A view to the east from Talking Stick Resort, overlooking the golf course and the McDowell Mountains

A lazy, 30-minute drive from downtown Phoenix, in any direction, will lead you to a pool, a casino or championship-caliber golf course. Along the way, you might encounter classy restaurants, printers, barbershops and health spas. But suppose these were in one location? Not even malls have that.

On Indian Bend Road, just past the 101, the buildings of Scottsdale disappear and the desert landscape opens up. Here at the edge of the Salt River-Pima Indian community stands Talking Stick Resort, offering much more than hotel rooms and a swimming pool.

As I walked into the building, I was greeted by a wall of slot machines and blackjack tables. Unoccupied dealers flashed warm, inviting smiles as I passed down the center walkway taking in the noise and revelry. I was headed for my hotel room.

A walk past the casino floor took me through to the hotel. I flashed my key card at a casual security checkpoint and dashed into an elevator. As I walked through the hall to my room, I started noticing the décor. There’s a definite motif of light cherry wood, and the carpet is stylized in long ridges reminiscent of wood grain or sandstone. Everywhere in the resort are vintage photographs of local Indian tribesmen. It’s impossible to resist the urge to stop and stare back at those faces frozen in time.

In my room, I pushed all the buttons and turned all the knobs the moment I arrived. A large high-definition, flat-screen television could keep me here all day, if it weren’t for the limited channel options, surely designed to keep visitors downstairs in the casino. The room comes with a wall safe for squirreling away the piles of dough won at keno. I sprawled out on the soft blankets of my bed and decided my next plan of action.

Designed to operate with some level of self-sufficiency, the resort is a virtual desert oasis. The golf course sprawls out over several acres. There are no less than five restaurants. Slip into the opulent Shadows bar to sip a martini and puff on a cigar with so rich a finish, it spices the air around you. Go to the showroom and dance the night away or take in a live band. (Next month, I just may wander back for John Mayall and Buddy Guy.)

I finally left my hotel room to explore and found much more. Below the casino level is a barber shop, a coffee shop, and a business center complete with computers that can be switched between Mac and PC to suit one’s tastes. A short walk from there finds jovial guests enjoying a swim at the resort’s large pool. As I walked by, families and sunbathers enjoyed a cover band with the talent to play just about any request. One inebriated lady expressed herself through ballet and handstands to their rendition of a reggae song.

The Orange Sky Lounge waits for the sun to set and the crowds to arrive.

But one of the resort’s gems is further out, beyond the main resort.

With the McDowell Mountains as a backdrop, renowned golf architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed not just one, but two courses for the Talking Stick Golf Club, the North and South courses. The landscaping was intentionally blended into the desert. Stroll the lush wide fairways, and the course seamlessly fades into its natural surroundings – no house windows to break, and a lot of desert to lose your ball in. More than a few golfers fawn over the beauty of the South course.

Back at the main resort, I sat down for a beer and some tasty Cajun seafood pan roast at the Ocean Trail bar. My bartender Jaime was friendly yet professional, without being intrusive. The gumbo tasted like glorified tomato bisque, but it was good and spicy. I had tried to get into the top-floor restaurant, Orange Sky Lounge, but they didn’t open till 10 p.m., and I hadn’t shown up with the right dress code: a collar. I was too hungry to wait so long. Though, I know I missed a glorious sunset up there.

There are several touches to Talking Stick that the casual guest might never see. The resort has created their extravagance with a touch of green consciousness. The first thing you may notice is every trashcan has two compartments to separate garbage from recyclables. But other efforts are beneath the surface. The building was built using close to 90-percent recycled steel. Much of the materials used are nonhazardous and environmentally friendly, from cups and nontoxic fabrics to cork floors and glass used in structural décor instead of plastic. The restaurants serve locally grown food as much as possible, and the appliances are largely energy-efficient models. Runoff rainwater is stored and used by sprinklers.

Besides the usual amenities, Talking Stick makes it almost unnecessary to leave the premises. Guests can benefit from 24-hour, in-room dining; 10 different lounges; a 24-hour fitness center; a salon and a barbershop (shoeshine, too); a florist, and dry cleaning and valet laundry services. The place is practically self-contained.

Self-contained communities are dangerous, though. The idea that you don’t want for anything in a place like Talking Stick Resort means you’ll have to tear yourself away when it’s time to go. I fell asleep gazing at that high-definition flat screen in my suite, and wondered if they’d notice should I overstay my visit.

Talking Stick Resort:
9800 East Indian Bend Road
Scottsdale, Arizona 85256
(480) 270-5555
www.talkingstickresort.com

Kiva ladders atop Acoma Pueblo at the Sky City Cultural Center. Photos courtesy of acoma business enterprises.

Under a turquoise-blue sky and balmy temperatures, visitors begin jockeying for the best vantage point, preferably in the shade. There is a sense of anticipation in the air. Anytime now, the harvest dance will begin atop the 376-foot mesa, the perch of Pueblo de Acoma, or “Sky City.”

A hush falls over the dusty divide between rows of adobe houses. The sound of a rattle can be heard coming up the street, then the steady beat of a drum. A small cloud of dust kicks up as one of the smallest members of the tribe, a little girl maybe 2 or 3 years old, comes into view. She shakes a gourd rattle with one hand and clings to her father’s leg with the other. Like the other harvest dancers in full traditional costume, the young girl is not fazed by curious visitors oohing and aahing.

The open compound is now filled with dancers, every generation represented. With graceful precision, they dance to the rhythm of the drum. Each dancer carries a freshly cut pine branch; a fox pelt hangs off the back of every costume. No one in the crowd makes a sound. Reverence is a given on this most sacred of days.

San Esteban Feast Day

Each year on September 2, the Pueblo of Acoma tribe celebrates San Esteban Feast Day, in honor of its patron saint, starting with mass at the San Esteban del Rey Mission, built in 1629 under the direction of Friar Juan Ramirez. The mission has been undergoing restoration since 2008.

San Esteban del Rey Mission is designated a Save America’s Treasures site and one of 100 endangered sites by the World Monuments Fund. It is also the 28th – and first Native American site – in the United States to be named a National Trust for Historic Preservation site.

View of the Enchanted Mesa from Acoma Pueblo

The highlight of the mass is the procession with the figure of San Esteban leading the way, followed by the pageantry and color of the harvest dance. The figure is taken to a small, covered hut where war chiefs and clan leaders of the tribe sit as people bring gifts of fresh fruit, water, bread and sweets and pay homage to the regaled saint.

Feast Day brings out vendors who line the dirt streets, selling everything from ornate Native American jewelry and fry bread dripping with honey to the new taste sensation among the children, sunflower seeds soaked in grape Kool-Aid, one dollar a bag.

