Road trip: sky island

One-half of my splendid gift from the Sson and family: an overnight road trip to Tucson. I hadn't been in that area (except passing through on the train) since I was a little girl, when I rode down on my Uncle Max' Indian motorcycle.

On the spur of a moment, we decided to take a drive to the top of Mt. Lemmon, which looms 7000 ft. over the desert city; no, I had never been to the top, even though the unc worked for the US Forest Service most of his life.

The desert plants grow lush around Tucson: above, young saguaro and prickly pear; below, a teddy bear cholla and mesquite tree.

A saguaro forest covers the lower elevations of the mountain. The cacti are thinner and possibly younger than those around the Phoenix; not as many arms, either.

The roadside cuts display colorful, banded rocks compressed through the eons. Mt. Lemmon is one of the highest peaks in the Santa Catalina range, part of the great Basin and Range geological province that writer John McPhee describes so eloquently. I was first introduced to the sky island mountain ranges during the years when I flew over the Nevada desert ferrying Mom to and from Victoria every summer.

The road climbs through the desert up into a region of hoodoos and tors.

A stop to admire the scenery. Below, two views of Tucson. The Chinese-style perspective is thanks to ever-present smog and dust.

As we climb up the canyons, frost and snow make an appearance on the north sides of the slopes. The stoplight below was necessary because a slide reduced the highway down to one lane.

All this grandeur just for me thanks to the Sson and DIL. Below, the gorgeous teen Gdotter retrieved her camera from me to take her own pictures.

You wouldn't know it to look at it, but the highway was actually quite busy the day we drove it. Among other things, Mexicans who live near the border often drive up to Tucson for a day in the snow because, though they have the mountains, they don't have any highways to the tops! There were bicyclists aplenty, as well as parades of cars caught behind gawking drivers.

This signs points out one of the problems created by a cool or cold play area within an hour's driving distance from a desert. Apparently in some seasons, it's easiest to get to the top via bus.

The bear warning was a new one for me.

And here we are, near the top, at Summerhaven, which was devastated by a forest fire in the summer of 2003; the houses above are all new. No, we didn't continue on to the ski area, as we had to return to Prescott that day.

Which Cordes has the antiquery?

We had a ladies' outing today, we did. The goal: around the Bradshaws and down the hill on SR 69 to locate an antique shop somewhere in Cordes. Georgene had read about it in the AAA travel magazine recently. She didn't recall which particular Cordes, of which there are three. There's the Junction, the Lakes and the original. And so the four of us (G., plus Patty, a grandchild and myself) started out at the most accessible, Cordes Lakes, which sits cheek by jowl next to Cordes Junction. Just incidentally, do take note of the Black Mountains to the east, barely visible through the smokey haze drifting down from forest fires near Flagstaff.

I was last in Cordes Lakes in the early 90s. Actually, just through it on the way to the confluence of Big Bug Creek and the Agua Fria River, a beautiful riparian spot in the high desert. At that time, Cordes Lakes struck me as a somewhat seedy little post-WW2 settlement with no history for retirees who had just enough money for a single- or double-wide and who wanted to get to "higher, cooler" country than Phoenix. We never saw any "lakes' which were probably some real estate man's short-lived pond or two.

Maybe this was one of the "lakes" -- a reservoir near the creek. My, how the hamlet had changed! The real estate bust caught the area in mid-regeneration, with new streets and a surprising number of new pricier, stick-built houses but also a lot of undeveloped land. Several of the homes were quite elaborate. We speculated that Cordes Lakes had become commuter turf, figuring that the lots were not nearly as costly as developments closer to Phoenix.

It was a strange mix: abandoned houses, neglected but lived-in buildings, modest but tidy properties and the aforementioned nearly-McMansions. Not at all your usual Arizona 2000s from-scratch, boom-town development. Anthem it's definitely not. Now for a few sights we saw...

Somebody in Cordes Lakes has a big distributorship -- bandanas for the motorcycle, ATV and snow board crowd.

And somebody else in Cordes Lakes saw those wonderful metal beasts imported from Mexico and had to have a few: two bulls and three giraffes. Giraffe #3 is a youngster reaching up to munch out on tree leaves, below. (BTW, I am told that the Iron Corral down by Anthem where the big beasties, real and mythological, were sold is no more. Too bad.)

Spotted this Chinese-style frog/toad at one of the more thoroughly landscaped houses, while the two-dimensional saguaro with shades below was at a motel in Cordes Junction.

We actually spent a good amount of time wandering Cordes Lakes, exploring as we looked for the antique shop. But we were in the wrong Cordes. Our goal, it turns out, was in the original Cordes, a place full of history, down on the Old Black Canyon Highway, pop. 11. Coming up next.

