Arizona Visiting

My friend Marlene provided the excuse to go. We used to visit on a somewhat regular basis, since she lived only an hour and twenty minutes away from me in the Portland, Oregon area. Marlene moved to Arizona to be closer to her son, to save some money, and to simplify life. It was the right decision, I’m sure she would tell you, considering all things. It was not, however, an easy decision, and among a few other frustrations for Marlene, it requires more energy to maintain our closeness. Since I am a lot more flexible, I was able to make a trip down south to visit her. It has been two years exactly since our last visit. Much too long.

My former supervisor from the National Weather Service, from back when I was employed as a weather forecaster and observer, has retired in the Phoenix area. Bill and his wife Mikki insisted that I stay with them both on the way in and on the way out. They live near the airport and their offer was hugely appreciated. They are the kindest, funnest people, and made me feel absolutely welcome.

Mikki fed me a delicious home-cooked meal when I showed up at 7pm after my plane landed and I picked up my rental car – such a treat. Bill got up early and made me coffee each morning I was there – elixir of life- and made sure I left with bags full of fresh grapefruit and oranges that we had picked from the neighbors’ trees. Those two are a joy. They also pointed out the colorful parrots that arrived in their back yard the morning after I arrived.

I tried to get shots of all the birds, but I was in a bit of a hurry that morning and got some blurry photos and I missed a couple of the types of birds. I have decided to post photos of every single unique kind of bird I saw in Arizona, because I’ll bet I spotted more than 20, maybe 30. That is a lot for me, and it was really exciting. I’ll put up a count at the end of each post.

I hugged my friends goodbye and headed off to the Heard Museum, covered in yesterday’s post. Then I hit the open highway. I love love love road trips through the Western US. I drove with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand taking shots through the windshield with my camera.

I was leaving Phoenix and heading northeast into the mountains of Arizona, to visit Marlene in the town of Show Low. Before I left, I had checked the website Atlas Obscura to see if there would be anything interesting along the way to stop and see. There isn’t much out in these rural areas, but there was a suggestion to stop and see a tribute to the Old Mail Route. I have no idea how this happened, but the address I put into my travel notes took me past the memorial to the Old Jail. Who the heck knows what happened, but the Old Payson Jail is cool, so I’m glad I ended up there.

I found scarce information online regarding the history of this place, but apparently it was built as a result of the growing population in Payson, once the highway was built. Originally prisoners were locked to a tree in town until they could be transported to the nearby town of Globe to be placed into jail. By 1935 (the year it was built) the town had grown to the point that this jail was needed. A replacement jail was built and was accepting inmates by 1964, when four teens tragically lost their lives while incarcerated due to likely carbon dioxide poisoning with newly installed furnaces. Perhaps they kept this old jail in service another year to figure out the furnace problem.

Not even a full block away from the Old Jail is the mail memorial, reminiscent of the Old Pony Express. This route operated from 1884-1914 in the Arizona Territory, before it became a state. The mounted plaques you can see to the left of the statue hold names of 61 mail carriers who rode horseback to deliver mail here. There is an annual event where people actually mount horses and deliver actual mail (with the cooperation of the US Postal Service) along this route. Super Cool.

Today the plaza is surrounded by posterboards behind plexiglass that offer tributes to many local points of interest, such as ancient peoples, geography, large employers, and cultural practices.

At the Payson Tourist Information Center, I asked the ladies what I could do if I was just passing through. They gave me two great suggestions (Tonto Natural Bridge and Shoofly Archaeological Ruins) and said I had plenty of time to do both – maybe even a third, the Goat Camp Ruins) and still get to Show Low. They also recommended a place to eat lunch. During lunch, I calculated times of everything, and decided I only had time for one extra-curricular trip, and I picked Tonto Natural Bridge State Park.

I parked and went into the gift shop to purchase my entrance ticket. It was 4:04pm and they told me, “All the trails close at 4, but don’t worry, we are open till 5pm, and you are free to look over the top of the railings. We just have to close the trails in order to give everyone time to get out.” I said I understood and paid the money to enter the park. Having no knowledge of the park, I assumed the trails were long and difficult. They weren’t.