Iconic Acoma pottery architectural feature.

After the harvest dance, families open their homes and kitchens to whoever drops by. Since there is no electricity or running water atop the pueblo, water is brought in and propane fuels the stoves.

Visitors are treated to fresh-baked bread, red chile posole, fresh fruit, and green chile stew with potatoes and corn, a local favorite.

Sky City is sacred ground to the Pueblo of Acoma people. No cameras or recording devices are allowed during Feast Day.

Although visitors are welcome most days of the year to explore the history and beauty of Acoma, the true significance of Sky City can be better sensed and better appreciated during the celebration of Feast Day.

View of the front entrance of the Sky City Cultural Center

Acoma is about an hour drive from Albuquerque via I-40. Accommodations are available at the Sky City Casino Hotel. At the Huwaka Restaurant, guests can order off the menu or enjoy the buffet, which includes such New Mexico dishes such as – you guessed it – green chile and red chile posole.

Many other attractions in the area can be explored, including the Sand Stone Bluffs and Ventana Arches at El Mapais, about 30 miles from Sky City, and Chaco Canyon, a two-hour drive from the ancient pueblo, the oldest, continuously inhabited community in North America.

With museums struggling through the economy to stay open, I thought I’d do my part and drive up to Flagstaff to visit a few and put some money in their coffers. We rarely visit them, but we’ll notice when they’re gone.

I wanted to start with the Fort Tuthill Museum. This is a gem for you Latino history buffs. It’s where Arizona’s largely Hispanic 158th Battalion was stationed from 1865 to 1948. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for remodeling.

Other museums would surely be open to check out. I hopped in my truck and pointed it toward Lowell Observatory. This is where Percival Lowell discovered Pluto. In fact, Percival’s tomb is on the grounds. Maybe I would see him actually turning over in his grave, now that Pluto’s been demoted.

I walked in and purchased my ticket, but the next tour wasn’t for two hours, so I wandered the grounds on my own. The tomb was quiet, and all the doors were locked. I snapped a few shots with my camera and watched the last tour return to the lobby. I decided to catch the tour guide and ask if he knew any Latinos who’d worked at the observatory over the years. All his tour-guide bravado faded as he struggled to think of anyone, past or present. After he flipped through a couple books and even had the cashier look through a personnel phone book, I decided to end their discomfort and leave.

The Flagstaff Arboretum was starting their next tour in a half hour anyway.

Four miles down a dirt road, the arboretum touts itself as the nation’s best mountain arboretum. Only problem is, I and a few other visitors showed up a month early. It was April, and the forest floor was melting snow and mud. Only a few snowdrop flowers had peeked through the soil. By May, everything will be sprouting. We did see a man-made lake where the endangered Little Colorado River Spinedace fish is found, a couple of greenhouses and one lizard brave enough to get a jump on spring before her competition arrived. Finally the tour guide left us alone with fair notice that the “birds of prey demonstration” would begin in 20 minutes. That would make up for walking around an arboretum of mud and snow.

It was too cold for demonstrations, though. They only brought out a couple birds for us to look at, a Harris hawk and a peregrine. In a nearby cage was a recycling raven that knew the difference between paper and plastic and stuffed tips in a can to help keep the arboretum funded. A few more people wandered over to quiz the two trainers, but I lost interest and tipped the raven before moving on.

I wanted to hit one more place before museums started closing down for the evening. After touring the Riordan Mansion back in town, I could find a meal and call it a night.

I showed up just in time, as a tour guide began describing the house from where we stood in the old garage.

We wandered back through time, looking at the history of the logging family that had built the house in 1904 and helped build Flagstaff to what it is today. When the tour was done, I decided to harass the guide with the same question I had at the Lowell Observatory. Surprisingly, after a moment’s thought, he recalled Tim Riordan’s right hand man was a Basque from Spain by the last name of Perris, who’d come over originally to join sheepherding relatives. He then added that Gregorio “Curly” Martinez cared for the property and trained horses at the Riordan Mansion years ago; just passed away at 98. Last year, Curly was honored as Flagstaff’s citizen of the year for his contributions, including many years as a member of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Posse.

With the sun setting, and the Riordan tour guide getting impatient to close, I decided it was time for dinner and headed to my truck.
Next time, maybe I’ll visit Flagstaff in season. At least this time I’d made a small contribution to the survival of a few museums.

A giant concrete boot, taunting me and my shopping mission along the main street of Cave Creek.

I love boots. Clompin’, trompin’, cowpatty kickin’ Western chic boots! After seeing a couple friends out with their styling pair, I decided it was time I got my own – and make an adventure of it in the process.

I hopped in the ole pick’em-up truck and headed for Scottsdale. OK, a late-model Isuzu, but I’m tryin’ to create a visual here, damn it. I was headed for cowboy country, to wander from town to town in search of the perfect boots.

Tooling up the road, I saw a sign: “Western Days at Westworld.” In my mind, that meant they probably had more boots than a caterpillars’ shoe convention!

I parked, bought my $14 ticket and stood in the quarter-mile line of people waiting to enter a giant tent full of country folk and anachronistic pseudo-hillbillies gone 1880s retro. I was happy to see the Buffalo Soldier contingent there. Still, where were the danged Latinos? Buckaroo’s just some goofy way of sayin’ vaquero, I’ll have you know. Mexicans were the first cowboys around these parts.

Restored horse-drawn carriages and wagons lined one wall. That captured my fancy for a few minutes before I began to stroll the aisles of merchandise. I passed saddles, Western shirts, turquoise jewelry, and samples of log cabin walls. It was while gawking at antler chandeliers and pot-metal sheriff’s badges that I realized, My God! This is what it would look like if the Wild West threw up.

Outside, I spotted a field of tents in the distance. The Confederate Army’s lost battalion had set up camp, maybe? I wandered down to find men leaned into clouds of steam, scientifically stirring over Dutch ovens and pans big as manhole covers. The air was thick with cowboy grub and campfires.

Oh yeah. I hadn’t eaten breakfast. But this food was for a cook-off competition, not for sale. After checking out a few more tents full of cowboy kitsch, I watched a mountain man etching toy guns with a telescope lens before wandering back inside. Then I spotted boots! A whole row of them lined up next to a sign that read “custom-made to fit.”

But they all had laces, flaps, and weird metal buttons. The artisan was going for that “authentic” fur-trapper/buccaneer-pirate look of the 1800s. And Johnny Depp I ain’t. I just wanted simple, cool boots.

I made for the door, got in my truck and threw in a Gordon Lightfoot CD as I headed up the road to Cave Creek.

