Back to Life

It has been over 4 years since I last posted.  Life has been busy and I got out of the habit.  Time to change that.

I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and it seems like a good time to go back and be reflective.  I found a lump - actually it felt like a 2 inch piece of cord - back in late spring.  Then began a round of doctor visits, mammograms, ultrasounds, biopsies and fear.  The hardest part is having to wait constantly for results or plans.  I am a planner and once I know that something is going to happen I like to get on with it.  But this process is different. You get some info and then wait and worry.  Then you get another bit of info and wait and worry.  I finally had surgery - a lumpectomy and sentinel node removal and now am waiting and worrying again.  A month has gone by... and next week I have another doctor visit, with an oncologist this time.  Hopefully I'll get some answers and schedule the next round of treatment.  Maybe.  We'll see.

In the meantime my parents took me on a road trip to Big Bend National Park.  I have never been there as it isn't on the way to anywhere I tend to travel and it's a day and a half drive from Phoenix.  This is the off season as it usually is pretty hot.  We were lucky and had decent weather and not many other people around.  We stayed up in the Chisos Basin where it was nice and cool - at least compared to the 110-ish temps we've had in Phoenix lately. Saw 2 new species of birds - White-tailed Kite and Chihuahua Ravens.  The trip was 6 days in total and was a very welcome and enjoyable change of pace.

They call these Lubbers.  They're about 3 inches long with bright red underwings.  All over the roads in Big Bend.

 View from our Lodge balcony.  This is called "The Window" and looks out on the valley floor 100's of feet below.

 Walls of the north portion of Chisos Basin.

 Casa Grande in the morning with low foggy clouds.

View of The Window from the valley below.  The mountain in the middle is Casa Grande.

Cactus wren fixing up the winter abode.

Not the day I had expected...

I had originally planned on going to Wupatki Nat'l Monument for a photo expedition.  I love the peace of that place - particularly the Wukoki ruin.  I could just sit and listen to the wind all day.  But it's a 2+ hour drive up, 3-4 hours there and 2+ hour drive back down to the Valley and I had agreed to dogsit for a friend.  Dozer needed to be let out for a bathroom break so I didn't want to be getting home too late.  Instead, I decided to go see Agua Fria Nat'l Monument.  It was established by President Clinton in 1999, is right along the Interstate and had been calling to me.  Bloody Basin Road runs through there and I've always wanted to drive that road.  Volcanic canyons, high plateaus and the Verde River...I just needed to explore.  It should have been an hour or less drive up, 2-3 hours there and an hour back.  Right...

The drive was a bit more than I expected.  I had to go into 4wd (high) at one point to go up a steep hill while bouncing over rocks.  That voice in the back of my head kept telling me that I was toast if I blew a tire in this desolate area.  All by yourself and did the last person use a hydraulic tool to put on the lug nuts?  And when was the last time you checked the air pressure in the spare?  Shut up voice.  My tires are new, I have plenty of water and food, sunscreen, and the Interstate is less than 10 miles away.  I can walk that if I have to. My room mate has instructions to get help if I don't contact her by 7pm.  Shut up voice.  Yeah, I know you're right... someone should be with me but part of the specialness of this place is being alone.  So pipe down!

 

There are lots of ruins in the monument but in order to preserve them only one has been identified on maps.  Pueblo La Plata is on a high, wind-swept plateau overlooking Silver Canyon (whence it's name).  It is on the northwestern edge of the Perry Plateau and is thought to have been the first outpost for anyone traveling up that way.  It had an excellent vantage point as you could see anyone coming for miles.  Water was available in Silver Canyon - a little bit of trek with heavy pots full of water.  The gash in the photo above is Silver Canyon, and expanded to the right.  Supposedly more water ran in the canyon back in A.D. 1250-1450 when these rooms were inhabited.  Still, quite a daily trek for water.  The canyon edge is maybe a quarter mile from the ruins.

 

Time and looters have broken down many of the rooms.  Lower walls are all that are really left.  You can still get a feeling for the large size of the pueblo - 80 to 100 rooms according to the fact sheet at the trailhead.  These rooms would have been chinked with mud and would have had thatched roofs over them.  Plenty of grasses to thatch with in the area.  The wind sighed and whistled through them while I was there.  Lots of wind.  It would be a constant of life on this plateau.  It whispered through the rocks and grass, carrying snippets of sparrow song from birds nowhere near where the sound came from.

 In many ways there was the same peacefulness as at Wukoki that makes me want to sit and just listen to the wind, grasshoppers buzzing their metallic sound and the sparrows chirping just out of view.  I sat and tried to imagine the walls intact, people going about their daily tasks, children playing... where the heck did all these people poop?  No privacy at all.  But maybe there were more bushes and trees back then... or maybe that kind of bodily function wasn't the hidden function that it is now.   Other signs of life were evident.  There were potsherds and flints lying all around.

