Hello Everyone! It’s hard to believe it’s May, but it definitely is. Even in the middle of the desert, flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing and the days are getting longer and longer. That means it’s almost time for me to go back to work so I can fund these adventures and I’m really looking forward to being back out there guiding tours for a while. That being said, I am hoping to really enjoy these last few days of freedom because guiding is pretty full-on and I know it’s going to be a busy summer. Yesterday was my 5 Year “Vanniversary”, marking five years since I bought Shadow Catcher up in Lansing, Michigan and began this wonderful adventure. We’ve seen good times and bad, but it was definitely the best purchase I’ve ever made and the adventures we’ve had together have been pretty epic. This week has brought us north into central Arizona where I’ve found cooler weather, beautiful landscapes, cute towns and endless miles of hiking trails. It’s really been exactly what I needed and it’s been a pretty great week out here and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
My hotel night last week was very relaxing and refreshing and I felt significantly better when I headed off to the Diamondbacks’ baseball game Wednesday afternoon at Chase Field. I was a little surprised that the cheapest seats in the stadium were $29, higher than most ballparks, but on the other hand I found free parking nearby and they had inexpensive hot dogs and corn dogs, so it all worked out in the end. The stadium was beautiful and stayed pretty cool as long as you found a seat in the shade. It does have a retractable roof which I guess they save for even hotter days (it got up to about 97° while I was there for the afternoon game). I got a kick out of knowing my uncle and cousin were at a Milwaukee Brewers game this week and they had to close their roof because it was snowing. It was not an action packed game, but the Diamondbacks did pull out a win for their hometown fans. They were playing the L.A. Dodgers and there were a LOT of Dodgers fans there as well. After the game I went and enjoyed a cocktail at Bikini’s, a Phoenix Tiki institution which has been slinging Mai Tais since 1947. It was a nice enough place to stop in for an afternoon drink and then I stopped into Tombstone Brewery for an excellent session IPA and found a nice corner to sip my beer and read my book for a while before calling it a night.
Thursday morning I headed over to tour the Arizona State Capitol, or more accurately the State Capitol Museum. Much like Louisiana and Florida, Arizona has a horrendous 1970s era capitol building, but thankfully, also like those other states, they hung onto their original capitol building and opened it as a museum. The museum had a fascinating display of information and artifacts from the USS Arizona which was sunk in Pearl Harbor in 1941. They had a nice tribute to Sandra Day O’Connor who, while born in Texas, served much of her career in Arizona. They had the phone on display on which O’Connor got the call from Ronald Reagan conveying news of her nomination to be our first female Supreme Court Justice. I was impressed by their lengthy exhibit on Arizona’s World War II Japanese internment camps. I also loved the Arizona Model Railroaders’ room which is a work in progress but had trains pulling through several Arizona towns as they wound their way around multiple levels of tracks. There was also some beautiful Arizona art on display and several smaller exhibits and I found the whole place a very worthwhile visit. Outside of the Capitol are several war memorials which were all beautifully done. When I had finished my visit, I took my book and sat under a nice shade tree and read for a while. Then I headed south of downtown to the home of my old college buddy, John Bushko, who I haven’t seen in 25 years. It was wonderful to meet his wife and children and catch up on all that he’s been up to in the interim. We have a lot of overlap in our Penn State friend circles, so it was fun to hear and to share stories about our mutual friends. They made an absolutely delicious dinner to share with me and we sat out by his pool swapping stories into the night. They definitely left me with a different appreciation of Phoenix and another night in a cool bed was welcome and greatly appreciated.
We were all up early on Friday and enjoyed some coffee and breakfast in between John’s early morning meetings (he works with a lot of people on the east coast, so his day workday starts at 6am). I said my goodbyes around 9 as I wanted to get out of town before the day heated up too much. I headed east through Apache Junction and Superior to Globe, an old mining community with a cute historic downtown and a few great ghost signs on the sides of their buildings. Globe’s old courthouse has been converted into a lovely art gallery and they also had a cool old train engine in one of their local parks. I was there for about an hour and then headed up the hill to Tonto National Monument, an old Sinagua Indian ruin in the middle of Tonto National Forest. It was one of the last National Park Sites in Arizona that I hadn’t yet been to, so it was nice to check it off of my list. Two months ago when I was at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, the ranger there had told me that he had a female friend working at Tonto and when I mentioned that conversation to the ranger there, she got a big smile on her face. I enjoyed the short walk up to the small ruins which are set in a lovely overhang and surrounded by saguaro cactus. There were also great views down over Lake Roosevelt, once the biggest manmade lake in the country. Unlike Lake Mead and Lake Powell, Lake Roosevelt was looking full and healthy. I’m not the biggest fan of dams or manmade lakes, but it was actually nice to see after so long in the dry desert. After I wound up my time at Tonto, I was on my way down the road when I spotted a beautiful and colorful foot-long Gila monster lizard making his way across the street. I had just been thinking the day before how much I wanted to see one as I’d never seen one in the wild before and there he was. With a smile on my face, I went down to the lakeside bar for a beer and then found a nice campsite which was also overlooking the lake for a peaceful, quiet night.