I rolled into town behind a herd of motorcycles on their weekend migration to higher elevation. A nasty little dust devil was cutting across the field where the Cave Creek Thieves Market operates the first Saturday of every month. Hah! I couldn’t resist. I quickly parked and paid my one dollar to enter and watch the mayhem as vendors scrambled to turn giant tarp kites back into tents in the windy weather. Their flea market almost flew. Still, no boots.

Back along the main drag, shop owners paced about as tourists meandered along the main thoroughfare in search of fancy Western baubles to bring home. Bikers lounged at rustic saloons, while other bars stood quiet until the nightlife came to kick up dust on their plank floors. I flitted from storefront to storefront in search of my quarry, wearing no hat, no sunblock, no sunglasses. I came upon several pockets of open-air vendors, and … wait! What did we have here? A boot store!

I walked into Spirit of the West Boot Co. and perused the finely tooled masterpieces of leather. “We’re having a sale. Look for the red tag,” said the lanky cowpoke of a shopkeeper as he studied me to see if I could afford his product.

Ornate scrollwork and weird knobby leather was everywhere. I touched one of the less obtrusive shoes, and found it soft as suede. I turned to ask what they were made of.

“Hippopotamus,” he stated.

What did a hippo ever do to deserve getting turned into a boot? I turned back to the shop tender. “You got any faux leather boots?”

You ever seen a cowboy eat a pickled lemon? He screwed his face up tight and declared, “I don’t think there’s any boot company that’d make a boot outta fake leather.”

I bet he didn’t know Joaquin Phoenix was wearing plastic cowboy boots in that Johnny Cash biopic. Later, after a few phone calls, I found the shop tender wasn’t so far off the mark. Faux leather cowboy boots are rare – especially men’s boots. Online, I did track down a faux-leather, Dan Post Caiman gator boot before giving up.

Not that any of this matters. When I looked at the little red sale price tags, I saw numbers like $650 and $1,499. I couldn’t afford his product.
I crossed the street and took a photo of a giant concrete boot sculpture for free and sat down at the Silver Spur Saloon to sink my boot sorrows in a pint of ale. The bar had just come under new owners – probably why I waited 20 minutes before anyone asked if I was hungry, thirsty, or a high plains drifter passin’ through town.

I got my beer free for the patience, and held it to my forehead while they cooked me a burger. I’d gotten a headache from squinting in the sun in search of boots – with no sunglasses or hat. By this point, I’d have pranced around with a parasol to avoid any more sun.

The next day, I saw two guys selling cowboy boots off the tailgate of their truck in West Phoenix. Dear lord! I should’ve just gone there. It certainly would have been easier.

I guess I’ll just buy a pair at Sheplers in Scottsdale. Cave Creek’s more about people watchin’ and oglin’ each other’s motorcycles anyway.

“Uh, Mortimer? Whatchyoo doin’ at the moment?”

Hmmm. This didn’t sound good. I should never answer the phone on a Sunday night.

It turned out to be a friend, stranded in Page with no money and a jeep that wouldn’t “jeep” anymore. Time for an impromptu road trip to save the day. I threw a sleeping bag in the back, grabbed some water and sped off for the Utah border.

I drove through the night to get there. Two hours to Flagstaff. Stop for gas and coffee. Another two hours to reach Page. It might’ve been quicker, but at that hour and with all the passing lunatics who never turn off their brights? It took sheer willpower to not crash through the guard railing over a cliff, hypnotized by that white border line.

I arrived at my destination with all four wheels safely on the ground and found her stargazing on top of her vehicle. After she crawled down, and we popped the roof back up, we went to look at nearby Glen Canyon Dam. Sleep wasn’t an option yet. I was too wired on emergency truck stop coffee. Her truck could wait until morning – it wasn’t going anywhere.

Below the bridge, a small speck of a human could be seen shining his flashlight around, inspecting the safety of the dam. The hum of generated electricity, and chirping bats was all we could hear. After we lost interest, we walked over to the visitor’s center. They were closed. How rude. It was only 2 … a.m.

So we threw off our shoes and dunked our feet in an icy fountain and engaged in small talk as diesel rigs sped by in the night, ferrying goods from town to town.

“What should we do tomorrow? We’re gonna have to wait while they look at your truck.”

We settled on checking out nearby Lake Powell seeing as how Page is not exactly a happening social scene. The town of 8,000 started in the 1950s as a work camp while the dam was being constructed. The oldest building around is probably a double wide trailer. No kidding.

The next day, after determining her alternator had become a paper weight, we tracked down a car repair shop that would tow the wounded vehicle to be fixed. Then we went to the lake. A small backpack full of water, and some food. A map. We were set.

A guided tour of Antelope Canyon seemed like a beautiful idea, with its world-famous slot canyons. Everyone has seen pictures of it because it’s so easy to blow an entire day of photographs there. But, after reading Antelope Canyon is also famous for a 1997 flash flood that killed 11 people, we decided we’d rather not tempt our fates that way. Instead, we decided to risk life and limb in Navajo Canyon. By floating up it in kayaks.

Supposedly there are dinosaur tracks and ruins there. We hoped to row our way up the narrow canyon, take pretty pictures, and go for a dip in the lake rather than wait for a grease monkey to fix her truck in the heat of the day.

On the dock of the marina, we picked out two kayaks and dropped them into the water. It was noon, and we had to be back by 5:30 or a search party would come looking for us and our possibly bruised egos.

Our first task was to spend five minutes trying to figure out how to get into our kayaks without drowning a mere foot from the dock. Finally we pushed off, paddled away and followed the shoreline south as we got the hang of what we were doing. We plodded our way through the wakes of passing boats too rude to slow down for man-powered plastic boats at the mercy of physics.

That’s when my friend looked down and saw she had three inches of water in her kayak.

“You’re not really having a very good couple days are you?”

She pulled out her backpack to have a smoke and found the watertight compartment … was not watertight. Soggy cigarettes everywhere.

Beaches are rare and tiny in the canyon, so we made use of some shallows to drag her boat up onto a sandstone slope and sat watching it pee water out a hole in its bow until it drained.

Finally we found Navajo Canyon, and drifted in to explore. We knew time was getting short, so we decided to find a place to pull the kayaks up out of the water and swim around. As the canyon narrowed, we saw a steep sandstone slope as the last chance to drain her boat. After sharing a can of peaches, we swam over to another ledge and climbed up the brittle sandstone to watch boats coming around the bend.

A couple speedboats skipped over the water. A house boat chugged along peacefully, its driver waving up at us.

One boat was a small orange kayak. It bobbed into view, with nobody in it – but a lot of water. Oh, wait. That’s one of ours … floating away.

We scrambled down the outcropping as sheets of sandstone broke free, kerplunking into the water as we went. She dove in before me, and reached the boat. Which is just as well; it was hers that had tried to escape.