I parked the Jeep and was leaning over the railing, looking down onto the natural bridge below me,

…when I saw a Park Ranger zipping around on his little 4-wheeler, locking gates to the trails entrances. D’oh!! If I hadn’t been lollygagging, I could have easily made it onto a trail before he showed up. The signs said the trail was only 0.3 miles. I could hike down and back three times before 5pm, and that was frustrating. Then, I saw a couple of guys down below, on the trail, slowly making their way back up. That did it, I was done following rules. The Ranger on his 4-wheeler zoomed away and I went right over to the gate, built with gaping holes in it, and slipped through in a blink.

I began running down the trail.

I caught up to the guys and we chatted a bit. “You’re almost there,” they told me, “Just around one more corner and you’ll see it.” I took off at a trot again.

“HEY!” The Ranger was back! He was standing at the railing I had just been at, screaming down at the three of us. “The trails are CLOSED. Get out of there!”

He stood there, hollering, and I just couldn’t do it. I should have. What was he going to do, come running after me? I’d be halfway back up the hill before he got to me. Gah! I’m too compliant. Instead, I hung my head and trudged back up the hill. All the way from Oregon, my first time ever there, probably also the last, and only feet away, I was prevented from seeing the arch from the bottom. Damnit.

And yes, I got yelled at by the Ranger when I got back up. He had seen me when I was getting out of my Jeep, and though I hiked back up with the two guys, he knew I was not with them. “We close the gates for your safety, ma’am.” eyeroll.

I had not yet walked to the other viewpoints I was allowed to look over. It was still only 4:30pm (note: I had hiked almost to the bottom and back up and still had 30 minutes before closing), so, with TWO Rangers now parked strategically to keep an eye on me, I walked to the other viewpoints and looked, and then went back to my Jeep, and left the park at 4:40pm.

The Tonto Natural Bridge is one of the world’s largest known travertine bridges. It is 150 feet wide, and 183 feet high. The tunnel inside is 393 feet long, and I guess they mean the distance that Pine Creek travels beneath the arch? It took thousands of years to get like this, and is still undergoing the formation process, like the baby arch I showed above.

In my blog post yesterday, I noted that I came to Arizona seeking Spring, but I did get a bit of winter while I was there. The following shots were taken with one hand while I was driving, as you can tell:

I began looking out for the next recommendation from Atlas Obscura. In the town very clunckily named: Heber-Overgaard, was Travis Walton’s phone booth. This registered zero with me, but I thought I would take a photo if I saw it, and look it up later. This is what I saw:

It looks like an alien abduction story. The Mexican restaurant nearby has capitalized on this spot to add a little advertising. Smart!

So yeah, last night Pedro and I watched one of the surprisingly many documentary shows about poor Travis Walton. He was only 23 years old, one of the oldest of a crew of other young guys, who were driving home from logging work one night, when they saw a light in the forest, which was weird. So they stopped and got out. Travis was the only one bold enough to walk right toward the light to see what was going on. The other guys who stayed with the vehicle said they saw him float into the sky and then get dropped to the ground, hard. This freaked out the guys at the truck, and they all jumped into the truck and drove into town.

After checking in with each other and calming down, they realized they had to go back and get Travis. They drove right back. And he was gone. During the next few days, the police began questioning the boys, assuming they had killed Travis. On the fifth day, somebody got a phone call from Travis. He was calling from this very phone booth, scared, starving, and in shock. The documentary paints a rather interesting story of an alien abduction, and five witnesses who have not wavered in their story since 1974.

It was getting dark. I was still trying to get to Marlene.

Finally I arrived! It was not so very late, it’s just that it’s winter time and the sun goes down early. Marlene had waited up for me. She met me at the door, since they are locked at 6, and let me in. We chatted and gushed through all the “I’ve missed yous” and “I love yous” and then after an hour or so, we released each other for the night. Our plan was to get breakfast in the morning, and see how it went from there.

I checked into my Airbnb in the nearby town of Pinetop. I left the door open while I hauled in my stuff, and found a welcoming committee inside on my second trip.

Pixel’s Momma came by soon after and apologized and offered to take him away. “You aren’t allergic, are you?” she asked, worried. I reassured her that Pixel made me happy. He was not interested in leaving. So I told my hostess goodnight and set up my laptop and wound down from a very long day while my loaner kitty took a nap on my bed. Then Pixel asked to go and I went to sleep.

Bird Count: As of day two in Arizona, I had captured 5 birds.