Category Archives: Arizona

Desert Reptiles and Other Critters

11 Saturday Apr 2009

Posted by in Animals in the U.S., Arizona, Desert, Hiking in Arizona, Photographs, Uncategorized

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They say there are rattlesnakes in Arizona.  HB can tell you I’ve gone out of my way to find one, but have been unsuccessful so far.  It’s one thing to see a snake in a nature center or zoo, but I think it would be quite thrilling to see one in its natural habitat; my friends here think I’m nuts.  HB and I did see a gorgeous gila monster on one of our hikes.  He was about  15 inches long and, HB tells me, very healthy, his chubby tail being the measure of his well-being. Gila monsters are venomous, and while they are sluggish, if you were to step on one by myself he would probably bite you.  And he wouldn’t let go.  You would have to get yourself to the hospital quickly, with the animal still attached.  That story would not have a very good end for either of you, especially the gila monster.

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There are several varieties of small lizard resident in this desert.  This one was sent over by central casting – he posed fearlessly as I stalked him with my camera.

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One of the best things I’ve come upon in the desert was this egg.  It’s about 2 inches long, and I have no idea whose it is.  I was stalking another, larger lizard when I found it.  Maybe it’s full of hundreds of wee snakes; or maybe a lizard will pop out one day soon.

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We have seen javelinas (Arizona’s answer to cinghiale, though of a different family) and deer, but only on golf courses, which somehow doesn’t seem to count.  We’ve also seen countless rabbits on the fairways; golfing bunnies are very bold, much more so than their cousins who are still living in the desert, like this fellow:

find-the-bunny-1 It’s hard even to find him, isn’t it?

I’ve mentioned the birds and bees in an earlier post, but now that there are so many flowers in bloom there are also a great many butterflies.  Have you ever tried to take a picture of one?  They are fast!  No sooner do you get your camera turned on than they zip off to a distant flower.

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A beautiful swallow-tail visited our citrus tree at home the other day, alit briefly on a glossy green leaf and then raced off.  It’s hard to know how something that looks so frail and delicate (and in fact is frail and delicate) can move so fast (between 5 and 30mph, according to The Children’s Butterfly Site.

The desert sometimes seems dry and lifeless, but there’s a lot happening out there, and it’s really fun to go hiking and look for the action.  Just be careful not to step on a snake or a big lizard!

Desert in Bloom

06 Monday Apr 2009

Posted by in Arizona, Flowers, Hiking in Arizona, Photographs, Uncategorized

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Watching the desert bloom is like reading a long book.  There’s a plot, but the action unfolds really slowly.  Desert plants are tenacious; they have to be to survive the extremes this climate throws at them.  And the flowers they produce seem to be pretty tough too.  They may look delicate, but they hang on, day after day, in temperatures that seem high to this sissy.

The story begins with the lupines, which are strong enough to break through the road pavement and flower on the highway’s verge.last-lupine

This was one of the last, but they bloomed in an understated carpet along Route 60 for most of February.  The cheerful yellow California poppies bloom in broad swaths at about the same time.

Chapter two is the ubiquitous brittle bush which has tons of small yellow flowers.  The creosote plant, which smells like its name when the air is humid, also puts out a small yellow flower.  It makes a very amusing seed that looks like something an elf might use for a powder puff.

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Chapters three through ten are all the small little plants that bloom on the desert floor.  They are so small that it would be easy to miss them unless, like me, you are sure you’re going to trip and fall, so you always are looking down.

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The climax has to be the flowering of the various cacti.  The desert here boasts several varieties of cholla (pronounced choy-yah), hedgehog, pincushions, barrels, prickly pear, teddy bears, ocatillo, the enormous suguaro and others I don’t know or have forgotten.  A month ago the cacti had big fat buds, and waiting for them to open has been an exercise in patience.

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Finally they have started and it has been worth the wait. The hedgehogs are the early show-offs.