Maybe it was time to return and give back these nuisance boats. Or we could sunbathe and let them come find us, pride be damned.

We chose to keep our pride, and began paddling back.

At one stop, on the way back, we found a small sand bar between a large rock outcropping. We could drain her boat, and then carry them over, to avoid rowing around the rock. “Yeah! It’s a real adventure now! We portaged our boats,” she said. I decided that was my cue to push off with one foot in my kayak, and jump in. You know, like they do in the movies.

It didn’t work. I fell into black, stinky mud, floundering around as my kayak went belly up. With her back pack in it. And my pants. Which held her car alarm clicker.

Stupid, stupid, stupid… but fun as hell. After five hours of rowing, and fighting the wake of several passing boats, we wanted to gnaw our arms off and wait for the search party to come.

Instead we started chanting to ourselves, “Steak. Steak. Steaaaaak.”

We made it back just after five o’clock and crawled up onto the docks like tired, legless sea creatures.

After pointing out which boat needed to be retired, we hit the highway home.

We stopped on the way back at the vintage 1916 Cameron Trading Post where Navajo nation residents still trade goods for food … after the sun had set. There we enjoyed quite possibly the most tender steaks I’ve ever eaten. I’m sure it’s their own free-range beef. We nearly choked on the meal, when we saw the prices of Navajo rugs for sale on the wall next to us. Let’s just say, I’d buy a new truck for my friend before splurging on a rug.

We wandered through the garden of this charming roadside stop, with a 1930s hotel and wonderful, quirky architecture overgrown with ivy. Next time, we’d go slow and stay here for the night, before driving to Page.

Oh, but of course we had decided to come back. Next time… scuba diving. With our luck at Lake Powell, I may have to tell that story from beyond the grave.

If you go

At the Antelope Point Marina, houseboat rentals start at $1,000 a day; kayak rental is at $5 an hour. The marina is also home to the “World’s largest floating restaurant.”

Getting there

From Phoenix, take  I-17 north to Flagstaff; continue north on Highway 89. Seven miles before Page, take Highway 98 to Antelope Marina Road.

Cameron Trading Post

The Cameron Trading Post is approximately 35 miles north of Flagstaff, just south of Highway 64 to the Grand Canyon. Average price for meals in the restaurant is $12;  room rates $60-$150, depending on the  season.

We didn’t just drive out of Phoenix. A friend and

When we did finally escape, we realized we hadn’t truly packed for our camping trip. We needed food. Then a new ice chest. Then gas. Then we fought rush hour traffic. We almost started boxing each other.

But we made it to I-60 going east, the city peeling away from the landscape just as the last bit of sunlight bled out its colors into the towering monsoon clouds. As darkness fell, our cat claws of frustration relaxed and withdrew. We put in a Taj Mahal CD and drove on with a soundtrack of sweet West Indies blues.

After a quick pancake dinner in Globe, we headed for Show Low to the north. It wasn’t until after winding through the low-speed switchbacks of the Salt River Canyon that we realized it was near midnight and we had no idea where we’d sleep for the night. Between us and Show Low was White Mountain Apache land, and in my experience nothing good comes of getting caught on any reservation without a permit.

Near Show Low, we found Friday wasn’t through dealing out some bad luck. Despite our trusty map of back roads, the hunt for a place to sleep became impossible in the dark. Road after road denied a good campsite. Others never appeared in our headlights, or were overcrowded lakeside campgrounds full of trailers – like beached whales of metal and plastic.

Finally, one road continued on into the hills. Then we saw city lights approaching again. What?! We backtracked to the only side road we’d seen – a paved cul-de-sac for some unfinished housing community. We parked there and slept for the night before our cranky personalities turned into angry pumpkins.

In the morning, we found we’d driven in a loop and were 2 miles from downtown Show Low. After breakfast, we hightailed it out of civilization and in search of an ‘unbeaten path’.

With our bellies full and the fresh pine air in our lungs, we headed up the 60 to the town of Vernon. It’s a quiet shell of a settlement that started around 1910. Heading down its main road, forest route 3140, we found a cemetery on the edge of town. Traipsing past the headstones we built our own story of the town’s history. The oldest headstones implied it may have been a children’s cemetery through the 1920s. With time, other family members began to join their children in the afterlife.

With our morbid exploration done, we continued on, passing ranches with names of the buried. Our wheels crunched to a stop at the remnants of an old sawmill named for yet another six-foot-under resident. Nothing remained but foundations and the ghosts of a milling community that had survived the Great Depression only to die out when the modern world found them.

We continued on, as a thunderstorm built overhead. One enticing side road took us up to the 50-foot Lake Mountain fire lookout tower, built in 1926. From here, we watched a “beneficial burn” on a nearby hillside with Ken “Skip” Schipper. An easy-going retired teacher, he proudly showed us a paper sitting atop the triangulation compass. The X’s were recorded lightning strikes over the last day. When I questioned two X’s at the center of the map, where the tower stood, he chuckled.

Nor was it the first time he’d been struck by lightning. Strikes are exceptionally common on the Mogollon Rim. Nearby Gentry Tower was struck while he was there and in a phone conversation with his son. He hung up, the side of his head still tingling with electricity.

I glanced at Skip’s chair; an old wooden thing with vintage glass telephone pole insulator caps shoved onto each leg – possibly the same insulators used in the early days for a bare telephone wire strung 25 miles north through the trees to Show Low so rangers could be warned of smoke sightings. The tower is metal, though. I wonder if the insulators really help much.

A mile to the southeast, Los Burros Ranger station has stood since 1910 to watch over the logging resources of ponderosa pine. It is now the oldest BLM structure in Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. A ranger would ride with a mule and supplies up Lake Mountain to climb the iron pegs up an old tree to watch for fires. Its gnarled, dead stump is all that remains, visible from the new tower.

After descending the fire tower, we drove on down our dusty road through a mid-day sprinkle and thunderclaps. Another former mill town appeared, McNary. At an elevation of 7,316 feet, it’s the highest town in Arizona. (Flagstaff is 6,899 feet). At the grocery store we bought our $8 camping permit for the Indian reservation.

By the time we were winding through the hills to Hawley Lake, the rain was steady and strong. The forest was dense with undergrowth. Spanish moss clung to the trees as we crawled up through the pines to a 300-acre lake with docks, cabins, a small store and diner of sorts, as well as boat rentals.

After briefly considering a $120-a-night cabin, we moved on. Route 26 (60 on old maps) took us through thickets of some of the largest, oldest aspen trees I’ve ever seen in Arizona.

We followed an old pickup rattling down the trail slowly, until we could pass. We spotted a sign, and turned around to explore a side road Christmas Tree Lake. An Indian ranger drove by and stopped us. Examining our permits, he sternly admonished us for even thinking of visiting the lake without a special permit.

