Tucson Time with Barbara and Marcus

September 20-25 - - Marcus & Barbara’s House, Tucson, AZ
Cacti tangle the front yard, and two happy faces greet us as we arrive the evening of September 20 after 4100 miles of travel. Our days here have been filled with good food and conversation, visits to the birthing center, men doing projects, bicycle rides, and girls swimming. Les and I have been learning about Tucson days, how to get up early (Marcus gets up to run at 4 am!) to go out exercising, and how to stay inside during the heat of the day. Barbara is doing well at 35 weeks into her pregnancy. She is able to do more moving about, but is still resting a lot, and she has adjusted gracefully to being more confined. She is crocheting/sewing/knitting and does lots of work by computer and phone from her easy chair “office.” She increases her swimming distance each day, and floats for five minutes every few laps. Marcus has done an amazing amount of work remodeling the house and landscaping their desert climate yard. They have a variety of cacti and fruit trees. Marcus and Les hauled in a load of rocks today, and Marcus is arranging them around water channels and cactus gardens. Besides projects, Marcus is teaching a class in environmental history, doing research for a professor, and working on his thesis. Those two are planning some projects and trips for next week right now.
Tomorrow we drive to Las Vegas. We booked a room at the Hyatt Place where the Red Rock riders will gather. We’ll leave the T@B camper here, and Les will return Monday to spend more time with Marcus and Barbara.
We have seen hundreds of horses on our way down here, but not once have I seen anyone riding a horse! I will soon be doing something about that!

Sept. 19
Walked through sand, sagebrush, and swarms of brine flies to the shore of the Great Salt Lake this morning. Les touched it, and I waded in and tasted it. (Did some spitting on my way back to camp!) Bright yellow Black-eyed Susans line the campsites. After breakfast and a coin-operated shower, we went to the visitor center of the Antelope Island Great Salt Lake State Park. We learned about the great Bonneville Lake that covered the area, but the 2.7 billion year old folded rocks were the most interesting. This gneiss is some of the oldest rock on earth.

Driving south, we saw a huge cloud, then we realized it was a wild lands fire. From what we heard, it has been burning for two months and was started at a military base with machine gun practice. We could see the red of flames over the next ridge of mountains, and the road we planned to take was closed, so we continued on the interstate until we could move to the scenic route through forest and red rock and pink sand dunes.
Oh, no! Oh, yes! For the fourth time, we turned back. We went to find Margaret & Nelson’s house in Kanab, then drove on and realized after a few miles that we wanted Alternate Highway 89, not 89. It was getting dark, so we pulled into a car wash next to the Hitch ‘n Post RV park. The car and trailer were spiffed up, and a truck driver helped us back into the last slot at the Hitch ‘n Post. We sat outside and ate tomato bean soup and toasted each other with wine. “Cheers,” as Jasper would say.

September 18, 2010 Antelope Island State Park on Salt Lake, UT
Grumpy me, last night, said we were only driving and not having any adventures. “Let’s just drive and sleep at a rest area,” I groused.
We turned in when we saw a brown tent sign. It was in the Big Belt Mountains, and we went down an old highway surrounded by amazing rock formations. There was the Missouri River following us along the way. I had hoped to see it way up there in Montana! In the dark, we finally found the town of Craig’s campground, right by the good old Missouri River.
This morning we backtracked for the third time, this time on purpose. We went back into the canyon with the huge rocks to cook our breakfast among them beside the Missouri River. White pelicans were flying and sitting on the water. Deer were all along the way.
Happy that we had an adventure, we drove all day down through Montana, Idaho, and into Utah. We saw deer and mountain goats along the way. We saw triangle barns – two triangles set into the earth, and hay bales or sod forming the tent like roof. We saw golden fields and rocky mountains.
Antelope Island is the largest island on the Great Salt Lake. A seven-mile causeway supports a road out to the island. The lake has no outlet, so the 2.2 million tons of minerals that come down three rivers into the lake just stay here as water evaporates. Right now the Great Salt Lake is low. We could smell the mud as we drove out. Some of the oldest rocks on Earth are found here on Antelope Island, older than those at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Then there is oolite sand, round particles formed by calcium carbonate coating brine shrimp fecal pellets! Sleep on that one! Good night.

September 15, Liard Hot Spring to Dawson Creek
A sharp breeze blew at 6:15 am as we walked the boardwalk over the misty marsh and into the woods to Liard Hot Spring “Alpha Pool.” (“Beta” was closed because of bear activity.) What a way to start the day in the 106+ degree hot water! Les and I had the pool to ourselves and then walked back to our camper for an egg and vegetable breakfast, our only real meal today. We drove all day and listened to an entire cowboy detective story. We stopped to see hoodoos – plugs of rock sticking up in the landscape, and it was snowing. We saw the cow and calf bison herd, caribou licking the gravel by the road, deer, and a cunning little red fox with a big black-tipped tail.