Saturday morning I took off relatively early and made my way up to Payson which wasn’t very appealing to me, but did have some stores where I could grab some things I needed. My right rear brake light/turn signal was out, and I was very happy to find that it was just a burnt out bulb and not a major undertaking. From there, I continued on up to the Mogollon Rim which is the edge of the Colorado Plateau. Some of the grades on the road were pretty steep and my temperature gauge was climbing with every mile, but we made it up and over without overheating and dropped down into the lovely little town of Camp Verde. My first stop was Fort Verde, formerly Camp Lincoln, an 1867 era fort built to protect American settlers from raids by the Apache and Yavapai. There are only four of the original buildings left, one housing a small but excellent museum and the other three furnished with period furniture and accompanied by an entertaining tour you can watch on YouTube. I thought the most interesting part was their exhibit on the Indian Scouts, a group of White Mountain Apache I had previously mentioned in this blog who served in the U.S. Army in their campaign against the Chiricahua Apache. I have been thinking about this since my visit to Fort Apache and recalled my time in Alabama where the Southern Creek Indians joined the Army in their fight against the Red Stick Creeks. I also realized it’s not that different from the British loyalists (and their allies) fighting against British-born separatists (and their allies) in the Revolution or Confederates fighting against the Union in the Civil War. It’s all fascinating and tragic and I’m grateful to be constantly learning and shaping my worldview. In the afternoon I headed out to Montezuma’s Castle, a fantastically poorly named Sinagua ruin which has no relation to Montezuma or the Aztecs whatsoever. It is another small but fascinating site and one of the more photogenic ruins I’ve seen. Being in this central Arizona tourism corridor, it’s also one of the more visited ruin sites in the state. I’ve been there before, but wanted to stop in and grab a few photos since I was in the neighborhood and I’m glad I did. I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on some work in Camp Verde. In the evening, I stopped into the Verde Brewing Company for a beer and met a young man named Brian who was from Dallas but is in Arizona for work, a construction job that could potentially keep him here for the duration of his career. He was friendly and interesting and I enjoyed talking with him about travel and politics until closing time and then headed off to the casino for the night.
I started out my Sunday at Tuzigoot National Monument, a hilltop Sinagua Indian ruin site which was excavated and partially rebuilt during the Depression. It is in a nice location overlooking the Verde River which provided water to the people living there for hundreds of years. The docent on top pointed out that people lived at Tuzigoot for longer than the United States has been a country. He was an interesting fellow from Connecticut and we had a nice chat about the area. He had a daughter who went to Catholic University, so he had spent some time in Washington D.C. While we were talking, a lady came up to ask a question and it turned out that she lives less than ten blocks from my mom’s house back at home. It was nice to chat with some people from back east for a few minutes and get a little dose of home. I spent a little bit of time in the park’s museum after seeing the ruins and then headed on down the road to Dead Horse Ranch State Park which sits right along the Verde River. The park had some short but nice hiking trails and I enjoyed walking along the river and visiting some of the manmade lagoons they have built for recreation over the years. There were some nice shaded picnic tables out there and I sat in the shade and enjoyed my lunch.
In the afternoon, I headed up the hill to Jerome, another old mining community which has been taken over by artists, musicians and hippies. The drive up was another steep and hot one, but it was an interesting little place to visit and well worth it. I wandered around for a while taking photos and stopped into the old Capital Hotel for a beer and some Sunday afternoon live music. There was definitely a disproportionate amount of mentions of ghosts in Jerome, probably a good reason not to spend the night up there. I enjoyed views out over the valley and walking the historic streets, but as the day began to fade I made my way back down the hill to Cottonwood. I was very surprised how much of the town closed up early on a Sunday as there were a ton of people wandering around looking for somewhere to eat (myself included). I ended up driving a little ways out of town to a nice little Mexican restaurant for a steaming bowl of menudo and some tacos before heading off to sleep.
Bright and early Monday morning I packed up and headed off to Sedona. I’ve been to Sedona several times, but never with enough time to really stop and appreciate it. Every time I drive through I am reminded of how beautiful it is and I was looking forward to my visit. It’s a really busy place, though, and I’m glad I avoided the weekend crowds. Sedona is surrounded by beautiful red rock formations synonymous with the Colorado Plateau and reminiscent of Zion National Park more than anywhere else. Its reputation as a hiking mecca is well founded as there are hundreds of amazing hiking trails surrounding the town, many accessible to and appropriate for beginner hikers. Sedona has done well to expand with the crowds, building bigger parking lots at the trailheads and even offers a free hiker shuttle to the most popular trails to cut down on the congestion. It was definitely busy during my visit, and it’s coming into their slower shoulder season, but I got early starts every morning and never felt overcrowded anywhere I went.