“If you’d only driven past that sign there, I’d have fined you,” he growled.

So we backtracked to a sign near Kinney Junction, warning of reintroduced Mexican grey wolves. That’s comforting. From there we followed a new road; Indian Route 25.

It was time to find a campsite, and it didn’t take long. Beautiful! Overlooking a stream. Dense trees and a bridge nearby. Then… stinky wooden outhouse, small hills of trash, litter everywhere. We needed to camp, though – the night before had been too irritating.

Indian country is beautiful, less-traveled and abounds with opportunities to see things you might not otherwise. So don’t throw your trash down. Please?

The next morning proved this point beautifully.

We woke up early and continued along Route 25 (61 on old maps), watching the landscape change quickly as the elevation dropped. Coming down a hairpin turn, near Goklish Canyon, we saw a green sliver of crop fields and a fence below.

We descended into the valley and drove along the fence line. A small group of what seemed like wild horses walked along the road. When we approached, they dodged into the trees, slipping out onto the roadway behind us with suspicion in their eyes and two foals tagging along.

But wait, there’s more! If that wasn’t enough, we spotted a 100-foot stump of a ponderosa. Atop the tree, overlooking the White River was the scruff of an eagle’s nest. There a golden eagle basked in the midday sun.

Our brains were on overloaded by the time we reached a paved road to Whiteriver on Highway 73. To clear our heads, we stopped at the one grocery store in town for supplies to make sandwiches on our tailgate.

At a nearby gas station, an elderly Indian man named Ross wandered up to us. As we let the gas tank fill, he made small talk.

Then, asking where we were from and where we had been, he lit up at my mention of Hawley Lake. For 20 minutes, he talked of the dozens of wonderful lakes; Reservation Lake, Hurricane Lake, and the dams he’d help build. He shared experiences of running eight different boilers, and being rousted at 3 a.m. to run and fix one before anybody froze in the night. His wife was from Whiteriver, and he was from Cedar Creek. He talked of his culture, about husbands and wives usually being from different cities, always moving to the husband’s town. As I leaned against the tailgate eating a sandwich, he continued sharing stories, glancing at us for a moment, then letting his eyes trail off in another memory to share. We were lost in them a few minutes too, before realizing he had some 70 years worth of stories and we couldn’t possibly have stayed for all of them.

Ross was an unexpected, delightful conclusion to our trip. We passed Ross’ hometown and headed home with daydreams of eagles, wolves, rivers and… boilers.

If you go:

White Mountain Apache permits can be bought at several places, including the gas station at the junction of US 60 and Highway 73, or at the McNary general store.
Cabins at Hawley Lake range in price between $115 and $200. There is also a lodge with rooms around $75. Office closes around 5 p.m.

McNary lived, died with logging industry

In the small cabin at Los Burros Ranger Station in 1918, 250 million board-feet of timber were sold to the Apache Lumber Company in nearby McNary. Soon the logging and mill town of Cooley was booming with activity as the logging industry thrived.

Despite this early success, the company ran into financial trouble in the early 1920s. In 1923, W.M. Cady and James G. McNary bought and renamed it the Cady Lumber Co. As experienced lumber mill operators from Louisiana, they had come to Arizona after stripping all the useful timber in the forests around their original mill.

First named Cluf Cienega, then Cooley, the town was now called McNary.

Situated on Apache Indian land, McNary quickly became a multicultural town, after James McNary loaded two trains with about 500 of his “experienced and faithful employees to Arizona” – all-Black laborers from Louisiana.

The following year, 700 Black migrants came from Louisiana to this transplanted company town, lured by the promise of steady work and good living conditions. More minorities followed throughout the 1920s.

The town soon boasted a “Negro” quarter called “The Hill,” and a Spanish-American quarter. Each had its own elementary school, church and café. A small group of Navajo bush-cutters lived in town, and an Apache community continued to grow just west of town.

McNary’s 1,500-plus residents spent their days working and their evenings dancing, as one former resident, Ollie Mae Cottrell, recalled in a 1999 interview conducted by Northern Arizona University: “We danced regular dancin’, danced the Mexican dance, danced the Indian dance. We did it all ‘cause my daddy, he was part Indian.”

In another interview, Lola Espinoza recalls life in McNary: “Well, they had dances for the Mexican people…. And the Mexican had their Mexican dances in the Mexican part of town. See we were kind of segregated to begin with. Because the whites stayed on the top part of the hill, and the Mexicans and the colored stayed on the lower part of the hill, but different areas. And the Indians had their little ‘Indian town’ way back behind the mill.”

After struggling through the Great Depression, the McNary lumber industry was revived with the post-WWII housing boom and the town became known for its diversity and relatively composed race relations.

In 1952, four years after a fire destroyed much of the milling operations, James McNary sold his portion of the company. By the 1970s, the Apache tribe started its own lumber company and stopped sales to McNary’s mill. A fire destroyed the lumber mill in 1979 and many Black residents relocated. By 1990 there were just about 12 Black families living on “The Hill,” and McNary’s lumber boom had ended.

Just when you think you’re street smart and

This month, I was too broke to travel anywhere; I’d just returned from Canada and took a trip to New Mexico before that. A couple friends had talked me into wandering up to the Phoenix Art Museum for a new show on Chicano art. It’s not often that the stodgy, older art establishment gives Chicano artists the time of day, so I decided it might be a surreal enough “trip” to count as traveling to another place.

I was throwing on a less-dirty pair of socks when my friend (we’ll call her Araceli) text messaged me. She was running up to the neighborhood store for cigarettes and to get some cash. Good, that meant one less stop, other than for gas. Her text was my sign to head over. She’d promised to pay for gas to the museum, since I was flat-busted broke and coasting on fumes until payday.

I hopped in my truck after a few minutes and headed down the street, fielding another text message from her sister, Christine, who was also joining us. As I passed the neighborhood store, I spotted Araceli walking back home. I pulled over so she could hop in.

But she didn’t seem to notice me as I looked through the tinted windows and dark night. “Yeah, I’ll open the door and get her attention.” Rolling down the window might’ve made more sense, but my window controls are busted.

“Hey! Get in?”

She finally noticed me and jogged across the street, just as another car was passing and a truck had pulled up to the intersection, its driver giving me the evil eye for stopping.

Running around behind, she came up, opened the door and hopped in. Looking over, I saw just what I’d done.

“Ahhh… hell.”

“What?”

“You’re not at all who I thought you were.”

“What?”

“I thought you were somebody else.”

“Whatever. Just drive.”

“What? No. I’m just going two blocks away.”

“It’s ok. I’m not a cop.”

