We've Got Monuments, but No Pretzels

We forgot to mention that after our drive back from Flagstaff we did get the car repaired. It was way more expensive than we expected, but apparently the catalytic converter was rusted to all the rusted-out piping so that had to be replaced too. That was over half the cost, right there! We had a nice rental for the day so we got all our errands done even while they did the work. After that Maya had several days in a row where she worked and days she didn’t we just stayed at home. Two weekend trips in two consecutive weekends can really make one long for staying in.

When we decided to go out again, it was to the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza. Phoenix is the Capital of Arizona. Right next to the capitol building in down town is this plaza where all kinds of memorials for all kinds of things have been set up. In addition to memorials to the soldiers of just about every war America has been in, there are monuments honoring Arizona’s pioneer women, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Navajo Code Talkers, Arizona’s maimed workers, peace officers (going back to Arizona’s territory days) and victims of Turkey’s genocide of Armenians. It seems that any kind of cause that can get up the funds can have a monument placed in the plaza. “Ooh, ooh! Me too! I want a monument!” Really? A monument for Merchant Seamen? One for the Civilian Conservation Corps? One for K-9s? We’re not saying these aren’t respectable things to give your life to or that we haven’t benefited from the work or the merchant marine and the CCC, but do they really rate so highly that they needs be emblazoned in bronze and marble? Wesley Bolin himself has a marker there too. He was acting governor of Arizona (serving less than one year) after a career as the state’s Secretary of State. He died in office just five days before the plaza was to be dedicated, so it was named after him.

We did see some interesting monuments there. We saw the Arizona 9/11 Memorial. It’s something of a controversy-maker, apparently. Some question the need of an official memorial in Arizona. Others question the patriotism and appropriateness of the memorial because of the fairly wide range of reactions to the attacks that are recorded on it. Matt, who has an interest in the way monuments commemorate things, was really interested to actually see this one. We found it to be tasteful if not a touch stoic. It’s a circular wall of concrete enclosing a courtyard of sorts. Above this is a tilted ring of metal. Below that higher end is a pillar of concrete which contains rubble from the Pentagon and dirt from Pennsylvania which is topped by a chunk of a support beam from one of the World Trade Center towers. The lower end of the slanted circle is covered in stamped-out words. These let the sun shine through so that on the wall of the courtyard they are words of sun light in the midst of the ring’s shadow. These light words tell three stories. One is a time line of the day as the events occurred. Below that is a time line of the next few years as the other events related to the attacks continued to unfold. Between these two are quotes taken from all kinds of Arizonans as they responded to the attacks and to other responses to the attacks. The way the sun moves and the way the shadows are cast cause only one section of the words to be in focus at any one time. The rest are a blur. It makes one think of the sharp focus some moments can take on right in the middle of a hurried, confusing situation. It is a good memorial. Very honest. The attacks happened, like it not. These are the things people said, like it not. However, it is a little strange to find this monument all the way out here in Arizona.
Matt was also really excited about seeing the anchor and mast of the U.S.S. Arizona. It was only a few days after the anniversary of the sinking when we were there. There were still a few flowers on the ledge by the anchor. There isn’t much to it. The anchor is on a big pedestal with all the crewmen’s names on it. It’s a big anchor. That’s about it. Other than knowing that this piece of metal was present at the event that got the U.S. into WWII, it isn’t that exciting after all. There are fountains around, but they weren’t on for water conservation reasons. The signal mast is nearby. After it was cut off the ship it was used at some navy academy in Ohio as their practice mast so the cadets could learn to fly flags and tie knots. Only much more recently has it found its way to Phoenix.
We both agreed that the best monument in the plaza was the Ernest W. McFarland Memorial. He was a judge, a U.S. senator and later governor of Arizona. It’s as a senator that he made his widest impact. He’s one of the two people considered the Father of the G.I. Bill. There is a pathway that leads to the monument from the main sidewalk. Set into the brick path are special bricks with remembrances carved on them. They are little personal stories by people who benefited from the education offered by the G. I. Bill. This path comes up to a paved area and a curved wall. Sitting around in this plaza are concrete seats that are shaped like stacks of books. The wall details the life and work of Ernest McFarland. This is where you find out that he worked to pass the G.I. Bill. The wall stair-steps up toward the right then there are actual steps set in the side of a hill as it starts to curve. As you climb up the steps there are a few quotes from McFarland about the significance of his work. When you reach the top of the steps there are more of those book-stack seats stretching off into the distance. You can see the various government buildings that surround the plaza. It is as if you have passed through the education afforded by the bill, climbed a little bit up in world and now there are limitless possibilities laid out before you. It’s a really nice way of representing education in general and the G.I. Bill in particular. The monument creates a real experience by having you move through the monument and see things from a different point of view at the end, than at the beginning. In that respect, it was similar to the FDR memorial in Washington. Who’d have thought that a memorial to a piece of legislation (and the man who sponsored it) could be so powerful?!