Road Trip: Thompson Valley Road

Most people simply call it the Bagdad Road or, sometimes, the Hillside Road because those are about the only possible destinations for most people. Oh, yes, there's also the Santa Maria River, which is where my dotter and I might often be headed. The county calls the stretch from the Kirkland railroad crossing out to Yava and thence to the Hillside take-off the Thompson Valley Road. I like to think of it starting at the tufa gates just beyond Kirkland (above) where the road turns to the west. The mountains seen here in the distance are the Weavers.

A good snapshot of what the road is like. Straight, through high desert range land. It parallels the little canyon of Kirkland Creek, where the Santa Fe tracks are located. Several prosperous ranches front on this perennial waterway, though the former Ruger property has been subdivided into a big development on both sides of the highway. The mountains in the distance are between Yava and the Santa Maria.

Kirkland Peak is a major landmark on your right shortly after leaving the little crossroads hamlet. Unlike most of the area, it is granitic.

Mesas formed from great flood basalts surround the flat terrain of Thompson Valley. A romantic piece of me has wanted terribly to make it to the top of one of these mesas, convinced that there's a strange and wonderful new world on top. My inner realist, of course, knows better. More prickly pear, grasses and cat's claw acacia, most likely.

One year, the dotter and I did the tour of the mine at Bagdad; we asked the company geologist if he could tell us where these basalts originated...where was the great crack in the surface of the world fron which oozed all this lava. His disappointing answer is that, frankly, no one knows.

Long shadows are the clue that this is the return trip, arriving shortly back at the tufa gate to Kirkland.

3 sights on the Bagdad Road

I'd swear that when the LH and I first drove the Bagdad Road, there was an observatory on top of that distant small mountain near Hillside. And I'd swear that I read, probably in the Courier, that it had something to do with World War II, like scanning the skies for Japanese troop transport planes launching an invasion or some such. Today, of course, the facility is presumably up-to-date and all about microwaves and cell phones, serving the ranchers scattered throughout the western Yavapai boonies.

Furthermore, I'd say that they need their cell phones, inasmuch as there are absolutely no landlines stretched across these poles that follow the road between the Santa Maria and the Hillside turnoff. Of course, it might be electricity that is missing. However, the cross pieces should serve the hawks well.

And -- great luck. As dotter and I stopped to photograph the naked poles, who should be watching us but a lone phainopepla. Amazing: that bird just sat there (at almost bird distance) while we tried to steady our hand-held zoom shots. It appears to have worked. We won't see phainopeplas up in Prescott til summer.

More Links: Windy Skies, the Mumbai blogger writes of his city's cabbies and the Islamist attacks. Though he doesn't post often, his writing is thoughtful, sensitive and opens doors to a totally unknown world. In a more light-hearted vein, Ballard Avenue displays chilly flamingos covered with that recent Seattle snow. And one more piece analyzing the problems of Detroit's Big Three by a libertarian, Megan McArdle, who writes a damn good economics blog for The Atlantic. Finally, there's a new internet subject matter aggregator, AllTop by name, with beaucoup interesting links to sites that have been vetted by the founders, their friends or users. If you're like me, you need more interesting links like you need a hole in the head, but then Walking Prescott was listed! I'm very flattered, even though it was under the heading "rural".

On the road to Prescott Valley

And so friend Patty was heading over to the new Sam's Club and invited me along. I'll always jump at the chance for a ride to somewhere new to me; who knows what I might see.

Torn up streets from the SR89/SR69 work, that's what, except that the machines are creeping well into the city, tearing up the east end of Gurley here. (The picture of the Apache Motel is specifically for my friend from Aliso Viejo.)

The new underpass. Note art work; I think that the white is scheduled to disappear.

Of course, everyone is asking about the fate of that wide spot on the north side of SR69, next to the casino entrance. It has a very permanent look, as though the tribe has business plans.

Remnants of one of the old SR69s was quite visible when we stopped at Lowe's. If your eyes are better than mine, you can read the history of the highway below. If not, then hie yourself over to Lowe's and read the sign in person. Take a topo map with you to help visualizing the route. My memory from a '30s childhood in Phoenix is that the parental and grandparental units wouldn't have dreamed of taking the unpaved, rough Black Canyon Highway up to Prescott; the White Spar was paved, after all and besides, it went through the forest.

Two hilltops topped by housing outcrops. A move to zone against hilltop housing was stopped in its tracks once the sponsors realized that under a recent state constitutional amendment such zoning would be considered a "taking" of property [value], costing the city far too much. Ah well. I hope those folks enjoy their view.

Diamond Valley is a small unincorporated subdivision in the hills between Prescott and Prescott Valley; a feature is that many of the streets are named after gemstones. You'll find Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Jade and Emerald, as well as Onyx and Turquoise Drives. But developers wouldn't leave well enough alone -- in addition to these gems, they felt obligated to include the native rhinestone. Huh?

Further along, we spotted that interesting truck to the left above. As we caught up with the vehicle (below), my friend observed, "Oh -- that must be Thing One and Thing Two." I leave you on that Seussian note.