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There is a world of action in that flower.  Just before I took the photo a bee buried itself completely in the stamen, wiggled around for a few seconds, and then took off.  I think it was drunk. Meanwhile the little black and red beetle seems to be napping.  The white spider didn’t like the camera and scuttled away right after this shot.

It’s almost impossible to take a bad picture of these flowers; they make the most considerate subjects.  If you would like to see some more pictures of the desert in bloom, click here, or over on the right under Photographs (choose the slide show option).

The desert in bloom is not as wildly showy as, say, an English cottage garden at its peak.  And it’s different in another really important way.  Almost every plant in the desert will happily impale you with something sharp and unpleasant.  The dastardly cholla, whose segments stick like glue and work their way through hiking boots and jeans, the fishhook barrels with their barbed spikes, and all the others too, seem to be carrying some kind of huge grudge.  Even the century plant (agave), familiar to us in Italy, is a stinker.

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I foolishly wandered over to stroke its smooth asparagus-like stalk, and one of the spines which reside at the end of each leaf went right into my leg.

No matter where you go in the desert, and no matter how lovely the flowers are, you are always going to find yourself between a rock and a sharp place.

Expatriate in a noisy place

24 Tuesday Mar 2009

Posted by in Arizona, Hiking in Arizona, Uncategorized

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The desert is a place of quiet cacophony in the spring.  I stopped on the Lost Dutchman Trail the other day to listen, and this is what I heard.

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First ~ the bird song.  The birds (and the bees) are doing what they’re meant to do at this time of year, and they’re being none too quiet about it.  The cactus wren perched on the saguaro above has a hideous call for such a sweet bird.  It’s a grating electronic trill/buzz, as if the bird had had a laryngectomy and needs to use an electrolarynx.  Not pretty.  But judging from the dancing in the photo above, it is effective. Other bird songs I heard included a high trill, a pee-weep, a medium trill,  a chip-chip, and a whistle. The gila woodpecker thinks it’s all hilarious, and has a call that sounds like a chiding laugh. Every now and then a Gambel’s Quail took flight to the sound of beating wings.

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The insect world provided the basso continuo for all the bird chatter. With flowers just beginning to open and the temperature rising, the flies, bees and wasps are out in great numbers. The bee above is hard at work in a desert mallow. He buzzed off with yellow pantaloons shortly after this photo was taken.  The bees who aren’t working flowers at the moment make a lot more noise as they commute to their next job, a sort of en-yeow zooming sound, like a teeny race car going by on an oval track.  The flies content themselves with a higher-pitched steady whine; they are irritating as they like to land on people, probably only minutes after having landed on some animal’s poop.  Bah.

It was very breezy, and that added to the concert.  The palo verde  and mesquite trees are leafy, and the wind makes a lovely whispering sigh as it passes through them.

The last sounds are the chatter of other hikers.  It was spring break week, and there were lots of young people out, probably thinking about the birds and bees, though in a slightly different way than I was.  I overheard conversations on the economy (the end of capitalism as we know it!), weight loss (drink lots of water before eating!), and cookery (tomatoes!).  We courted a little differently in my day, but, as the cactus wren proves (in the words of the old Stones song), it’s the singer, not the song…

Near and South of The Border, part one

16 Monday Mar 2009

Posted by in Arizona, Travel, Uncategorized

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In the last post I said we were going to California… and we did, and it was fantastic.  But before I give you the expatriate view on that alternate reality I want to tell you about a quick trip we made a couple of weeks ago:

Expatriate in the Indian Nation

long-straight-road“Desolate” is a word that popped into our heads more than once on the four-hour drive from home to Yuma, in the very southwest corner of Arizona. (View Map).
Even the names of some of the areas we passed through sound lonely: Gila Bend, Sentinel, Aztec, the Sand Tank Mountains, the Growler Mountains, the Granite Mountains.  It wasn’t until we got to the town of Dateland that things sounded a little more convivial. Most of the ‘towns’ depicted on the map looked just like the vacant countryside around them. It is hard to imagine, and impossible to capture with a camera, the miles and miles of empty, dry space in the American southwest.