After we left the Plaza, we went to the Snyder’s of Hanover factory over on the west side of town. We had noticed it when we went to L.A. since it’s right off the highway. We were hoping they had a factory tour. They don’t. At least not at the factory here. But they have a factory store! Our expectations were greatly decreased when we actually got there and a sign said, “snacks sold in lobby.” That’s not quite the factory outlet store we imagined. When we went it, it was snacks in the lobby, not a “proper” store. The prices were about one third of retail so that was good. We picked several bags of flavored pretzels pieces and some different kinds of regular pretzels. Great! Then we took them up to the counter and a little sign said “cash or check only.” What? We hardly ever carry cash anymore. Everything is done with plastic anymore. Alas. We put back all pretzels we had picked. Driving home we were both pretty mad. Maya was really upset. It was about time for an afternoon snack and she had been looking forward to pretzels. No! No pretzels for you! To spite the store we made our own pretzels when we got home. Ha! Take that Snyder’s of Hanover!

The Great Conjunction Comes!

So, the blog has gotten a little behind again. There a plethora of reasons for this. With so much neat stuff to talk about from our Flagstaff trip it’s taken a long time to but together those posts. Also, nothing we’ve done since has been half as cool as that trip, so it seems we shouldn’t even bother with more posts. We have both been experiencing a lot of laziness. We’ve been here long enough now that the crazy drive to go-go-go see stuff and do-do-do stuff that comes with a new place has died down. As a result we have spent several days just sitting around reading and that doesn’t make for very interesting blogging. Lastly, we bought ourselves a Wii for Christmas so there is suddenly a lot less “free” time. Matt especially finds himself wanting to play every available minute. Be that as it may, we’re going to try to get this blog caught up in the next few days. Hopfully before Maya’s Mom and sister arrive for a Christmas visit. It shouldn’t that hard. As we mentioned, we haven’t done that much…

Thanksgiving is Maya’s favorite holiday. She loves what it stands it for and the tradition of families eating a good meal together. This simple, beautiful focus is thrown into sharp relief by the sandwiching hyper-consumerism of the secular celebration of both Halloween and Christmas. Giving thanks, just a little, is something she holds onto even more tightly for it being so overlooked in popular culture. This year, for the first time ever, we are both miles and miles away from any family. Miles and miles. On top of that, Maya had to work. She had to work a twelve hour day on Thanksgiving and be reminded all day long about how she wasn’t with her family by all the family members coming to see her patients. Great for them that they get to be together, but she’s still working - and working hard!

She did have the next four days off so we had decided to go back to L.A. to see family there for the weekend. Matt picked Maya up from work with a hot supper in a box and Asher and all our clothes ready to go. We got on I-10 and headed west for the 300+ mile trip – starting at almost 8:00. It was a hard trip. Maya had worked Tuesday and Wednesday as well so she’s always pretty wasted at the end of day three and then she couldn’t go home and crash, she had to ride for five hours in a car. Terrible. It was the worst Thanksgiving ever.

Our L.A. trip was okay. We did see all the family, and that was the real point. Hi all! We stayed with Maya’s grandparents. Her one uncle’s family came over on Friday night for turkey feast leftovers so we saw them. Her other uncle’s family – we have a new baby cousin! – came over one night too. So that’s all the family. It’s always nice to hang out with family. Unfortunately, we didn’t plan to go out and do anything so we didn’t. We just spent a lot of time at the house. There’s nothing wrong with hanging out, but in retrospect we should have gone out and about a little more.

One shining moment for Matt – literally shining – was observing the Moon/Venus/Jupiter conjunction. They were closest together on 30 November. That night Matt went out with our camera set to “night shot” and took some fair pictures of the event. It was a cloudless night and the objects are all so bright that even the light pollution of Los Angeles could not drown them out. On the first we came back to Phoenix and on the second Matt went out and got another shot of the conjunction. Neat stuff. Spinning worlds in space and all.

Flagstaff: At Home Away from Home

Sunday morning found us safely in Flagstaff, but without the muffling power of a muffler. We looked into repair places there in Flagstaff and since it was Sunday, nobody was open. Back in Phoenix, there were dealerships open, but no service departments. There was no way to have the car repaired that day. Decisions are really easy to make when there aren’t very many options. We decided to drive around to all the places in Flagstaff we wanted to see regardless of the noise that would make. If you want a sense of the sound the car was making, press your lips together firmly (but not too firmly) then try to blow out, as if you were blowing out a candle. That sound you just made, multiplied by several thousand, is what our car sounded like.

We first went to the Museum of Northern Arizona. They have all kinds of exhibits about the natural and cultural heritage of the Colorado Plateau. Flagstaff is down near the southern edge of the Plateau, the Grand Canyon forms part of its western edge and on its eastern side it encompasses the Four Corners area. Matt overheard a lady teaching her son a mnemonic device to remember the Four Corners states: yoU Can Name them All stands for Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Now you can name them all too! Grand Canyon is Arizona’s “thing.” The state is called “The Grand Canyon State,” the Canyon is on their quarter, and both of the geology things we’ve been too in Arizona use the canyon as a way to explain the whole “older is deeper and deeper is older” aspect of geology and paleontology. The geology gallery in MNA has all kinds of fossils on display from all different times. They are arranged around the room in chronological order. Every so often there is a diagram to show at what depth in Grand Canyon rocks of the same age would come from. Huge ammonite shells, a turtle, a complete Dilophosaur skeleton, a massive leg bone of something, and sections of petrified trees are all on display. We learned an interesting fact about the Canyon there: there are “missing” layers. Layers of rock that at other sites are observed to be separated by other layers appear in the Canyon next to each other. How is this possible? No one knows…