September 16, 2010
Sun setting red orange, and we are still driving south toward Red Deer, Alberta. We left Dawson Creek by 8 am, and stopped at a funky pub in Valleyview for lunch. The walls were hung with beer flags, iron skillets, wool carding and other tools, signs & sayings (for instance “Complaint Department: push this button” with a mousetrap attached). Nutcrackers lined one high shelf and a teapot collection was arranged on shelves in the windows. When we left out of that town a different way than we entered, Tagish Charlie made a run for the North, and we noticed after losing an hour and a half heading toward Peace River! Ugg, the navigator found it very hard to laugh. So, here we go down Queen’s highway 2, bound for the USA tomorrow.

September 17, 2010
This morning we woke up at Mitchner Provincial Campground in Lacombe, Alberta. There was a heavy frost. The caretakers live in a trailer, and on the porch it says, “Two old crows live here!” Actually, they both look rather like crows. In the night when we arrived, we passed the man bundled up walking down the road, looking like a fat raven with his feathers ruffled. The lady had black hair and looked rather intelligent like a crow. Maybe they were Crow Indians?
Today was a day of hawks. We must have seen two-dozen, sitting individually on fence posts, looking out into fields. Occasionally a hawk was staring at us as we drove by. Today was a day of snow – snow in Alberta, snow in Montana – and we thought we were going south!
It’s getting dark. We stopped at the First Peoples’ Buffalo Jump State Park near Ulm, MT, but it was closed. Walking up the path, we could see teepees and a long cliff where the Indians herded the bison to stampede, fall over, and die. Meadowlarks were singing to the cold evening.

September 14, 2010
At our Liard Hot Springs campsite tonight, a tree ent was watching me eat bean stew and smiling at me. Les said, “Turn around slowly…” I thought a wild animal might be behind me, but instead, at the bottom of the tree trunk, knots formed a wide grin and big nose. Two yellow leaves were the eyes. Then the campfire suddenly exploded with fire shooting up magically.
We traveled from Whitehorse to the hot springs. The signpost in Watson Lake that had been a billboard size years ago has turned into an entire forest of signs. I took five photos but could not nearly take in the scope of it all.
A huge black bear crossed the road in front of us, and elk posed and showed their fancy backsides wearing light colored shorts. Single male bison were spaced out along the roadway, mowing the grass on the side. Rancherio Falls was at the end of a long, lovely boardwalk.
This morning we went to Tim Hortons in Whitehorse, a fast food coffee shop. Wow, was it popular. Cars were lined up fifteen long and kept coming as they were quickly served coffee and sweets out a window.

September 13, 2010
This morning I said that my wish for the trip would be that we laugh a lot. We headed out of Eagle Trail Campground after an early cup of coffee. About three miles out, I saw a tractor by the road that I had seen yesterday. Oops, wrong way! Turn around!
Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge had a visitor center with a wonderful pond diorama showing a muskrat and a trumpeter swan. We saw some huge trumpeter swans today. Best of all was meeting Jim and Dorothy Cook at Koidern River Lodge. They bounced jabs back and forth, keeping us laughing. Dorothy sat beside a wood fired stove in a lawn recliner wearing a gold cap with some of the large gold sequins missing. She has had lung cancer. Jim sat at the table where he makes northern scenes on railroad spikes, but he has spent a lot of time visiting the Vancouver cancer hospital lately. The room is full of rocks and gems, trilobites and crystals. Dorothy doesn’t serve meals to travelers any more, but she dishes out quirky wisdom. Jim warns that the restroom is around past the woodpile, “but the last guy who used it said there was a polar bear in there.”
I named our truck Tagish Charlie because it is finding gold. The land is rich with foliage hues of yellow, orange, and shining gold set against the dark black spruce greens and gray freshly snow-dusted mountains.