Dear lord! I took a good look at her. I could see her twitching face, scarred by drugs, like a jigsaw puzzle, and somebody had forced all the pieces together – whether they matched or not. Oh no! I’d picked up a crackhead looking for johns! And she wasn’t getting out of the truck.

She interrupted my stare.

“Drive!”

Whoa, lady!

At this point I realized the truck driver on the side street was also getting irate. He apparently didn’t understand the concept of driving around obstacles. So I revved up past the intersection, and he followed my bumper, trying to make some angry motorist’s point, not knowing that some things are more important – such as, say, the prostitute on my front seat, looking to score that great white boulder!

She decided to strike a business deal, asking, “So what do you want?”

“Uh, Nothing. Where can I drop you off? I can’t give you a ride.”

“Then why did you pick me up?”

“I didn’t. I thought you were somebody else.”

“Give me 10 bucks!”

What? I told her no, and that’s when things really went to hell. She started barking at me that I’d picked her up and owed her for the trouble – and she had those crazy, rabid-dog eyes.

Ah hell, what had I done? I swerved over to the curb across from where Araceli lived, intending to get her out of my truck. Suddenly, the lady freaked. Before I’d parked, she had whipped the keys out of my ignition. She was opening the door as I wrestled the un-powered steering wheel to a stop. The truck lurched up onto a sidewalk as I lunged across the cab to snatch at the keys before they were lost for good.

We scuffled over them, wrestling like a bad relationship gone worse on the side of the road. All the while she yelled how I was the one who picked her up and that she wanted her 10 bucks.

Then I pulled back away from the lady. I had this vision of just how bad this would look if it escalated. I couldn’t hit her; the cops would just think I was an angry customer, or a violent pimp. Or, with my luck she might not feel a thing, then pull out a shiv and go haywire on me. That doesn’t look good at all on an obituary notice.

“Here lies Mortimer,
shanked by a trollop;
thought he could hit her
now pushin’ daisies up.”

To let her know I wasn’t just some dude sitting in a strange neighborhood, I called out for Araceli to come out of her house.

The broke-down old cokehead started getting more defiant.

“Who you callin? Ain’t nobody!”

“I’m calling my friend. Gimme my *#(^%! keys!”

She slipped out of the truck, holding my keys ransom.

“Give me 10 bucks.”

Again with the 10 bucks! “I…Don’t…HAVE…anything! There’s not even gas in my truck!”

That made her pause. Her dead socket eyes studied me as I asked her to let me prove it. Finally, she got close enough for me to snatch my keys out of her hand and put them in the ignition. I pointed to all the lights glowing: “See!? Nothing! You’ve got the poorest guy in town. I’m here because my friend has to pay for gas!” That’s when she might’ve decided I wasn’t a very good customer.

In the pause, I called out again, “Araceli!” Still, nobody came out of the house.

Finally, as quick as she turned up, the buzzard-woman disappeared. She’d probably given up, but in my mind she was heading for reinforcements. She now knew where my friend lived – and that wasn’t good. I decided we had to skip out of the area before she brought back some pimp with the shakes and a slingshot.

I turned on the truck again, veered up into the driveway and got out to pound on the front door. Finally Christine came to the door, looking at me as if I’d left my sanity out in the hills. Maybe I had?

“Come on. We gotta go! Come ON! Out front.”

I rattled off an incoherent recounting of what had just happened. Araceli sauntered in from the back with an unlit cigarette in hand like it was the laziest day in a month of Sundays. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when people don’t respond to your call to action, let alone your call for help? No matter what the circumstances, it’s no fun.

After a minute of blabbering, all I got was, “Ohh.. OK.. I thought I saw you parked there when I drove past. Didn’t make sense. Relax… have a beer. Smoke a cigarette.”

Yes. Of course. That was her car that had passed me. She drove to the store. It’s summer in Phoenix. Why would she walk? Silly, silly me.

We stood outside for a minute as I chased away an adrenaline rush with a bottle of Negra Modelo. I started to notice there was no cavalry of rabid pimps and thieves, firing muskets.

I recovered, and we drove downtown to the art museum.

Still, I was ribbed about my moment of stupidity as we walked from canvas to canvas.

“Don’t talk to strangers, Mortimer.”

Thaaanks.

“I can’t believe you think I look like a [prostitute].”

I tried defending myself: “You’ve been crazed before, too. I seen it!”

She just rolled her eyes and made that thoroughly irritating look that said, “Yeah, uh-huh. Nice try. You’re just trying to hide that you thoroughly lost your manhood for a minute back there.”

Instead, her words were – in a fake-sweet voice, “Why would I talk about that? When your embarrassment is so recent?” I wanted to tell her off, but even I couldn’t stop laughing at myself.

The art pieces were fine. Raw, edgy, in-your-face… just like the rest of my evening had been. But it was all a blur, really. I just wandered around the gallery, thinking, “Next time somebody asks if I’ve ever picked up a prostitute, I have to respond with: You mean, on purpose?”

A quiet, grey view of rainy Montreal from Saint Helen’s Island. Little did we know that somewhere in the city, a bomb scare was wreaking havoc on rush-hour traffic.

With the air getting hot and crispy in Phoenix, I jumped at an opportunity to spend a long-overdue week with family members in their new home; Montreal, Canada. I hadn’t seen them in five years, since my year-long stay in Peru.

After my departure, they had begun the process of immigrating to Canada. They arrived in Montreal three years ago, after only one year of paperwork and money-hoarding. Canada seems to be an immigration antithesis to the United States’ faltering struggle for a way to ethically control the flow of immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Hoping to increase its workforce, Canada has made it increasingly easy for immigrants to join their population. Even as I write this, Canada is making moves to expand an internship program that offers refugees around the world even more opportunities to study and work within its borders.

Stepping out of the airport terminal on my first night in Montreal, I found a taxi and headed for the suburb of Longueuile, on the other side of the St. Lawrence River. The metropolis rolled past my back-seat window in a bustle of springtime energy. People rushed home from work. Couples began their night on the town.

Montreal makes Phoenix look incredibly … well … White. I saw faces of every possible color and culture. With French the chosen language of Montreal, it makes sense that so many foreigners had emigrated from Vietnam, Europe and several former French colonies of Africa, Haiti, etc. The city has also become home for many Middle Eastern, Chinese, East Asian and Jewish communities.

European settlement in the area began in 1611 as a French fur-trading post. The French ruled a century and a half before the British defeated them in the Seven Years’ War. Through this and the following 200 years of Canada’s slowly earned independence from England, Montreal has maintained its diverse identity. I smiled at such a success as the cab pulled up to my destination.