The majority of the Museum houses archeological and ethnological materials about the various Native American cultures of the Plateau. In the archeology gallery there were old yucca-fiber sandals, plenty of decorated baskets and painted pots, maps of village sites and a section of mural removed from a kiva. There was also a really interesting time line of the human activity in the area. The cultures have scientific handles like Basketmaker I and Pueblo II. Each of there observed development as listed along with what are typical artifacts for that culture. The really interesting aspect is that there was also a tube running along the wall that contained the typical foodstuffs of each culture. You can see the corn cobs appear, then get larger. Beans are added and after the Colombian Exchange you get European fruits and in modern times you add canned goods and such. It was a strong visual way to represent the information. In the ethnology gallery there were all kinds of modern objects from the recognized nations of Plateau today. There are Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Apache and Pai. On display are pieces of jewelry in different styles, examples of weaving, lots of little pots and katsina dolls galore. The walls have photos and text panels that explain each group and the state of reservation life, often in their own words.

Attached to this room is a small gallery that recreates a Hopi kiva. The kiva in Hopi culture represents both the womb and the sacred underground from which the Hopi first emerged into the world. The main exhibit in the kiva is a modern mural on the wall. It details the whole history of the people (most Indian names for themselves mean something like “the people”) and it points to a mostly hopeful future.

The last big gallery in MNA was all about a recently-found dinosaur skeleton. It’s from a little-know group called the therizinosaurs. The specimen is so recently-discovered that it doesn’t have a scientific name yet. The therizinosaurs were basically dinosaur versions of the giant sloth. They had huge front claws and were apparently related to the “standard” meat-eating dinosaur, except that the therizinosaurs seem to have been plant-eating. The exhibit is set up like something of a mystery – the Mystery of the Sickle-Claw Dinosaur. First the mystery is, “What is it?” but then it changes to, “What is it doing here?” It seems that Arizona was under the ocean at the time and there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for a terrestrial animal to be 60 miles out to sea. The team that dug up the bones had been looking for plesiosaurs. The exhibit was greatly enhanced by the many large paintings by Victor Leshyk of the animal in its supposed natural environment. Environments, actually. Since so little is known for sure about the animal there are several possible habitats and life-styles depicted. All in stunning color!
After the museum we went to the Riordan Mansion. As many trees as there are in Flagstaff today, there used to be even more. Back in the days when no one had heard of Phoenix, Flagstaff was one of the more important cities in Arizona. In 1882 the second trans-continental railroad line was built through Flagstaff. This line allowed all that wood to exported. It was the Riordan brothers that ran this huge lumber operation. The two brothers, Timothy and Michael Riordan, married two sisters, Caroline and Elizabeth Metz. With all this family togetherness they decided to have a mansion built for themselves in 1904. It was actually two very large houses with a great room built in between them that connected them together. The style popular at the time is known as the Arts and Crafts style. It focuses on utility, the workmanship of the craftsmen, and fitting into the surrounding environment.. There are a lot of built-in shelves and seats throughout the house. Natural light is maximized with interior windows set high above the doors that let light into the hallways even when the doors to rooms are closed. The most amazing thing was the huge ovular dining room. There were window seats around it and the dining table was with amazing, solid, dark-stained table in the shape of a mandala (the pointed oval that forms when two circles meet each other – think of the MasterCard logo) so it would fit in the space. This shape meant the table had no head and not foot and Timothy Riordan liked this idea. Caroline had a button in the floor by her seat so during dinners she could tap it call the servants to come clear the dishes and bring the next course. Amazing. We totally want that dining room. There was a lot to the Arts and Crafts style that we liked. Someday when we build the Clan Castle we will be incorporating a lot from the Riordan Mansion.
Our last stop on the way out of town was the Beaver Street Brewery and Whistle Stop Café. We had planned to eat supper there on Saturday after the Canyon, but we just didn’t feel up it after those adventures. So went for lunch. The brewery is about a block south of Route 66 (the historic Route 66, not the new one) and is close to the old train station. It is another indication of how cool Flagstaff is that Route 66 is one of the main streets through town. Beaver Street was a great place. The food was really good. Maya had a pizza with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and various cheeses and Matt got the Arizona quesadilla with black beans and all kinds of good stuff inside. Since it’s a “brew-pub” we had to try the beer. Matt tried the Rail Head Red. It was quite good. Even better was the R&R Oatmeal Stout mixed with the Bramble Berry Brew. That’s what Maya got. She’s come to really enjoy stouts. It was so good we got a growler of it. This was new term for us. It’s a half-gallon jug. Half a gallon of beer! If we ever go back, we’ll get it filled up again. It’s about the best small scale brewery we’ve found. They are so small scale, they don’t distribute so you have to go to Flagstaff to get it. We could defiantly see ourselves going back. The smaller size of the city, the fact that it’s a collage town, the climate, the natural beauty all around: it’s our kind of place.

