Amy's Rear View Mirror

Christmas and New Years

December 2002

Phoenix, AZ

Friday Dec 20

I spent the afternoon taking Lady shopping ... PetSmart and Three Dog Bakery. Then relaxed for the evening.

Saturday Dec 21

I spent the afternoon at the dulcimer shop to hear Afan who perform a mixture of traditional folk music from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, North America and Northern Europe. They're a wonderful group with whistles, flutes, mandolins, bodhran, guitars, squeeze box, harp, mando, and pipes. Mom & Dad arrived around supper time. We spent the evening visiting.

Sunday Dec 22

Mom & Dad did some house hunting. They're going to retire here in the Phoenix area. I went to the Pueblo Grande Museum and Archeological Park which is a 1,500 year old Hohokam village ruins in Phoenix. For over 70 years the museum has been dedicated to the study and interpretation of the Hohokam culture. The park is 102 acres including the ruin of an 800 year old platform mound possibly used by the Hohokam for ceremonies or as an administrative center; an excavated ballcourt, where ritualized games may have been played; some of the last remaining intact Hohokam irrigation canals. We all met back at the campground for supper.

Monday Dec 23

I went with Mom & Dad while they completed their house hunting. They picked a house in the new Anthem community ... for those of you that know something about Phoenix, it's on I-17 north of Deer Valley ... one of those huge planned communities with country clubs, golf courses, shopping, playgrounds, etc. Then we had supper at Pappadeaux on our way back home.

Tuesday Dec 24

Mom & Dad went home early this morning. After it got dark, I embarked on my annual Tacky Light Tour ... that's my Christmas tradition, to spend Christmas Eve touring the tackiest decorated houses to be found around town. I had been collecting information from the newspaper for several days and we had our list. It was lots of fun. I saw some of the best with 10's of thousands of lights.

Wednesday Dec 25

I had a wonderful Christmas. First I cooked breakfast and then opened presents. I got a beautiful handmade music stand for my dulcimer (thanks LL for the measurements and photos), a leather bound CD case with Kokopellis on it, a book of an Athabaskan Indian legend, Wallace & Gromit DVD since mine is in storage, and an Alaskan Gazetteer showing me how to get to his house. Once all the torn wrapping paper was cleaned up, I made Christmas Ham for supper. I spent the rest of the day ogling my gifts before going to see the Harry Potter movie.

Thursday Dec 26

I took a day-trip down to Gila Bend where we visited Painted Rock Petroglyphs Park and Robin's Butte Wildlife Viewing area. I packed a picnic lunch which I had at the Petroglyphs park. There's not much there but a campground and a mound of rocks with petroglyphs on them. But the petroglyphs are still so clearly visible on those rocks that I think it's the best place around here to see them.

Friday Dec 27

I took a day-trip to Sedona.

I saw the Chapel of the Holy Cross. The Chapel of the Holy Cross is a modern Catholic chapel. It rises 200 feet from the ground and is set in between two large red rock formations. Marguerite Brunswig Staude, who was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, designed it. The chapel was built in 1956 and uses a ramp for its entrance.

I took a drive up Airport Road which has 2 very good viewing sites of the red rocks. One of the viewing areas is a Sedona vortex site. Then I went to Crescent Moon Recreation Area where I took a walk to see Cathedral Rock from across Oak Creek. I spent a good bit of time here and had a picnic lunch in the park.

I drove up the jeep tour road looking at more red rock formations which eventually leads into the Coconino National Forest (a Pine forest). There were remnants of snow on the jeep road which turned into about 6" of packed snow up in the forest. So I had quite an adventure off-roading on the side of the mountains until I got far enough north to get back on I-17.

On the way back home I stopped at Montezuma Castle. Nestled into a limestone recess high above the flood plain of Beaver Creek in the Verde Valley stands one of the best preserved cliff dwellings in North America. The five story, 20 room cliff dwelling served as a high rise apartment building for prehistoric Sinagua Indians over 600 years ago. Early settlers to the area assumed that the imposing structure was associated with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but the castle was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.

Saturday Dec 28

I went to the Deer Valley Rock Art Center which preserves and provides public access to the Hedgpeth Hills petroglyph site (1500 petroglyphs on the grounds), interprets the cultural expressions there, and is a center for rock art studies. Victor Gonzalez was a wonderful guide with lots of interesting information about the site and the various tribes of the area.

I spent the evening at O'Connors Irish Pub listening to The Clare Voyants, one of the most popular Irish bands in Arizona which plays  traditional Irish folk songs and ballads. They play guitar, mandolin, bodhran and fiddle.

