hi ho, silver city!

I arrived in Silver City, NM, yesterday afternoon. Settled in, and met up with Alan and Nan, Bay Area escapees who run the new Seedboat Gallery (their opening is documented here). We had a solid New Mexican dinner at Jalisco's, but I didn't have room for the sopapillas, sad to say. I'm not worried as I imagine I'll have plenty of opportunities to eat them when I get to Albuquerque later today.

Oh, the rain found itself back on my heels this morning, hindering any more shooting. Well, enjoy this catholic church from last night's sunset (which I kinda messed up since the sun sets behind a nearby ridge, and all the good light goes quickly).

i wouldn't say it was a good thing, i couldn't say it was a bad thing

I wouldn't recommend it
and I sure can't condemn it.

I'll never pay to see the Thing again.

(thanks to the late, good, and aptly named James Dead for the lyrics above)

So, I finally made my pilgrimage to the Thing, a wonderful little roadside attraction in the desert near the New Mexico border.

What is the Thing, you ask? Well, the thing is, I really shouldn't say what the Thing is. You have to see it for yourself. Surprisingly, there is no embargo on taking pictures.

hanging with the saguaros

No trip to Tucson is complete for me without getting out to Saguaro National Park, which I found out is the closest national park to a sizable town or city.

The saguaros are so easy to anthropomorphize, like this slugger here.

this time it really was a cave

Or actually a cavern. What's the difference? Our guide said a cavern has a gift shop. (he's at the cavern all week, folks, thank you very much)

I spent yesterday at Kartchner Caverns, this amazing wet/living cave that was discovered only in 1974. I know I'm repeating myself, but if you ever find yourself in southern Arizona, you have to come here.

AZ State Parks is doing a great job minimizing the impact of visitors. You enter the cave through a series of airlocks, then you get sprayed down with misters, so you lessen your chances of shedding something to contaminate the cave, and also to minimize the amount of moisture you absorb from it.

I wasn't allowed to take pictures, so this one is from www.explorethecaverns.com.

you see something new every day

I never thought I'd see saguaro cacti so close to such a large body of water in Arizona, but there they are. Spread along Roosevelt Lake, the largest in the state.

I was making my way towards Tonto National Monument, but the sit down lunch I had in Payson delayed me too much, so the trail was close by the time I got there.

In retrospect, the cliff dwellings at the monument are nestled in a western facing wall, so there's only good light in the mornings. I wouldn't have gotten any good pictures anyway.

What was more exciting was taking my Prius over the Apache Trail, the first 22 miles of which are unsealed dirt track. I was worried about all the winter weather that's been coming through these parts, but the ranger allayed my fears. I just wish I hadn't just passed a slow moving truck when passing through Tortilla Flat, as the views there were amazing.

like a cave, only on the outside

I skipped Prescott, opting instead to drive to Tonto Natural Bridge (not to be confused with Tonto National Monument, about 60 miles southeast of here), based on Ben and Kim's recommendation.

I was blown away. What a well-kept secret this place is.

The bridge formed over this travertine deposit, a mix of plant and mineral matter that formed stalactite-like formations along the walls of this small canyon.

I hiked down to the bottom, along the river and under the bridge, dodging icicles dislodged from the sun's heat.

You have to go here if you're ever in Arizona.

more of a zombie town than a ghost town

Jerome came back from the dead. Abandoned after its mines closed, the town nearly died, with the population dropping from its height of 15000 to around 200. Until the hippies and artists came, looking for a cheap place to live away from it all. Now it's back up to about 500.

You walk through the town and there's a gallery next to an abandoned, dilapidated house next to a cafe. The San Francisco Peaks are clearly visible in the distance, some 60 miles away, and the Jerome Palace/Haunted Hamburger bar/restaurant is one of the many places that gives you a bird's eye view of the range and all the desert in between.

Tuzigoot National Monument

Tuzigoot is situated above the Verde Valley and amidst buried mine tailings. You can walk around the ruins, unlike Montezuma's Castle, where you can't even approach them, but they're also not so well preserved.

Montezuma's Castle

Despite the forecast for a 10 degree night, I drove up north, planning a circuit of Montezuma's Castle, Tuzigoot National Monument, Jerome and Prescott today. It was a bit ambitious, so I passed on Prescott for the day.