On the way home we got our last “Wow!” of the trip. We had started earlier in the day and we were headed back to the warmer southern regions so, even with the windows down (car still leaking exhaust), it wasn’t cold. We could actually appreciate the falling of night. Somewhere south of Verde Valley, the sun was going down behind some hills and it colored the clouds in alternating red and blue rays. Not kidding. We saw the Arizona state flag drawn out by Mother Nature. We can only conclude that it’s a frequently-enough-occurring natural phenomenon that the flag is made based on it. The rays on the flag are supposed to represent a general idea of sunset and Arizona’s western-ness (the sun lands in Arizona when it sets, according to Calvin’s Dad). But this was so close in appearance it seems likely that the whole flag specifically references the kind of sunset we saw. In any case, it was quite a sight. Other people have seen it, and photographed it, but we’ve not seen anything like that before. Wow!

Adventures in Grand Canyon, part 2

So what do you do when you are on something a “once in a lifetime” vacation and suddenly find yourself with a pipe that’s supposed to be connected to the engine is sticking into the dirt instead, it’s afternoon on a Saturday in late fall and you are a long way from anything like a repair place? You tie it up and keep looking at the scenery! There’s just one problem, no rope. We usually keep several bungee cords in car, there weren’t there. Sometimes we have rope, but not that day. We considered our cell-phone charging cable, but figured it wouldn’t hold. Maya checked her cell phone. Guess what. We got no bars at Grand Canyon. No signal at all. Not that there would have been anyone to call anyway. Matt looked into a nearby pile of wood to see if whomever stacked it but left some rope behind. No luck. All the while people are passing. At least it was somewhat comforting to know that we weren’t alone in the middle of nowhere. Eventually we hit upon a temporary solution. The Subway sandwich sack from the day before was still in the car. Matt got under the car and tied up the pipe so that it was at least off the ground. There isn’t much under a car to tie something to but there was a small bolt hole of some sort that served as a very make-shift “repair.” At least with it tired up we could drive without dragging.
Expecting the plastic bag to rip at any moment we kept on to the next turnout with our flashers on going slow, slow, slow. He got honked at and brights flashed at us, but what are you gonna do? At Grandview Point (7,399 feet) we were slightly more than halfway between the east entrance and the west exit. It was already after 15:00 at that point. There wasn’t much more daylight to be had, it was getting colder and we were sure a bag wouldn’t hold until we got back to Flagstaff. Our plan was some kind of vague vision of getting real road from a camp store once we make it to the west gate and the Grand Canyon Village. The views from Grandview Point were impressive. The Canyon is especially wide and there are whole mesas down on its floor. There used to be a copper mine out on Horseshoe Mesa. A mule train that brought supplies to the mine used to leave from Grandview. The trail is still popular with those really outdoorsy types who like to hike into and across the Canyon. “Hiking…,” Matt thinks, “I’m wearing hiking boots! Boots with strong boot laces! Strong enough to tie up that pipe (at least as long as the bolt hole holds). Why didn’t I think of that before?!” So Matt got under the car again and changed the plastic bag, which had already started to stretch, out for boot laces. He put on his tennis shoes (could have used those laces too, if we’d thought of them). And we continued on.

The muffler falling off produced mixed feelings. There was not a small amount of relief to know what the problem had been. There was nothing wrong with the engine: no thrown pistons, no slipping transmission. It was “just” the muffler. Now the car was loud. Embarrassingly loud. Matt wouldn’t turn the car on if anyone happened to standing nearby. Maya read in the car’s manual that if you suspect an exhaust leak (let alone know there’s an exhaust leak) you are supposed to put your windows down. Now, driving around with the windows down when it’s turning from a lower 50s day into an upper 20s night is no fun, but at least you aren’t stranded! That being said, we were having trouble enjoying ourselves. The vistas weren’t quite as appealing with thoughts of a cold car ride looming ahead. Of course, with our being outside for most of the day and the temperature dropping along with the westerning sun the vistas were hard to enjoy just from the cold. It’s one thing to look at the forecast from Phoenix (where it’s still routinely 80) and see that it’s going to be in the forties most of the day and quite another thing to be in forties for most of the day without gloves and hat because you didn’t think you’d need them. It seems that between Florida, California and Arizona we’ve forgotten all about how to deal with colder weather.