Port town

The next morning, I got a sense of Montreal’s historic lifeblood as a major port city in its historic district, Vieux Montréal. The family and I strolled along the promenade passing old quays, piers and a marina with boat tours of the St. Lawrence. We were at the eastern end of Montreal’s original “Lachine Canal,” dug to allow larger ships through to the Great Lakes region. By the mid-20^th century, ships had become much larger and the growing city made expansion of the canal impossible. A new, larger passage, the St. Lawrence Seaway, opened in 1959 and made the canal obsolete. What we were exploring had become a tourist destination, with recreational boating, and industrial structures turned into lofts or commercial venues.

A soft rain began to fall as we peered over a fence at the tents hiding Cirque de Soleil’s latest extravaganza in development. Here they debut a new show every two years. We daydreamed about what might be inside, before a brisk wind forced us to find shelter among the narrow European-esque streets of Vieux Montréal. We passed museums, a science center, several restaurants, galleries and overpriced souvenir shops.

Tourism’s obligatory horse drawn carriage rolled past us as we marveled at the front of the Basilica de Notre Dame de Montreal, mid-restoration under a scaffold skeleton. Then the rain became persistent. I’d shown up sans umbrella like the true desert rat I am. We dragged a nearby bus stop bench under a tree and waited for our ride home.

Patience

The third day I was introduced to the Metro, Montreal’s subway system that reminds me Phoenix’s light rail is really just a quaint novelty. As the train approached I was amused to see it ran on rubber tires instead of the scream of metal wheels. Fifteen minutes later we stepped off at Saint Helen’s Island and walked to the huge metal dome framework that houses Montreal’s biosphere, left over from the 1967 World Exhibition. It is now used to showcase the ecosystem of the region. Bugs, fish and birds equally amused the 4–year-old and the two 30-somethings in our group.

After a stroll through the island’s Parc Jean-Drapeau, we looked out on the skyline of Montreal, while large, chubby woodchucks spied on us. I realized just how quiet the city seems, when a family of ducks was the only sound that came to me.

Returning to the subway station, we found a free bus waiting for us. (Read “sardine can on wheels.”) People were loaded on for an unexpected trip back to the mainland. We were the last to board. Apparently a bomb scare had shut down several lines of the subway system. As soon as we found a handhold, the bus crossed a bridge into a grinding halt as we sat through rush hour traffic, choked to a standstill by the unexpected transportation emergency.

More incredible than the diversity of people in Montreal is their apparent calm. I’m from a city where the heat bakes our brains into rush hour vitriol, cusswords and road rage.

San Esteban del Rey de Acoma Church has stood atop the Acoma mesa since construction began in 1630, Within its walls are the bodies of those Acomans who died building it.

As I-40’s blacktop floated across the rolling plains between Winslow and Albuquerque, crosswinds and semis buffeted my truck enough I had to white knuckle through a few stretches. I slowed down as one lazy trucker flirted with disaster. His trailer swayed dangerously close to jackknifing in the turbulence of a passing flatbed. It didn’t reassure me that his left arm hung limp out the window as if he’d dozed off.

Enough. With Albuquerque just 70 miles away, I pulled off at the town of McCarty. The sign for Acoma Pueblo had caught my attention. I’ve passed it a half dozen times in my life, but never had time to stop. Now it was the perfect excuse to avoid getting tossed around on the highway.

Down a quiet, motionless road, I quickly learned that New Mexico’s beauty is hidden on these byways. You can’t see it from the impersonal high-speed thoroughfares cut into the landscape. Here a traveler can interact with people and feel a close contact with the wilderne.. “Splut!”

My eyes shot to the rear view mirror. I’d just run over a sunbathing snake. Make that ‘really close contact with the wilderness.’ I decided to focus a little more for the remaining 10 miles to Acoma.

As I entered the Acoma visitor’s center, they rushed me into the waiting tour bus. I’d forgotten the hour time difference, and their final tour was about to start. The bus groaned its way up a road carved in 1941 out of the sheer wall of a sandstone mesa for a movie called “Sundown.” The locals seem to believe it was a mysteriously non-existent movie with John Wayne in the 1950s.

At the top, we began wandering the streets of one of North America’s oldest continuous settlements. Sadly much of its architecture was torn down in the 1680 pueblo revolts against harsh Spanish rule. But the church remains, largely because the bodies of those who died constructing it are buried within its walls. If only I could’ve taken pictures of the simple earthen beauty and altarpieces inside this cathedral. Nobody is allowed to photograph their holy places or their dead.

While munching on fry bread and waiting for the more annoying tourists to buy trinkets from locals and take what pictures they were allowed, I turned to the tour guide, Michelle. Small talk might pass the time.

She’d only been giving tours a couple months, but shared a recent story. On one tour a village dog got playful with the children. Somewhere in the melee, the mutt made off with a necklace for sale on one of the tables. A scuffle ensued. Sightseers stood mortified as the artisan snatched up the dog by its scruff and shook it vigorously to free up her string of beadwork. Damn! A week late! I’d have bought that necklace.

At last we boarded the bus after one tourist with an overpriced super-zooming Nikon took pictures of Porta Potties next to a 10 mph sign. I’d criticize but I sat there with white sugar from the Indian fry bread all over my black shirt, like I’d sneezed in a coke house.

Life along a road less traveled

The morning of my return trip from Albuquerque, I sat in Lindy’s Café to charge my camera battery and enjoy a big breakfast of sloppy huevos rancheros. I recalled the winds on I-40 and how nice it had been to visit Acoma. I decided another way back to Phoenix might be more enjoyable.

This ice cave near El Malpais is said to be at least 3,500 years old. Photo courtesy Jeff Alford.

Before long I was winding down the sparse remains of Route 66, and the I-40 frontage road, avoiding the main highway as much as possible. At the town of Grants I turned south on the 53 and into the black volcanic countryside of El Malpaís National Monument.

The region boasts dozens of extinct volcanoes, a natural arch and sandstone bluffs rising up out of the jagged lava flows and blanketed with pine and juniper.

At the park’s information center, a ranger rambled on about the Ice Cave and Bandera Crater Park and how sweet the family that owned them was. I had to see for myself.

These landmarks are on private land, but not swallowed up by the state park. The land has been run by four generations of the Candelaria family, since the 1930s. Nobody has any intentions of taking this livelihood away from 87-year-old owner, David Candelaria.

The family does seem genuinely nice, and I felt some pleasure in paying entrance for a family that was considerate enough to temporarily bury film producer Michael Todd’s scattered plane wreck by hand in 1958, to prevent people from taking souvenirs before Todd’s wife, Elizabeth Taylor, could arrive.

The cinder cone of Banderas crater is one of the better preserved remnants of a volcano in North America. Photo courtesy Jeff Alford.

Still, the sweaty hike to a volcanic cinder cone was wonderfully offset by lounging on the observation deck of a large sinkhole, where centuries of water had collected over 3000 years to stay frozen year-round, and the brochure says temperatures never rise above 31 degrees.