People have piled them up on rocks.  I cannot describe the feeling as you pick up a piece of pottery that was made 3,000+ years ago.  Some person formed that pot, fired the clay and used it for their daily work.  And here this small piece sits.  3,000 years later. Lots of them, all around.  Also plenty of flints - quartz and obsidian pieces that have been chipped into cutting stones.  I stand and look around me, again, wondering about the daily lives of the people that lived here.  I flinch at the scrabbling sound of a lizard.  My mind is very aware that is prime rattlesnake territory.  But all I see in the sand are the trail drags of the multitudes of whiptail lizards.  This guy picked up all his feet off the warm soil  (yes, male from the color on the throat that you can't see) as he waited for me to take my photo.

Funnel spiders had their webs all over the place up on this plateau.  I have only seen one, maybe two at a time in other locations - but here?  Maybe 15 to a clearing - their gossamer webs shining like opal iridescent dinner plates in the low plants.

 This is what you see of the ruins as you approach.  A low hill which is almost completely comprised of the ruins.  Out around the hill they would have had fields as they grew squash, corn and other plants (amaranth? beans?) according to the fact sheet.  Museum of Northern Arizona and Arizona State University are both doing research in this area.  ASU in particular is looking at types of fields and farming techniques used by prehistoric cultures.  Nice place to do your field work.

So here is where my day digressed...  I decided without a partner to the day that I wouldn't continue down Bloody Basin Road the 20+ unmaintained dirt miles to its ending in Cave Creek.  I wasn't sure of the water level at the Verde River crossing and didn't feel like having to back track that far.  So instead I headed back out the way I came.  Got an alert on my phone that 2 accidents had closed I-17 in both directions.  Great.  Memorial Day weekend and the main North-South route is closed.  There ought to be some tempers in high fettle today!  I decided to take another road off of Bloody Basin that would take me to Cordes Lakes.  I wound my way through the neighborhoods heading back to the Interstate.  Another alert... northbound reopened but southbound (my direction) was closed still due to a fatal accident.  So I ate lunch and decided to explore Dugas Rd. - another exit off the interstate that has always called to me.  It is 7 miles to the settlement of Dugas.  The first 3 are paved... sort of.. and then it's dirt from there on.

The scenery was beautiful and flowers were plentiful.  Wind made it hard to photograph the Prickly Poppies as they were waving all around.  Bees were having to clutch the stamens to keep from being blown off while gathering the nectar.  I was trying for a bee picture - but they kept getting knocked off.  Not a good bee day.

 Dugas was a small settlement - from looking online it appears to be mostly the homes of the Dugas and Teskey families - ranchers.  At one time they boarded the men who were working on the Childs powerline.  There was a school and post office for a short time.  It is a pretty place with a creek running through.  The surrounding area is beautiful with canyons and hills.  I can understand why the families remain there.

As the day progressed the clouds became wonderful - trailing wisps.  My room-mate thought they looked like jellyfish tentacles. 

I finally decided that I would take my chances on the interstate - hoping it had been cleared by now.  No such luck.  I spent 2 hours stuck in a bumper to bumper parking lot - occasionally crawling a few hundred yards.  We eventually got turned around at Sunset Point.   This was the glorious sky I got to look at while I sat (and played Angry Birds).

I drove back up to Camp Verde and took the route over to Strawberry and through Payson.  I need to do some camping up there.  Not this weekend perhaps, but later this summer.  Strawberry and Payson were both holding Arts festivals which made for slow traffic and packed roads.  But I eventually made it home, grabbed my dog and some clothes and got over to the dog-sitting house.  Dozer didn't make it and had taken a potty break in the guest room.  Not the day I had expected....

Snow in the desert? Nah...

Yes, all you non-desert dwellers are looking at this photo and thinking "So?"  This kind of stuff is what makes desert dwellers go crazy.  Literally.  Suddenly, sane drivers become lunatics.  Half the drivers slow down to 15 mph certain that if they apply their brakes they will go into tailspins.  The other half of the drivers speed up to 60 mph frantic to get around the slow ones.  Honestly people.  It's just some hail.

Last Wednesday we had rain showers/thunderstorms on and off all day.  For once I was working from home and could enjoy it all.  At 5 I took off to get a new phone (love my new iPhone!) and while waiting for them to transfer my contacts the big black nasty-looking cloud in the west snuck up and decided to dump its load.  First a huge boom of thunder and then heavy rain began drumming down.  A lady ran into the store and shouted "It's snowing!" and ran back outside.  It wasn't snowing, not even hailing, perhaps a small amount of sleet.  But 30 seconds later it began to hail - pea-sized stuff.  And it was REALLY hailing.  Withing 2 minutes about an inch of hail had fallen and the parking lot indeed looked like it had snowed.  People were running all over.  The store came to a halt as everyone came to look.  I reached for my phone to take a picture... oh yeah.  They have both of my phones.  Rats.  So this picture was taken about 20 minutes later when the hail had started to melt from the warm engine.