At last we made it the “main” area of the South Rim. There is a bunch of stuff in Grand Canyon Village. There are hotels, campgrounds, shuttle buses, dozens of trail heads and more than one information center. We found the main visitor center to be a little lack-luster. I guess when you have the Grand Canyon just outside there is little point to indoor displays about it. Just go look at it. Matt collects smashed pennies and he had hoped for one in the gift shop. No luck there. We looked out over the Canyon one last time at Mather Point. It is the lowest point on the South Rim that we stopped at. It’s 7,120 above sea level, about a mile above the river and something like 14 miles from the North Rim, one of the widest points of Grand Canyon. We didn’t stay long because it was really getting cold but it’s had to leave a place that seems to epic, so grand. Pictures can’t capture the feeling of being that high up on a promontory of rock. Looking that far down gives one just a little bit of vertigo. It’s a landscape a down. The horizon line always wants to be at the top of your vision and your camera so you can focus on the cascading downs. Row after row of cascading downs.
A little south of the Park on SR 64 is the town of Tusayan. There we stopped and got real rope from a real General Store, just to make sure that the pipe slung under the car wasn’t going to go anywhere as we drove. We tied it to our seats inside and ran it all the way under the bottom of the car. If the laces broke, this rope would catch it. After getting under the car for the third time that day we were ready to go. The sun was setting, but we had to keep the windows down. From the map it looked like this was that main route up to the park form Flagstaff, but there was nothing past Tusayan. There was a tiny wide-spot in the road where we turned off onto US 180, but that was it. After that, there was only featureless woodland. No lights but the stars, hardly any other drivers. The woods closed in a somewhat creepy fashion. In the dark it seemed to be a road lost in all time a space. A road from nowhere, through nothing to noplace. And it was cold! We had our jackets and the heat was on full blast but there was no way to get warm with a 60 MPH wind in your face when it somewhere in the low 30s. Burrrr! And the noise! Not only the rushing wind, but the unmuffled sounds of internal combustion. As we approached Flagstaff we had to skirt the San Francisco Peaks. We reached the highest point of the day when we crested the hills on the south side of the mountains at 8,046 feet above sea level. It’s too bad it was so dark, from a terrain map of the area, it looks like an amazing landscape of endless volcanic cones.

And that was our adventure in Grand Canyon. We made it back to the hotel safe and sound. We had no signs of carbon monoxide poisoning that we could tell. We had planned to go out to a fancy restaurant but we were so grumpy, headachy, tired and cold that we just crossed the parking lot to the Del Taco (a not-at-all-as-good version of Taco Bell) and ate in our room. We drank chardonnay and watched TruTV’s forensic science shows for hours. Not a glorious end, but it was, despite the issues with the car, a glorious day.

Also, today is 7 December: remember Pearl Harbor.

Adventures in Grand Canyon, part 1

The Grand Canyon. It seems like such a simple name. A lot of the really famous natural wonders out here in the west are like that: Arches National Park (with its many arches), Monument Valley (not a true valley, but it contains monument-like buttes), Sunset Crater (red rock makes it look like it’s lit by a setting sun), Meteor Crater (it’s a meteor crater). But the Grand Canyon seems like it should have a more grand name. Matt heard something a long time ago about someone calling it “The Amazingly Big Hole.” That doesn’t quite cut it either. Maybe simplicity is best. After all, it is a grand canyon…

From Flagstaff there are two highways leading north. There’s US 180 going northwest and US 89 headed just east of north. Both of these connect to State Road 64 which travels along the canyon rim for part of its way. At that point it’s called (most appropriately) Canyon Rim Road. The plan was to make a big counter-clockwise circuit. We’d go north on 89, turn onto 64, see the canyon, enter the park from the east side, work our way to the “main” views from the visitor center, then head back to Flagstaff on 180. This is what we ended up doing too, but the day wasn’t quite as we imagined it.

We got out of the hotel in good time. We usually sleep late, but we knew there would be so much to see. The road north of Flagstaff heads through some fairly bleak country. Flagstaff itself seems perfectly verdant but just to the north things get barren. It must be the dryness. It’s not exactly hot at that point. It certainly wasn’t while we were there. For those of you that have read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, we were thinking a lot about Mid-World. For those of you that haven’t read it Mid-World is some kind of post-apocalyptic landscape (long post) that is primarily cold, dry and empty. That’s north Arizona: cold, dry and empty. Shortly on the heels of these thoughts came the cynical idea: “That’s why we gave it to the Indians!” Indeed, part of US 89 passes through the lands of the Navajo Nation. Maybe it looks different in springtime, but there doesn’t appear to be much anyone could do with that land. The main industry of which we saw evidence was hawking jewelry, blankets and jerky at road-side stands.

Almost as soon as one turns onto 64 from 89, one starts to see evidence of the Canyon. At first it’s a branch of Grand Canyon that is apparently called Dead Indian Canyon. There are several scenic overlooks along this stretch of 64. We stopped at one. The drop from the rim was “only” 1,000 feet. Maya, who had seen Grand Canyon before wasn’t that impressed. For Matt, it was probably the most “amazingly big hole” he had yet seen. He was pretty impressed. A handy picnic table served as a tripod to get a shot of us together. We also glanced at some of the jewelry on display. One Navajo lady asked us if we were on the way up or down. We weren’t sure what she meant. We thought we were on the rim on the canyon. We were just going to go over to the park. No. We had yet to go up to the rim. Apparently, as you go north from Flagstaff’s 7,000 feet above sea level the land dips down to 5,000 some feet. It was gradual and we didn’t really notice. Now that we were so close to the South Rim we had to get back up that 2,000 feet in short order. The road ahead was very steep.
It was on this climb up to the rim’s 7,438 feet above sea level that we first thought there might be something wrong with our car. Our Rav4 had always made a lot of noise. It has been better since we had all that work done in Florida, but still loud at times. The engine makes so much noise. Going uphill has always been worse. On this hill we noticed that the car was really loud, not just normal loud. We realized that it had been making extra engine noise since we had first headed north. Matt had a theory about the thinner air making the fuel injector work less effectively. He didn’t really put much stock in it, but it seemed possible. Driving up to the rim, he thought maybe the transmission was slipping. It might not have enough transmission fluid, he thought. Our combined knowledge of cars if feeble at best and this seemed as likely a possibility as any. There’s no place to stop on that stretch of the road so we just went on into the park.