I swung up my camera to photograph things. But when the camera didn’t turn on, I realized its battery was still charging at a small café in Albuquerque. I’m blaming ancient Anasazi spirits. But the Candelaria family proved their kindness by promising to send photos.

A stop at the Ancient Way Café produced another interesting character. Mutton-chopped artist “Maqui” escaped from Michigan in the late 1970s and found his way to New Mexico after helping start a Radical Faerie Sanctuary. What that is, I don’t know, but the rainbow coffee cups and pagan wall art gave me some idea. More important, from the smells and the compliments coming from his café, it may well be the best meal for miles around. Maqui belted out Janis Joplin lyrics with the radio and talked about the home he has built out of sandbags. He served everything from incredible beef brisket to apple-green-chile-piñon pie.

Though time as worn away the carvings on El Morro’s sandstone walls, and earlier attempts at preservation such as the blackened parafin wax in some inscriptions, the names of history still grace its sheer cliffs. Above is one from New Mexico’s first governor, 15 years before the pilgrams landed at Plymouth Rock. “Paso por aqui el adelantado Don Juan de Oñate del descubrimiento de la mar del sur a 16 de Abril de 1605.”

To walk off my meal, I stopped at El Morro National Monument. This sandstone bluff has sheltered a pool of water that was the only reliable source for miles over the past few centuries. Giving proof that graffiti is genetic, 1,000 years of writing has been etched into its sheer face like a sandstone history book; Indians, conquistadors, miner 49ers, army generals. Even a camel train stopped here to drink and carve its story. One Spanish governor took the time to etch out an entire poem dedicated to his ego, er, I mean to his passage through the area.

Atop the mesa sits partially-excavated Atsinna Pueblo. A steep but easy trail climbs up over the valley, revealing a beautiful little box canyon. On the windswept top of the sandstone mesa, my hair tousled as I all but danced across the worn trail and carved steps toward the ruins. It was a thrill and I promise the wind gusts won’t blow your children over the cliffs. At least I didn’t see any kids blow away.

After two hours on El Morro, I had to make up lost time. That meant passing up the Wild Wolf refuge at Candy Kitchen. I rolled on through small towns, ranches and Zuni land. I had some hope for Zuni Pueblo. But on a quiet Sunday I was unable to spot the museum and moved on.

After 20 minutes, I realized I hadn’t seen a car. I’d crossed a few miles into Arizona before one appeared. I’d finally found that elusive empty blacktop we travelers seek. Then I found one last surprise as my hidden highway ended at the 191, going south to St. Johns.

Witch Well Tavern stands quietly at this dusty fork in the road. A small windmill outside turns slowly. Inside are two juke boxes and a very country juke box. An old faded news clipping tells of 157 bullet holes riddling the ceiling, and of legends of rough life in the middle of nowhere for this 50-year-old building. No less than 25 miles from … anything.

I sat down to some small talk with the bartender, a Zuni woman who watched bad soap operas and greeted a couple in Shiwi’ma as they entered. They racked up balls on an old pool table, and the juke box came to life with Merle Haggard. I sipped on a Sprite and gazed at the junction out a small liquor drive-up window. No semi trucks. No anything. Perfection.

Above, original education building of Boyce Thompson Arboretum, built in the 1920s.

Enough with online networking. How often must I deal with people who want to be Facebook friends, then are offended when I ignore their request?

All I get is bosses accidentally finding embarrassing photos of me streaking on my birthday, bands I’ve never heard, and a plethora of acquaintances masquerading as friends. Like weeds, they keep popping up.

Judging by my growing frustration, it was time again to get out of town.

My handlers here at the magazine felt I should risk life and limb by (mis) treating myself to a Brazilian wax at some fancy spa. In honor of this issue’s theme, I told them, “No!” My lawn is not theirs to weed.

Instead, I shut down my laptop, turned off the cell phone and ignored all messages. I slipped out the door before my roommate started grumbling about his job again. In minutes, I was merging on a highway to anywhere-but-here.

And I managed the feat two weekends in a row!

I was following a new interest in the plant kingdom. Its idea of networking is simpler; tubers, seeds, rhizomes, stolons, flowers, birds and bugs. How organic!

The first weekend I spent a day at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden, strolling trails and bridges, looking at plants while I worked on my sunburn.

Approaching a tour staging area, I found 20 members of the Red Hat Society waiting. They were the highlight of an almost pointless tour if you’re a native like me. The women bobbed about like wind-up toys, interrupting, trailing off, risking life and limb to touch prickly pear spines despite warnings.

A nearby cardinal in the arboretum’s trees just after the rain.

The very patient tour guide was a sweet, elderly gentleman. But if it wasn’t for those red-hat-clad women talking about hip replacements and cussing, I would have had to listen to news I already knew like, “mesquite beans are edible.”

Fortunately, I found some heaven in the butterfly pavilion, where parents were finding that if you want your rug rats to be still, put a butterfly on their finger. I lingered, watching, while the misters and shade soothed my fancy new sunburn.

The next weekend I headed for the granddaddy of desert botany, the Boyce Thompson Arboretum outside of Superior. I drove east across the Sonoran Desert, through waves of rain as the first spring storm brought the smells of the desert through my car vents.

The rain let up long enough to walk down one path, then it pinned me down for an hour in the Arboretum’s original education building. There I took in the hundreds of succulent plants from across the globe; some of which are the oddest plants to ever reach for sunlight.

Back at the visitor’s center, I spent far too much money on Madagascan wackadoodle whatzit weeds, boojum trees and what ever else looked like Dr. Seuss had filled in for God one day.

Then I found the herb festival. A couple was offering samples of food made from desert plants; yucca blossom and tepary bean stew; ocotillo blossom tea; desert greens salad and … oh, forget it. I blew a little more money on some of their exotic jellies and mesquite marmalade. Bills be damned!

Soon the monthly tour of edible and medicinal plants of the Sonoran Desert was ready to being. This time, I was not disappointed by lack of knowledge. And no red hats to distract me.

The tour guide was Don Wells, co-author of “Foods of the Superstitions.” He rattled off several gross-sounding ailments that each plant helped cure. I learned that creosote bushes are one of the oldest living things, with one that just had its 11,700^th birthday; that Mormon Tea plants have nothing to do with Mormons. Oh, and only John Wayne can drink from a cactus.

Driving home, I started thinking about online requests from friends. It would be better if I could send a reply, instead of just pressing the ‘no-thanks’ button. I could say something like, “Mortimer denied you the satisfaction of adding him to your plethora of pseudo-friends. He found watching plants network at Boyce Thompson much more satisfying than becoming one of your trophies.

Ok. I feel better now. Where to next?