There are a bunch of ruins in the state named for Montezuma or the Aztecs in general, due to the similarity in construction, but there's no evidence they made it to northern AZ, if I'm remembering what I read correctly.

Bonus points if you can guess what this is:

winter weather

Nothing like leaving sunny San Francisco in the winter to head into rainy Tempe! At least the sky became a nice subject after the rain stopped the other day.

It also rained on my drive out of LA. I'm detecting a pattern here.

I'm hoping my bad weather travel karma isn't returning. In the early 1990s, I took a number of trips -- to Hollywood, camping, some other places -- and it rained typically until the last day of each trip. That wasn't fun.

By the time I get to Arizona

I crossed the Colorado River into Arizona. I pull off at the first rest stop at the border, the Flying J gas station with a Wendie's and some sit down place. The gas is cheap there, so I had the same idea as practically everyone else and waited in a long line to get some gas ($2.17 a gallon -- cheap for a San Franciscan like me).

This sign actually was over the door into the restaurant. I should have asked the cashier for details, but why make this blog interesting?

Anyway, about being back in Arizona. Well, there's a certain political bent to things here. Something having to do with God and Country I think, though typically it's both in the same breath. It's still one of the most beautiful states in this country. And I loved living in Tucson but the more I look back on it, the more it seems like it was a time and place to be there.

But that's in the past.

joshua tree national park

I left Erik's Hollywood apartment late in the afternoon, again, and drove through some rain. My domain issues are still unresolved.

I made it to Joshua Tree well before dusk, and hiked to the top of Ryan Mountain to catch sunset from up high. When I started, I saw a coyote nearby, and took that as a good omen. It was a great view, but there weren't many Joshua trees up there. I made it down before twilight, then set up camp and took some night shots, like the one pictured here. Kim here in Tempe says it reminds her of an Easter Island moai whispering in the ear of another moai. You can also see Orion making an appearance.

Oh and I froze that night, camping at 4200 feet. I wrapped my space blanket around my sleeping bag. I got up around dawn and got an early start shooting. Once my website issues are straightened out and I have a site of my own, I'll post a JT page.

I've always wanted to come to this park. People have told me it's not that great, and I agree to an extent, but I think the trees are entrancing, kind of like the saguaros in the Sonoran Desert around Tucson. I'm glad I came.

I'm On My Way

I finally left the Bay Area yesterday afternoon. The drive was uneventful, and I made it to LA in about 6 hours, including a backtrack to my storage unit and a stop for a burrito along the way.

Driving down the 5, I had the good fortune to pass a couple large feedlots, one for Cowschwitz, otherwise known as Harris Ranch, and another near Bakersfield. I guess the wind was a bit shifty as I didn't smell Cowschwitz (pictured here), until I was almost upon it. I also didn't see an easy way to get off the highway to take a better picture, so I just snapped one while driving (it's not as tricky as it sounds, provided you don't try to compose the shot). Of course, the quality suffers and this one does not show the true scale of the lot.

I spent the night in LA at Erik's. Today I'm off to Joshua Tree National Park.

PS: On top of everything else, my domain expires this week, and AvidNewMedia, the company I registered it with, seems to be taking a powder. So if you're reading this, and want to email me, use my gmail account, or the bigdaddy speakeasy one (I ended up paying to keep it, not bad for $5 a month).

themes

The other day Sumeet asked me what my theme for the road trip was going to be. I didn't have a ready answer other than to say: "premature midlife crisis getaway."

For a while now, I have been thinking about some overarching theme for the trip. It really boils down to two purposes: reconnecting with old friends and family, and documenting (via camera, but I won't rule out writing either) the trip overall.

The reconnection is a bit overdue. It's been over 8 years since I spent more than a few nights on the east coast, trying to catch up with everyone at an all or nothing dinner and drinks at some restaurant or bar.

The documentation part is a bit newer. I'd like to get more involved with my photography to take it to a level above experienced amateur. Hopefully I can get to know my new camera better, and train its eye on new things I'll see and hopefully look at the familiar in a new way. Nothing really original about any of that. So it goes.

I was thinking I could document the dark underbelly of America as I travel from state to state, but that's been done too many times for it to shed any new light, especially given the relatively short time I'll be spending in each place. Maybe I should capture the light overbelly of America, that soft top of the beer gut where you can rest your can of beer while watching the teevee.