For twenty-five dollars a vehicle you get seven days of access to the Park. That seems like not too bad of a deal. There’s a picture on the website for Grand Canyon National Park that shows all four entrance lanes packed with cars. It didn’t look like that when we there. We were the only car passing through the gate at the time. This close to winter, it’s the off-season of the park. That being said it was still fairly crowed everywhere we went. It must be completely wall-to-wall (or is that rim-to-rim) in the height of tourist season! Our first stop was the Desert View Area on the east side of the park. There’s a Watchtower there that was one of the first tourist stops to be built at the canyon. The tower was built in the 1930s and its style is supposed to emulate the watchtowers of the Anasazi. The views from the ground there are amazing enough. It’s the highest point on the South Rim. Then on top of that you can go up in the tower at look out of the windows at the top. Amazing. When we got back down from the tower and tore ourselves away from the vistas we had lunch in the car. Matt put some transmission fluid in the car and then we were off to the next stop.
Driving to the Tusayan Ruin there was still a lot of noise from the engine. Of course at Grand Canyon you are almost 100 miles from the nearest real service station. No matter what the problem, there isn’t much you can do other than to keep going. The Tusayan Ruin is a small dwelling site. There were maybe 30 people living in four small connected rooms. There are several storage rooms, evidence of agriculture in a nearby stream basin and the remains of a kiva for ceremonies and meetings. This site has provided the earliest evidence for human habitation is the Park. Clovis points have been found at the site, indicating human activity in the area as early as 17,000 years ago. The people who built the structures that remain today were much more recent. The dwelling was in use up until about 800 years ago. There was a small museum next to ruin that exhibited many of the finds from all over the park. There are over 2,000 artifact sites in the 3% of the Park that has been officially explored. Wow! How many more artifacts remain to be found? Later in the visitor center we saw a reconstruction of Tusayan. After looking at the museum and such Matt was thinking about the car and decided that the pistons might be knocking around a bit if the car was low on oil. We checked this when we got back to the car. It did need oil. Quite a lot. Matt put in one and one half quarts. He insists on keeping all this stuff in the car. It’s something he learned from his Dad. It’s usually a nuisance to have all those bottles in the back end, but when you need it, it’s nice to have it.

Our next stop was at Moran Point. At 7,160 feet above sea level it’s a lower point on the South Rim. On the way the car was still making a lot of noise. Putting in the fluids didn’t seem to change the sound in any way. We began to suspect an exhaust issue, but the sound seemed to be from the front not that back. From Moran Point you can see how red Arizona is. When we were ready to leave Maya walked around the car with the engine running. She confirmed that the terrible, explosive rattling we were hearing was coming from the front end of the car. It was something to do to with the engine…
Shortly after leaving Moran Point we found out exactly what the matter was. We were driving along the twisty two-lane road, going slow lest we overtax the engine. Suddenly, clunk then scraaaaaaaaaa. Yes. The muffler fell off! Off! In, essentially, the middle of nowhere. We stopped. There isn’t really a place to stop on the side of the road there, just a little bit of gravel on the edge of the road. Thankfully, this was no where near the edge of the Canyon. Matt got down and looked at the damage. The muffler had fallen off on the front side. The muffler itself looks perfectly okay, but the pipes that connect it to the engine were rusted through. Rusted right off. A car makes a lot of noise when it doesn’t have a muffler!

Why Do Space Rocks Taste Better Than Earth Rocks?

Maya had four days off in a row last weekend so we decided to make one of our big planned trips to another part of Arizona. He decided to go north to see what we could see in the Flagstaff area. On Friday, this was exactly one week ago, we dropped Asher off at the pet resort and sped on up I-17. Interestingly, though I-17 is an “interstate,” it only runs from Phoenix to Flagstaff. That makes it more of an intrastate highway… We did hit a little bit a slowdown again. That’s 0 for 3 for smooth travel on I-17. We had intended to get an early start, but per our usual, we didn’t we got lunch just north of Phoenix.

The drive was fairly amazing. It’s only 150 miles so you would think that things could change that much. However, the route rises over 5,000 feet from Phoenix’s 1,092 to Flagstaff’s 6,905 feet above sea level. The terrain in the same: flat plains broken by low hills and the occasional mountain of shattered boulders. The thing the really changes is the flora. Just outside on the manicured and watered lawns of Phoenix metro the terrain is once again the natural desert. Saguaro cacti dominate the hills. There are smaller, shrubby plants too. Then all of a sudden there are no saguaros but lots of this hearty tree called a paloverde. It’s green, as the name suggests, so it doesn’t need as large a left to get it’s photosynthesis on. It looks something like a very feathery willow. This goes in a while then you dip down into Verde Valley, going below 4,000 for the first time in miles. There are actual deciduous trees in the valley. They are in fall color as you might expect for this time of year. Next you start to climb again and the broken hills are covered in yellow grasses and pine trees. Yes! Pine trees! Whole hillsides of them! It actually strongly reminded us of the upper peninsula of Michigan. We didn’t know how much we had been missing real trees until we saw them again.