Packing to head south

September 12, 2010
Final packing for a two month driving trip required some clear-headed thinking. After two weeks of sixteen-hour workdays, my mind struggled to get it together. Let’s see - - cool weather & camping for leaving Alaska, weather into the 90s in Tucson, a special list for the horse trail ride camping trip, a few dress up clothes for Springfield, MO, work clothes for house remodeling and gardening there, and below freezing drive back to Alaska in November. Some of the items for the trail ride included rain gear, long underwear, and sunscreen. For sleeping we needed a warm sleeping bag and also a sheet, in case it was hot. The only thing I could not find at home was a saddlebag for the horse. I packed my donkey heybey, a souvenir I brought from Turkey in the 60’s. My bandana is my scarf from Morocco, and my cowboy boots are my old winter dress boots. Let’s go!!
Les and I left today after early church and breakfast eggs, kale, and rhubarb cake at Garrett and Sarah’s house. We are going to miss them and the boys, but we’re excited to be on the road. Today I saw Mount Sanford, an enormous white loaf with a jagged rock formation in front that looks like a giant mammoth tooth. We saw a group of about eight swans, and I learned about witches’ brooms on black spruce. They are a mess of branches close to the trunk, a fungus! On our nature walk at Eagle Trail State Campground, just south of Tok Junction, I found out that soapberries are edible. Only in an emergency, I say. I picked a handful of lowbush cranberries and thought of my friend Margo gathering many in Sterling. Here we are with our new green sateen sheets, stretched out in our T@B camper, headed tomorrow for Canada.

Getting Ready to Ride

June 2010

Red screamed, stretched his neck out and uttered a barking cry. His long teeth showed through his drawn back lips, and his shiny rust flesh shook. He called again and again. Loud!! I am going to ride this horse today? OK. Cowgirl, UP!
I began my practice at my friends’ Palmer, Alaska farm. Wondering whether my mended hip would take to the saddle, I determined to get started slowly and increase my riding time. My dream of a weeklong trail ride in the US southwest was scheduled for fall. No time to lose.
Red was calling to the two new horses on the farm. He is a big stallion, trained as a barrel rider, and today’s pasture time separated from the others had failed to calm him. A sting of a dozen cars arrived, winding over the gravel road, coming for an apple orchard tour. As Sandy led Red down the farm road, me astride, he continued to scream. All the tour people stared. At the lower field, Sandy asked if I wanted to take him across a grassy area. Do I want Red to go tearing up the hill by all those apple folks, a screaming meemy, with me bouncing and hanging on for dear life? Not a good day to try that, I decided.

Now I’m riding an appaloosa named Banner. Tan with brown spots, he’s a gentle but greedy horse, pulling his head down to grab a mouthful of dandelions. “No, Banner!”
Sandy is on a part Morgan horse named Zizi, chestnut brown. She’s a weed eater, too. Today we trotted and cantered. I was posting a little, but found I needed to grab the saddle horn some - still strengthening my leg grip! Banner has also had an injury, so he stumbles now and then, but he catches himself and continues on. Sandy’s teaching me to curry, saddle, and bridle a horse, something I may have known once upon a time long ago. Those chores take longer than the riding time, so I’ve begun to appreciate the work that goes into owning a horse!

July 18, 2010

Cowgirl, no up today! Rain. Banner and Zizi have been standing in it for hours. Mud’s on the road. Horses soaked.
Instead, share some farm work. I get to pick tomatoes and talk with one of my favorite people, 93 years old! Doris teaches me to pollinate squash flowers. I didn’t know the flowers are male or female! Then she sends me home with a bag of broccoli and sweet strawberries.
On the way home, I spy fancy boots and picture myself riding in them and walking safely in snake country. Maybe I’ll consider those rather than my old black dress winter boots?

August 3, 2010
Marilyn decided to learn the highwayman’s knot. Oh, that’s how to tie a horse! Slip, flop. Oops. That’s how Banner untied my knot. All evening I tie up my horse around the furniture, around my leg. Ouch! I think I got it. Ssip, pull the other end for a quick escape. Now, if I could only mount the horse that quickly!

August 6, 2010
I wrestled myself up onto Orca. No, not a whale, a pinto horse. Rachel and I had signed up for a two-hour trail ride in Seward, AK. It was pouring rain all morning, but by 3 pm was overcast with no precipitation. Orca was the caboose horse in a line of eight. We rode along black sand, river rock, salt grass marsh, and into forest. We rode near Resurrection Bay. The trail often had deep black mud, and we crossed rivers and streams a dozen times. Apparently Orchy-Porky acts up with some riders, but we did all right together. The only time he tried to go to sleep on me was in a soft black sandy spot. (“He has narcolepsy,” his owner laughed.) Another time Orca stopped in the middle of the swiftest, deepest river to pee. (“He likes to get a reaction from people,” she said.)
Along the way, coming and going, we saw a moose across a river that never moved? Stuffed? I wondered. Many eagles flew over and posed in trees. There were two big eagles’ nests built of big sticks. A baby was sitting near one, five weeks old, about to leave the home nest for good.
After two hours, I wondered if I could get down. Stretched my right leg over, slid down, blew breath into Orca’s nose for goodbye, and wobbled toward the car.