When I got to Sedona, I headed straight out to hike Long Canyon and visit the Birthing Cave. When I was walking towards the start point I came across three young ladies in a rented campervan who had knocked something off of their undercarriage on the road-to-gravel transition (believe me, I’ve done it). I was happy to be able to help them fix their van and get them on their way. I’ve said it before, but what goes around always comes around and every time I’ve ever needed help in a similar situation, someone is always there to help. Feeling pretty good about myself, I headed on up the trail. It was a wonderful hike, and the Birthing Cave was definitely an interesting view which gets its name because it looks like you are exiting the womb into the world (and I’ll leave it at that). To get a photo that would have shown that better, I would have had to have gotten higher up onto the wall of the cave than I was comfortable with, so I just enjoyed it and took what photos I could.
I finished my hike in the late morning and spent the afternoon lounging around in my van and catching a quick nap. In the afternoon, I headed up to the airport and set off on the Airport Loop trail. This short 5 mile hike turned out to be one of the best hikes I’ve ever done with spectacular views of many of Sedona’s best known geologic features at the best time of day to see them – with the setting sun highlighting the beautiful red rock. It seemed like there was a great photo waiting around every turn and with the mesa blocking the actual sun it was a cool and relaxing hike. I got back to my van right as it was getting too dark to see and enjoyed looking out over the city lights of Sedona from above. I was thrilled to find a Whole Foods in town, which would provide most of my meals during my stay, and then to drift happily off to sleep after an amazing day.
I was up yesterday at the crack of dawn as well, with the intention of also getting in two nice hikes at the edges of the day. I started off headed up Boynton Canyon, another lovely chasm in the red rock desert. As I was pulling into the parking lot, a well-intentioned old codger tried to get me to park in the RV spots. I tried to explain that it would be wasteful as I fit just fine in a regular parking spot and there may be something bigger than me that needed that spot. We ended up chatting for a while and he was a nice old retired fellow who loved the area and liked hiking out and finding old ruins in the wilderness. About two miles into my hike, I detoured off the main trail to find the Subway Cave, another incredibly photogenic Sedona spot and for very good reason. Some of these locations have been made famous on Instagram and everyone wants to see them. I know there are people out there who have been going to these spots for decades and bemoan the crowds that have taken over their spots. I, for one, enjoyed the joy and laughter the people there were getting from having their photo taken in the cave, knowing their friends (and mine) would be jealous of their adventures. Everyone was happy and respectful of one another and we took turns taking photos for each other and chatting away. And the fact that these places have been “discovered” just means there are more places out there waiting to be found. After getting plenty of photos in the Subway myself, I headed on up the canyon and into a lovely, cool pine forest, eventually coming to the end of the trail on a nice plateau overlooking the canyon.
Another Whole Foods lunch and another nap and I headed out to the other side of the valley to hike the Courthouse Loop Trail in the evening. This is another very popular Sedona destination, but it was pretty quiet on a Tuesday afternoon and there weren’t many people out there at all. There were some amazing desert flowers to see and I once again hiked in the shade for most of the time I was on the trail. My morning hike had been pretty long so I was grateful for a shorter hike in the afternoon, but also happy I made the effort to get out there and do it. I had worked up quite an appetite by the time I was done, so I stopped into Mooney’s Irish Pub for some bangers and mash and a couple of cold beers and was tucked soundly into bed at about 9:15.
This morning I was up at 6 again and headed out to the Mescal Trailhead where I set off on a nice four mile roundtrip hike to Devil’s Bridge. The first part of the hike is easy and level, but the last push to the bridge was a decent climb and I was glad I was there early and beat the heat. This was another jovial spot with people laughing and enjoying taking photos for one-another as we all took turns scampering out onto the natural bridge high above the valley below. As I finished my hike, I was sad to put Sedona in my rearview, but it was time to be moving on down the road. I stopped in Cottonwood on the way back through for a much needed shower and then came on back to Camp Verde to finish off this week’s post. It’s sure been a busy week, but also a really good one and one I will definitely remember for a long time.
Tomorrow I am headed off to Prescott for the next couple of days. I hope to get some hiking in out there and enjoy the town and maybe even catch up with a friend I worked with at summer camp way back in 1992 and haven’t seen since. I also need to do some laundry and give Shadow Catcher a major cleaning and start packing for my flight out this weekend. I hope to head out to Wickenburg on Friday and then back to Phoenix some time on Saturday. I will fly out to San Francisco bright and early Sunday morning and be there for a few days while I fill out paperwork and learn the ins and outs of my new company. It’s been a long while since I’ve spent any real time in San Francisco and I’m looking forward to it and to catching up with plenty of old friends in the process. I fly to Honolulu next Thursday for a Friday departure and I’m super excited to be headed back to the Aloha State, even if just for a couple of weeks. It’ll be a busy week full of transitions, but I do hope to start getting some Arizona photos published and I hope to get this newsletter out as scheduled from San Francisco next week. Have a wonderful week out there wherever you are and I hope you’re all enjoying a beautiful spring. Thanks, as always, for reading.
-Mike
Dusk in Sedona