Next morning I still had a bunch of ice on the car.  About a foot square chunk on the hood that hadn't melted.  And after I stopped at the first streetlight I discovered that I had a large sheet up on the roof.  It broke into a few pieces and one came sliding off as I took off.  It slid off onto the hood of the idiot that had pulled up within 2 inches of my bumper.  I'd like to think it taught him a lesson, but I'm sure he won't stop pulling up so close.

We desert-dwellers don't get a huge amount of wild weather so we always freak out/enjoy what little we get.  Today it is very windy - 30 mph.  It feels cold though it is in the 50's.  My wind chimes are dinging out a regular song on the front porch.  Trees in the back are flapping and swaying.  My eyes are itching like crazy - allergies have begun to torment me this year.  Some new pollen or industrial pollutant.  But hey - it's weather!  I'm off to enjoy.

Changelings...

I have been watching quite a few movies lately since the TV shows have been so abominable.  I have been amazed by a couple of actors that happened to be in several movies lately - the parts they have played are extremely different.  The talent necessary to conform to such different parts is exceptional.  Guy Pearce is the first on my list.  On New Year's Day we watched the movie "Lawless" in which he plays an evil government anti-bootlegger.  Slicked back hair, straight-faced, and causes chills when he looks your way.  2 nights later we watched LA Confidential in which he plays an up and coming police detective.  Straight-laced (instead of faced), squeaky clean (instead of greased back) and near sighted.  Very different.  Today we happened upon one of my all time favorite movies - Adventures of Priscilla - Queen of the Desert.  I suddenly realized that he was one of the actors.  So now he plays a not-straight, superbly made-up, happy drag queen.  He plays this part equally well.  Talk about a chameleon.  I checked IMDB( IMDB-Guy Pearce) and found out he's also been in some other good movies that I've watched, like "The King's Speech" and "The Count of Monte Cristo".  He's got 5 movies coming out in the next 2 years.  Someone to definitely watch.

My daughter was watching Priscilla with me today and suddenly gasped - "Mom!  That's Elrond from Lord of the Rings!"  Yes, Hugo Weaving is in Priscilla and in all the Hobbit movies.  IMDB - Hugo Weaving  He is in a myriad of other movies - including one of my daughter's favorites "V is for Vendetta".  Another chameleon.  And I so love his eyebrows.

Tom Brady is another from Lawless that keeps popping up.  Something about him is very appealing - even when being evil/bad.

However, tonight shall be a Downton Abbey night.  It starts the new season tonight and is very addictive.  I think this may be a rerun from last season unfortunately - the last episode in which Shirley MacLaine makes her appearance as the American MIL.  Still, glad it's back onto my Sunday evening schedule.

Winner of the Chili Cookoff

Yes, I know... I repeated the same picture but it's the only one I had.  This shows the first step, before the meat gets added.  The recipe came from Stephanie Anderson's "Killer Chili" and is originally from Cesare Casella's Maremma restaurant in Manhattan.  I think the Garam Masala and chocolate are the key ingredients.  You can't place them in the final outcome, but they give the unique flavor.  Don't let the long list of ingredients daunt you.  It's not a difficult recipe.  I changed up the wording of the directions a little for brevity purposes.

Cesare Casella's Tuscan Chili

1 red onion, quartered
1 small carrot, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 oz pancetta, chopped
8 strips bacon
3 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs beef chuck or skirt steak (I used a flank steak)
1 tbsp garam masala
1 16 oz can tomato puree
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 1/2 tbsp chili powder
1 small potato, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
2 cups water
1 cup brewed dark-roast coffee
5 cups beef broth (I ended up using 4 cups)
2 cups canned red or kidney beans
3/4 oz unsweetened chocolate (I used 1/2 oz)
freshly grated Parmesan cheese for garnish
1 small white onion, coarsely chopped for garnish
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and coarsely chopped for garnish

Cook the bacon.  (Cesare does it in the oven - I did it in a pan because the oven was in use). 

In a food processor, chop the onion, carrot, jalapeno, rosemary, sage, celery, garlic and pancetta.  In a large, heavy pan combine the olive oil and chopped vegetable mixture and cook over medium-high heat for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, season the meat with the salt, pepper and garam masala.  Add to the vegetables in the pan and cook for 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the tomato puree, cumin, fennel seed, chili powder, potato and water.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add the coffee and 2 cups of beef broth and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally (Cesare says constantly... ).  Add the beans and 1 more cup of broth and simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the remaining broth and simmer 15 minutes more.  Grate in the chocolate and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Serve the chili garnished with Parmesan, crumbled bacon, onion and avocado.  Serves 6