We drove right on past Flagstaff on that fist day. We headed east along I-40 to Meteor Crater. It’s about 30 miles from the city. This is also known as Barringer Crater after the man who championed it as a meteor crater. Previous observers had suggested a volcanic origin. There are a lot of volcanoes in the area. The highest point in Arizona is Humphreys Peak, just north of Flagstaff. It’s an extinct volcano. What Barringer kept pointing out is that aside from the crater itself there was no evidence for volcanic activity right in that spot. Also, the little bits of iron laying around everywhere were a big clue. His interests in the crater started as purely economic. As a mining engineer, he hoped to find the giant chunk of iron that had made the crater and thus mine it. He didn’t find it (as it was mostly vaporized in the impact), but by the time he gave up looking he had become dedicated to proving that it was indeed an impact crater, or astrobleme, as nerds like Matt like to say. He was largely successful and his work was instrumental in identifying craters as impacts sites on other bodies like the moon and Mars.

Seeing the crater is a little hard to describe. Very memorable for us is how quiet it was there. It’s a long way from anything so there is almost no city, car or animal noise. Quite surreal. On one hand the crater is amazingly simple. It’s just a big hole in the ground. That’s it. There is nothing else to see besides the hole. It is a big hole, but still just a hole. On the other hand is all the stuff about how it formed, about other impact craters on Earth that are less well-preserved, about the effects of impacts like, um… the end of about half of all life 65 Ma (million years ago). In that light the crater is not so impressive for what it is, but for all that it represents. It practically resonates with significance. Matt can now cross off a mid-level item from his life's to do list.

Why do space rocks taste better than Earth rocks? Because they’re a little meteor! If you like that joke, you can thank Futurama. In fact, you can thank Futurama by buying the new DVD movie Bender’s Game. We thought it was the best Futurama yet since the show ended.

Park of the Canals

Last Wednesday we wanted to go out and do something but we didn’t want to do a big thing. It was Maya’s only day off after working two days and working yet another day. She actually gotten to the point that she’s having fun at work. It’s a balance thing. Where there are enough resources (time, mostly) to care for her patients as she’d like, it’s a good day. When time is taken up by minor details that someone else should have taken care of or by adding another patient to her load, it can be a terrible day. She’s been having more good days than bad recently. That’s part of the reason why she’s decided to extend our time here in Arizona. We just officially found out that we will now be staying through January. Hopefully that extra time will allow us to see more of what the Valley of the Sun has to offer.

Speaking of what the Valley of the Sun has to offer, we went to a public park over in the city of Mesa. Matt had found out about Park of the Canals that, as you might suspect, contains canals. This little park had shelters and a playground as are typical for public parks. They are set in between prehistoric Hohokam canals. There are three inside the park. One is hardly more than a ditch. The second is still quite well-defined, but of an average size. The third is huge! Instead of being dug down into the earth, it’s actually two walls running parallel to each other. While these canals are a run down and overgrown, knowing that these packed earth and clay constructions are 800-1,000 years old only make them all the more impressive. That anything has survived this long is impressive.

As with Phoenix itself, the original European settlers thought it was impressive too. And convenient! Mormon settlers were the founders of Mesa and after a little bit of renovation they used some of the canals in what is now Park of the Canals in their own irrigation efforts. Within the park’s 20 acres are supposed to be several ruins both from the early settlers and (one presumes) from the Hohokam. We didn’t go look at any of that, but there is network of trails for visiting the sites.

The other really interesting feature of Park of the Canals is that the people who donated the land to the city also wanted a desert botanical garden to be part of it. So there is. The Brinton Botanical Garden is a fairly nice little garden. We’ve seen several desert gardens at this point and for one that is free and open to the public, this one is impressive. While small it had a lot on display. Possibly inspired by this picture which was on display at the Phoenix Museum of History, Matt wanted his picture taken next to a large saguaro. We also saw golden barrels, lots of different types of cholla, bunny ear cactus, a Joshua tree and… a rabbit! There were at least two rabbits that we startled out of hiding. One took off like a shot across the dirt, through the fence and gone. The other hid under a different bush and we approached very carefully. We managed to get fairly close and took a shot of it hiding in the shadows. Rabbits are the best rabbits!
After the park we went and joined our local library. Maya has an absolutely voracious apatite for books. She has read all of her books that are along with us and all of Matt’s that she finds even remotely interesting. Rather than acquire more books that we’d have to move (and pay for) we just got a library card. She came home with a pile of Christopher Moore books. Yay libraries! When she went to work the next day a patient asked if she’d done anything fun on her day off. Maya said she’d been to the library to which the patient responded, “Oh, that’s okay,” in a very consoling tone. Some people just like books more than others.

Camera Traps Work!

So, camera traps really do work. They can capture images of rare giant squirrels in Indonesia. They can demonstrate that bait hung in trees is not eaten by gigantic Australian goannas, but by birds. Camera traps have yet to capture proof of sasquatch, but they catch law-breakers all the time.

There are signs up all over here about photo enforcement of the traffic laws. Maya hears people complaining about it all the time at work. In the invasion of privacy versus protection of public debate we tend to come down on the side of cameras at intersections. If you aren’t speeding or running red lights, what’s the harm right?