Our three-day adventure included three nations: the U.S., Mexico, and the Cocopah Nation, where we stayed in the hotel/casino. We’re not wild gamblers (well, I easily could be, given the opportunity and the necessary funds; the Captain?  No.).  We chose to stay at the Casino because it was new and clean and, most importantly, just a couple of miles from the home of our friends who had included us in their family reunion.  The pluses of our hotel included a very nice pool and large rooms.  The only negative was the pervasive smell of other people’s cigarettes which emanated from the nearby casino.

As casinos go, Cocopah is not large, but for that very reason it is not intimidating, and the staff were all extremely pleasant.  The air, thick with smoke, sang with the cheerful electronic songs of the slot machines.  I wanted to take some photos, but quickly learned (!) that photography inside a casino is NOT allowed.

When we checked in to the hotel we were given a welcome packet which included a bonus of $5.00 cash if we ‘cashed out’ of the casino with more than $15.00.  So while the Captain sensibly sat by the pool and read a good book I took a $20 bill and put it in a slot machine, played four times at .25 each, and then ‘cashed out’ with $19, which, with the $5 bonus, gave me $24, a 20% profit.casino_style_video_poker-628681

Smart people would leave at this point, but not me.  I took my free money back to the casino and played video poker for about half an hour, winning and losing.  I prefer blackjack – it seems to me one has a better chance of winning, though I certainly don’t know.  However, the only blackjack tables with empty seats cost $10 a hand, which is more than I want to gamble on three cards.  Anyway, the video poker was highly entertaining, and after my play I had lost only $1.25, leaving me an aggregate profit of $2.75, enough to buy… not very much.

Staying at the Cocopah Casino in the Cocopah Nation didn’t really feel like being in a different country.  The place was full of non-native Americans who were tossing away their money just as fast as they could.  It seems a rather nice revenge after all the Indian Nations have suffered in the last three hundred years. In any event, we spent most of our visit with our friends, with whom great conversation and fabulous food is always a sure bet.

Apache Trail in the Snow

21 Saturday Feb 2009

Posted by in Arizona, Driving in the U.S., Photographs, Travel, Uncategorized

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(Map courtesy of http://www.americansouthwest.net/arizona)

Last week it snowed here in Arizona.  No, not down here in the ‘Valley of the Sun,’ but in the Superstition Mountains and the peaks of the Tonto National Park.  The radio instructed us not to drive north for several days as many roads were impassable.  Exciting!

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We waited, as instructed, and then set out on the Apache Trail. What is it and how did it get that name? Briefly, according to Tom Kollenborn’s article on the Trail, the general path of the trail was used back in 900 AD by the Salado Indians.  Later the Apache Indians used it in raids against the peaceful Pima Indians who lived in the valley.

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Theodore Roosevelt Dam at the top of the trail was built from 1905-1911, and there was a need to connect the dam site at Roosevelt with the Valley towns of Mesa and Apache Junction.  The road was built from 1903-1905, but access was restricted until completion of the dam.  Ironically, the laborers for the road-building project were also Apache Indians.  Today the Apache Trail, also known as Arizona Route 88, is one of the loveliest roads in the state, but it is narrow and rugged. One end is in Apache Junction, and the other in Globe.

My pal Mary Ann and I set out at about 9 a.m., and got home sometime after 5 p.m., having covered only 150 miles.  We stopped briefly in Tortilla Flat, which is completely touristic and hilarious. (Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat was in California.) It is full of visitors who have enjoyed the scenic ride past Canyon Lake; not many venture farther, especially when the road is under water. (!) Here’s a photo of the dollar-bill papered dining room of the small restaurant there.

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We especially wanted to visit Tonto National Monument on the other side of Roosevelt Dam, but didn’t get there until 2 p.m., and we were starving, having not seen a building since leaving Tortilla Flat.  Did I mention it’s a really isolated part of the world?  So we took a quick peek at the ancient cliff dwelling visible from the Visitors’ Center and motored on in search of a sandwich.

