North Rim of the Grand Canyon

I have been an afficionado of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for many years. It is much less visited than the South Rim which makes for a more pleasant experience in my opinion. There are campgrounds, a lodge, cabins and food available. It is more difficult to reach than the South Rim(see map below.) It is also higher then the South Rim, being between 8000 and 9000 feet in elevation. Lodging and other services are available between about May 15 and October 15 each year, with the road from Jacobs Lake(Highway 67) closing on or about 1 December.

We have been to the North Rim many times, usually during August. This is the rainy season which makes the visits more interesting.The mood of the Canyon changes with sunlight, clouds, lightning, etc. The photo below was taken on a bright sunny day. The mountain in the left background partly hidden by a cloud is the San Francisco Peaks just north of Flagstaff. This is the mountain where the Hopi Kachina gods live.

The next six photos are taken close to this same spot but will vary with exact view and time of day.

The six photos below vary considerably in view and mood.

The next six photos also show different views and moods of the canyon.

The last photo is one of my favorites. This photo was taken with the sun playing peek a boo with the clouds making different patterns on the ground. I love the colors in this shot. It also shows the Colorado River.

A note on the photos--these were taken over a number of years on 35mm transparency film, some Velvia and possibly some Ektachrome. The slides were scanned on an Plustek 35mm film scanner and then post processed using Photoshop. I hope you enjoyed them.

The Story of a Tree

We purchased our current home in 1981. In he backyard there were no plantings against the patio wall and only two orange trees left in the yard. Someone had cut the others down because they made mowing harder than he thought it should be. In 1982 we planted a an African sumac tree, a fast growing tree that needs little water; it is native to South Africa. It grows at the rate of about 24 inches a year. The picture below is from 1982, not long after we planted it.

The next photo is from about 19898 or 1990.

The photo below shows the tree in 2010 at it most magnificent. I believe that winter we lost a medium size limb from the left side.

This tree thinks it is still in South Africa and blooms and gets bee pollinated starting about the first of December and lasting into January. The first photo below shows a small bunch of blossoms. These blossoms generally cover the tree as you can see in the second photo. This is all well and good except these blossoms act like a sponge, soaking up large amounts of water in a rain storm. Unfortunately for the tree we often get significant rain storms in December.

On December 4 2014 Roberta was standing at the kitchen window about 0830 when she heard a loud crack and watched a very large limb slowly fall into the yard from the right (east) side of the tree. Fortunately it fell between the wall and the fountain, also missing the large pots. By the time this happened we had received 0.9 inches of rain, according to my gauge. The two photos below show the limb immediately after it has broken off and fallen.

A few days later a Cooper's hawk landed on top of the empty fountain. Every winter we have one or more Cooper's hawks trying to dine on the birds that come to our feeders. Apparently he needed to check this addition to the back yard.

We let the mess dry out and then had at cleaning it up. We did it slowly as we had empty trash barrels to fill up. We were able to cut the small branches off with a pair of heavy duty lopers. This process is shown in the photos below.

These photos shows the broken limb and where it came from.

The photos below give you a better idea of just how big this limb was.

We borrowed a chain saw from our neighbor and Uncle Alan helped with the big portions of the limb.

At this point the spirits of the tree put in an appearance. I don't know if they are Ents or what, but they don't appear to be too happy. I assured them it wasn't our fault.

The photos below show the tree after all the cleanup was done. I hope we don't lose any more limbs. If we do the tree spirits will really be angry.

God's Country Redux

Our daughter Sarah and her husband, Matt, spent the Christmas holidays with us this past year. Sarah is working on a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in German literature. One of her authors is a German by the name of Karl May. 15-20 years ago we went to Tombstone with one of our German exchange students and our girls and discovered a Karl May exhibit in the Tombstone Courthouse. We knew nothing about him abut the Germans did. Since then the exhibit had been moved to a small shop on a side street. Sarah thought it was probably closed but wanted to check it out. Anyway, we planned an expedition for a week ago yesterday.

The map above shows Gods Country, also know as Southern Arizona. We left Mesa , not shown on the map but about 100 miles north of Tucson, about 0830. Our first sight-seeing stop was San Xavier del Bac, an old Spanish mission just slightly south of Tucson on interstate 19. While visible from the Interstate, one should take the exit and visit the mission. There are three photos of the mission shown below, one an overall view, one of the door handle to the main door, and the third shows the courtyard, located behind the long white wall to the right(east) side of the mission.

From San Xavier we got back on I-19 and drove south to Tubac. Tubac is now an art colony located at the site of the original Spanish garrison or presidio in Arizona, established in 1752. There is one store there that we really like, La Paloma. They have a fine selection of pottery from Mexico, Central and South America as well as clothing and some other arts and crafts. The first photo is an overall view of La Paloma and the second of a parrot that clearly belongs at our house. I just need to figure out a place to put him. We did get a few small pieces of pottery and Sarah got a scarf.

After saying good-bye to my bird we got back on the highway and drove a few miles south to Tumacacori Natioinal Monument. Like San Xavier Tumacacori was started as a mission by Father Kino in the late 17th century. Apache depradations were so bad that it was abandoned in the mid 19th century. The photo below is taken just outside the mission office/museum.

Outside the photo to the right under a ramada a woman was demonstrating tortilla making. She cooked the tortillas on a flat metal grate over an open fire and then put beans on the tortilla and rolled it up. Umm, good! That was lunch.

We then continued south to Nogales, got on highway 82 and headed north-east through Patagonia and Sonoita to Tombstone.

The first photo below is what purports to be the OK Coral, where the gunfight took place. When I worked in Tombstone in the 1950's there was a sign stuck on a post in a vacant lot saying it was the site of the famous gunfight. Now that general area is all fenced with a high solid fence and you can see bleachers above the fence where for a fee you can watch a re-enactment of the gunfight.

The next photo shows Sarah standing outside the Karl May museum, now closed and with nothing inside. Karl May was a German writer, born in 1842 and died in 1912. He was a very prolific writer and wrote a number of novels about the American West, despite the fact that he had never been there. His best known western characters were an American Indian named Winnetou and a white man called "Old Shatterhand". He was a very popular writer. He also wrote other stories about places he had never been such as the orient. Six movies featuring Old Shatterhand and Winnetou were filmed in Yugoslavia between 1963 and 1968. These movies starred Lex Barker, Pierre Brice, Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom as well as others. Karl May finally visited the East coast of the United States in 1908, but never got near the West.

The photo below shows may favorite marker from the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone.

We left Tombstone and drove through St. David and Benson before picking up I-10 and driving to Tucson. In Tucson we stopped at Molina's Midway, the best Mexican restaurant ever. Molina's is located on Belvedere, just north of Speedway. It opened in a small house in 1953, about a year after I moved to Tucson. In the photo below we are eating carne seca gorditas, carne seca chalupas, a carne seca burro and green corn tamales. Wowzer!!!

From Molina's we drove home, arriving about 10 pm. 13 and 1/2 hours and 500 miles from when we left. Nevertheless, a great trip.

Other Southern Arizona blog entries by the Old Cowboy include:

Cutting Horses I have Known 4/27/14
A Little Bit of God's Country 1/13/14
Florence...Arizona, That Is 7/18/13
San Xavier Redux 4/14/12
A Perfect Day 1/7/12
Tumacacori 4/16/11
San Xavier del Bac-"The White Dove of the Desert" 1/22/10