Sunday Dec 29

I took a long day-trip on the Apache Trail. The original "Apache Trail" had its beginnings many centuries ago as an aboriginal highway through the rugged Superstition Mountains. By the late 1800's, the "Tonto Trail", as it was known, became a horse trail for settlers and Indians alike. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation financed the present road so that supplies could be hauled from the Phoenix area to the site of Roosevelt Dam which was begun in 1905. Responsibility was taken over later by the State of Arizona, and it was made a State highway. In 1908, the area through which the roadway passes was established as a Forest Reserve, later to be designated the Tonto National Forest.

I started out with Goldfield Ghost Town which is at the base of the Superstition Mountains. An authentic 1890's ghost town with underground mine tours, narrow gauge railroad (36 inches), horses, wagons, and carriages.

Then I went to the Lost Dutchman State Park where I walked the Treasure Loop Trail for 2.4 miles round trip. The Superstition Mountains are dotted with ancient cliff dwellings and caves, many showing signs of former habitation by a number of different Native American groups, up until the 1800's. Even the name is inspired by Pima Indian legends. During the 1840's, the Peralta family of northern Mexico supposedly developed a rich gold mine in the Superstitions. According to legend, an Apache ambush ended the family's last expedition, and the gold remained in the area. In the 1870's, Jacob Waltz ("the Dutchman") was said to have located the mine through the aid of the Peralta descendant. Waltz and his partner, Jacob Weiser, worked in the mine and allegedly hid one or more caches of gold in the Superstitions. Most stories place the gold in the vicinity of Weaver's Needle. After Waltz's death in 1891, several people attempted to seek out the Lost Dutchman's Mine, all without luck. Later searchers have sometimes met with foul play or even death, contributing to the superstition and legend of these mountains. The legend of the "lost mine" has been fueled by a number of people who were supposed to have known the mine's location or even worked it. Maps have surfaced over the years, only to become lost or misplaced.

I continued up the Apache Trail, a 39 mile long Scenic Byway, winding in and out of the mountains. It's got numerous sharp curves and narrow stretches of road which pass by Canyon Lake, Apache Lake and ends at Roosevelt Lake & Dam. A significant part of the Byway is unpaved forest roads.

Our next stop was Tonto National Monument where I saw the lower cliff dwellings. These well-preserved cliff dwellings were occupied by the Salado culture during the 13th, 14th, and early 15th centuries. The people farmed in the Salt River Valley and supplemented their diet by hunting and gathering native wildlife and plants. The Salado were fine craftsmen, producing some of the most exquisite polychrome pottery and intricately woven textiles to be found in the Southwest.

The day was almost over so I continued the loop around through Globe, Miami, Superior and back to Apache Junction where we started. I'll have to visit those areas on another day.

Monday Dec 30

I went to Cosanti. Paolo Soleri is world famous for his handcrafted windbells.  At Cosanti, you can see how the artisans pour the hot bronze into molds to create the unique bells, each bell is etched by one of the artisans at the foundry, and the same design is never used twice.  You can also see Soleri's architecture.  In 1956, Soleri began is his research and study of non-traditional construction methods.  Cosanti is the place where Soleri developed his ideas and created unique structures he built in the middle of courtyards, terraces and gardens.

This evening I went to the early show of Lord of the Rings.
 

Tuesday Dec 31

I went back to Globe to visit Besh Ba Gowah Archeological Park. It's a 700 year old Salado Culture pueblo, where they climb ladders to second and third story rooms. It's restored with the typical furnishings of the era. Numerous artifacts of this advanced culture are displayed in the Besh-Ba-Gowah Museum. Besh Ba Gowah Pueblo is located where the Pinal Creek and Ice House Canyon Wash meet. Besh-Ba-Gowah has one of the largest single site archaeological collections in the southwest and is one of the most significant finds of Southwest archaeology. It is one of the largest and most complex of the Salado communities. Archaeologists consider Besh-Ba-Gowah a ceremonial, redistribution and food storage complex. Salado Culture is identified as the cultural period from 1150 to 1450 in the Tonto Basin. Besh-Ba-Gowah is an Apache word meaning "Place of Metals," and refers to modern mining activity.

I spent the evening making family phone calls and watching the various New Years Eve shows on TV.

Wednesday Jan 1

Today I relaxed around the campground and watched the Rose Bowl Parade. I cooked a leg of lamb, black-eyed peas and squash casserole for supper ... my traditional New Year's Day meal.

Thursday Jan 2

Fix-it Day! I went to Camping World and bought a few things I needed for the rig. I re-caulked the pipe from the toilet to the black tank. And started the repair for the arm on one of the kitchen chairs.

I spent the evening watching comedies on BBC America.