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After The Best Pre-Packaged Sandwich I Ever Ate we continued on to Globe where we visited the Besh-ba-Gowah ruins.  They are the remnants of a Salado settlement, dating from about 1200 AD. They have been well reconstructed, and one is able to walk through the settlement and imagine what it might have been like to live there 700 years ago. The visitor’s center is extremely interesting and there’s an excellent video and a museum stuffed with archaeological finds from the site.  Here’s a model of the ruins:

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Evidently they liked ladders.  The dark hole labled ‘central corridor’ was a long, dark hall that gave access to the areas within.  The ‘tree’ seems all out of proportion to me – it must have been huge.

It was a breath-takingly beautiful drive, especially the old road from Apache Junction to Roosevelt Dam.  If you’d like to see more photos, click here, or over on the right under Photographs – Apache Trail in the Snow. As always, I recommend the slide show. You will see there a rare shot that captures both the male AND female jackalope.

Cats and the Metro

06 Friday Feb 2009

Posted by in Arizona, Cats, Photographs, Travel, Uncategorized

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But cats don’t like to ride on the metro, I hear you say. True. But no sooner did I grouse about the lack of good public transportation in the US than lo and behold! The Phoenix Light Rail system opened.  This is more like it!  The Metro offers a very inexpensive and convenient way to travel around metropolitan Phoenix, including outlying Tempe (home of Arizona State University) and a bit of Mesa.

The grand opening was on December 27-28, 2009.  As luck would have it the Captain and I were attending a cat show (I know.  But we like cats.), and we stumbled serendipitously into the gigantic street fair celebrating the opening just outside the Phoenix Convention Center.  As it turned out, there were festivities of one sort or another at almost all the major stops along the 20-miles of Metro.

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It took twelve years to build the system, and it was gravely inconvenient for many businesses and residents during construction.  But now, everyone seems well pleased. The Metro web site gives all the information you could need to take advantage of this service.  The fares are ridiculously low – $2.50 will buy you an all-day pass, which includes some amount of bus transfer.  If you’re over 65 your day-pass costs only $1.25.  There are Park and Ride lots at many stations which offer free parking during the Metro’s hours of operation.

In addition, some fun blogs have sprung up around Light Rail: RailLife.com, Blogs about Phoenix Lightrail, and my favorite, found by the now-famous Mrs. Harris (bread, pumpkin ice cream), PHX Rail Food, which is a great guide for places to eat within easy walking distance of each Metro stop. You Are Here gives an urban stroller’s guide to metro Phoenix, with guides to culture, shopping, sports, events, dining and nightlife all along the Route.

Speaking of Mrs. Harris, she had the brilliant idea that we should take a day and ride the Metro from one end (Sycamore and Main in Mesa) to the other (Montebello and 19th Ave. in Phoenix).  So that is exactly what we did a while ago, and it was loads of fun.  We met a lot of people, all of whom were pleasant and chatty.  We stopped in Tempe for a walk-around and ended up giving our opinion on speed radar on the freeways for a PBS show (our 15 seconds of fame). Then we took a mid-day break and visited the Phoenix Art Museum where, in addition to walking through several exhibits, we ate a delightful lunch.

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We rode to the end of the line, then jogged to the other track and rode straight back to where we began.

If you’re interested in some photographs of both the cat show and the festivities outside the Convention Center at the Metro’s opening, click here, or over on the right under Photographs (Cat Show and Rail Opening)(You’ll see that I was fascinated by the break dancing.).

If you’re interested in some of the sights along the Metro, click here, or over on the right under Photographs (Riding the Light Rail).  These photographs are in three sections: sights along the rail ride, people we met, and some of the art at the Metro stops (each stop has at least one piece of art incorporated in its design).

And if you need to get your cat somewhere, you can probably take her on the Light Rail, but she’ll have to be in a cat-carrier.  She might even enjoy the journey! We did.

