sandstone formation and the Black Mountains. You can tell that it’s spring because green chaparral and trees fill the wash. Shiprock is the middle formation (the shadows conveniently point at it). Its name comes from how the left side resembles the stern of an old pirate ship.

This photo also shows the Black Canyon Wash as it flows to the Santa Maria River, just beyond the photo’s right side. That river then flows between the Arrastra Range in the background and the Black Mountains to Alamo Lake. Everything in this picture behind the formations is part of the Arrastra Wilderness Area, so if you want to explore, you’ll do it on foot.

~~You can see a larger version of Shiprock on its Web Page by clicking here~~. Come back next week for another shot from around my neighborhood.

Until next time — jw