The only problem with all this is that you have to know what the speed limit is. When you don’t, you become the law-breaker and the photo surveillance camera trap catches you! Matt knows, he got photographed going over the limit sometime earlier this month and we just got a nice letter from the Traffic Enforcement Office asking us to place pay their hefty fine. There is a statement of technology information page included that actually makes for pretty interesting reading. Apparently, at the moment of the offending speed we were having a good time talking about something. They also include a copy of the pictures they took of driver and license plate, to show they really mean you. Matt looks very happy in the photo.

He says that all those arguments about privacy, the anger at being spied on and the suspicious “Big Brother is watching” feelings that we had dismissed as valid arguments before feel a lot different when it happens to you. That anger passed though and we both still support photo enforcement, we just pay closer attention to posted speed limits now. That is the point of the enforcement, after all.

Arizona's Living History

Last weekend (15 November) we tried to go to the Pioneer Living History Village again. Last time turned into a bit of a frustrating mess. This time we made it! We did have a bit of slowdown on I-17 because of construction, but not a bad one. Unfortunately, after all that anticipation, the place was a little underwhelming. We thought that the village was the remnants of an old town that just happened to all still be there. Not so. There were only one or two buildings that might still be where they originally built. The majority of the buildings have signs that clearly state they were moved to their present location from other places in Arizona. A lot came from Prescott, but there were also buildings from Globe, Wickenburg and others places too. Somehow it is not as interesting to have a collection of buildings that were assembled together to appear as a cohesive town, but on the other hand, it’s neat that these buildings have been preserved at all.

Near the entrance is a former general store that now serves as an opera house. It was moved brick-by-brick from its original location. Nearby is a carpenter shop. The walls are covered in old tools and it is quite packed with various machines, tools bits of furniture. It features a lathe from back in the day that was powered by a huge fly-wheel. The tools are assembled from all over the place. They are not one person’s collection.

The place is supposed to feature re-enactors in period dress going about their Old Westy tasks. They have a gun fight daily, but we arrived after that day’s show. The only place we did see people in period dress was at the Victorian house. This was not a fancy Victorian like the Rosson Mansion, this was a more modest home. From the outside it looked basically like your average modern wood frame house, painted yellow. Inside it was decorated with all the trapping you would expect of a place more than 100 years old. The main hallway of the house was very wide with very wide front and back doors. The cross-breeze made the house feel quite comfortable. The re-enactors we saw didn’t even appear to the re-enacting anything. It was just two young ladies making sandwiches on the back porch. They may have also been stoking a fire, but we couldn’t tell. That was the extent to recreation. There is a working blacksmith shop and a working blacksmith as well. He, however, made attempt to be “in character” for the 1880s. His forge was gas powered and stoked by a big air compressor fan. He was working on trinkets for sale in the gift shop. This is not to say that watching someone beat out steel isn’t cool. Maya got a little wizard face key chain he had made.

Walking over to the far end of the place we paced the miner’s shack, the abandoned mine shaft, a narrow cage railway, a stone circle with a label we couldn’t read, the church, the cemetery a burned-out bakery. The bakery may be one of the only buildings this is original to the location, we reach this conclusion only because it was one of the few buildings that did not specifically say it had been moved from elsewhere. It was not in very good shape. Apparently, there used to be a Chinese laundry above the bakery, back in the days when there was a second story. Other than the building itself, most of these places had little to see. They each had a sign telling what you were seeing and a short history of the building it self, but there was little to give a sense of how the buildings were lived in. For a “living history” village, they could have done a better job of bringing the lives of pioneer Arizonians to life. Next to the church was the school teacher’s house and the school. They did a better job of interpreting the past. The one-room school house was originally a residence. When the family got too big (after the coming of their eighth child) they moved on to a bigger place and the old cabin became a school house. It was used until 1920! See? That story makes an old building pop into life! It helps that the school house is the first building to be moved to the site and preserved. Maybe they’ll get around to the other buildings eventually…
Over on the far side of the village, past the rock walled corral and the pair of 1,000 pound man-eating pigs, was an old ranch house. It had the very familiar log cabin look. There were several of these log cabin type homes on the far side. One was the childhood home of Arizona’s first U.S. Senator. Another called the “Flying V” cabin had gun slits cut into the walls because it belonged to someone near Apache land. The Indians are known to have attacked the house in 1882. Coming back around to the front of the village we looked in on the sheriff office/jail/courthouse and the bank. Both of there buildings are not original, but built from period photographs and they are populated by really bad mannequins. There were also some goats and a mule behind the sheriff’s office.
So, all in all, there was a lot of stuff to look at and we spent a few hours there. We weren’t really sure what to expect, but what we found didn’t really meet with expectations. While some stuff was nicely preserved and nicely presented, a lot of stuff was there just because it was old. Lots of mine cars, wagon wheels and old faming equipment were littered about. More than one building was in very bad repair. Also, there wasn’t much that made this collection of buildings unique. Nothing that seemed to say, “This is Arizona, only here could this have happened.” Maybe there isn’t anything like that in Arizona, but there has to be. Maybe we just go to too many museums and nerdy history-related sites, but this one didn’t really impress us.