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cat show and rail opening pics

Freeway Shock and Highway Art

27 Tuesday Jan 2009

Posted by in Arizona, Driving in the U.S., Uncategorized

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At the risk of stating the obvious, there is much, much, MUCH more open space here in Arizona than there is in our beloved Liguria, or in Italy as a whole, for that matter.  One of the luxuries all this space provides is the continued ability of the State to build huge new highways.  We are as great fans of the Italian Autostrada system as anyone else (and especially fans of the highway rest stops, the Autogrills particularly – yum!).  But if you find an autostrada with more than four lanes in one direction you have found a rarity.  Two lanes in each direction, sometimes with no emergency lane, are common in Italy (as they were on the dreadful old Pennsylvania Turnpike near Philly).

The Loop 202 was recently completed around Phoenix, making it a much shorter trip to get from our part of the Valley to Phoenix or to Sky Harbor Airport on the east side of the city.  For whatever reason extra care was taken to make the bridge abutments and the gravel banks on the sides of the highway beautiful.  The themes are, unsurprisingly, southwestern, and are all different.  It makes the drive much more interesting and fun, as do the lovely shrubs and trees that have been planted on some of the banks.

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But for all the space given to the new road, it is still choked with rush-hour traffic before 9 a.m. and between 3 and 7 p.m.  It’s hard to imagine where all the traffic went before this road was opened.  Driving around Phoenix at rush hour is about like trying to drive around Venice at any time.

And no matter what you may have heard about driving and drivers in Italy, both are a whole lot worse here.  The captain opines that the most dangerous instrument in the world is a woman in an SUV talking on her cell phone.  While I don’t necessarily agree with him (harumph!), I do think that drivers here exhibit an aggressiveness and a carelessness that is, well, not Italian.

Good or bad, the drivers here have a beautiful new highway. If you’d like to see some more photographs of the Loop’s bridge art, click on ‘bridge art’ under photographs over on the right, or click right here.  As usual, a slide show is recommended.

Not So Wild West

05 Friday Dec 2008

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The other day I betook myself up a canyon to look at some petroglyphs left by Native American Indians about a thousand years ago (about which more in another post one day).  On the trail I was overtaken by three riders, one walker and a dog who were among the many people making the same hike that day.img_7255a-1

Later I was able to have a nice chat with this gentleman, who is wearing the traditional desert-riding attire: heavy leather chaps to protect him from a brush with a cactus.  His mount is a mule.  The mule, for those who have forgotten their biology, is a cross between a female horse and a male, or ‘jack,’ donkey. They are hybrids and cannot breed one with another.

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The three mules, Cocoa Muffin, Rusty and IRS (born on April 15) were each about 15-17 years old and still kids at heart.  Unlike horses, who reach their prime at 3-5 years, and frequently die in their 20’s, mules reach their prime at about 20, and live to be 40-50 years old. While they look more petite than horses, they are actually the size of an average horse, between 16 and 17 hands high (a ‘hand’ is 4 inches, and horses are measured from the ground to the withers – shoulders to you and me). Which means that they seem very large indeed.

My new acquaintance, who is a mounted volunteer ranger, told me that mules are much more intelligent and sure-footed than horses.  That is why they are the preferred means of transport up and down the Grand Canyon.  All three of these mules have made that journey, as well as having explored a lot of the Superstition Wilderness here.

They were friendly critters – I think.  At least they let me pat them, and Rusty ate the treat Ranger gave me to give him.  All mules are determined.  Ranger said they could be hard to train for that reason – they are smart, cautious and careful, and won’t do something stupid just because a human tells them to.  The word ‘stubborn’ came up, but Ranger prefers ‘intelligent,’ and he should know.

And what does a Ranger do when he’s not out riding his mules?  He installs high-tension power lines wherever they’re needed, these days in Canada, using helicopters and ships to get the equipment where it’s required.

It was certainly an American West experience, a meeting with independent, strong, and smart beasts and man. I know many ‘spaghetti westerns‘ were filmed with Italians in the cast, but were (or are) there actual Italian cowboys?  I’ve not seen them… yet.