Not again?

     Yes, another week-end getting away to play some music in the open air; walk rocky trails; read, write and shelter from the rain. Oh, and enjoy a camp fire. It's taken a week for Kiki to realize that dead fires are nothing to be afraid of and that barking does not make the flames come back.

     Still not finished Lanark. Am now reading Christopher Phillips's Six Questions of Socrates. I finally did a little recording of the dulcimer, too. Just a couple of traditional tunes that I like. No embellishment; no harmony. Jamie Allen and Winster Gallop.

How rocky are the trails? Well this is a bit OTT.

 

And this is about as dramatic as the skies get.

Is Sassy bothered?

Are we done relaxing yet?

    Another week-end camping in the trailer. The camping part is accomplished by burning those awkward pieces of gnarled juniper and cedar that cannot be split small enough to fit into the wood-stove at home. The black archipelago of the cloudless starry sky before the waning moon rose is a wonder to behold. The Milky Way is particularly clear at these latitudes, about 33°N. The trailer provides the messy comfort of a home in miniature.

    We kept ourselves busy walking, reading, playing music, watching the first series of Robin Hood , star gazing and otherwise being idle . . . the fire did get going and wasn't this smoky really.

    And Kathy rescued another dog, Kiki, of indeterminate breed.

    I rushed off to take a few snapshots of Escudilla before sunset yesterday, Wednesday. And then drove thirty-odd miles west up to Point of the Mountain trail head and walked to Apache Vista to take some more shots before dark.

    Round Valley just after the sun set. This overlook is just over a mile from the trail head and I hoped I wasn't going to meet a bear on the way. The only wildlife I've encountered here before are elk and wild turkeys. I have had the luck to glimpse the occasional Mexican grey wolf, a controversial re-introduction.

    The last snapshot is a view from the ridge about halfway on  the way back to the truck. By this time I was clapping my hands and really watching all around me.

A Found Week-end . . .

     Kathy's parents spend each summer at Burro Mountain Homestead. They usually visit us each spring and fall on their travels to and from Desert Hot Springs, CA. Kathy's eldest sister and her husband spend their  winters in Las Vegas and stop by on their journeys to and from their summers at Burro Mountain. This autumn their visits with us coincided and whilst Kathy's parents looked after the cats we took the opportunity to get away to Lyman Lake State Park which is not far from St Johns, AZ. Frank and Karen joined us.

     Isn't it always the case that locals rarely visit nearby tourist attractions? People from the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) visit the mountains regularly in the summer months to fish, camp and hike and in the winter months to ski or hunt. There are archæological digs to explore; the Petrified Forest National Park is just up the road. there are local hunters and fishermen to be sure. I'm often asked if I do these things which seem to be expected of you if you live in the White Mountains. But I do ski, just not so often now, and I do like to go camping (no longer under canvas) and walking in the woods and by lakes and streams.

     I need to verify this but I am lead to believe there are only two natural lakes of any size in Arizona. All recreational waters are on lakes created by damming streams. Lyman Lake is one such. For the past three days we've been relaxing, crocheting, playing music, fishing, walking and taking pictures, admiring the full moon through a telescope, catching glimpses of wildlife and just generally taking time to do something a little different from the quotidian round.

Friday night jam with Frank: Red Haired Boy (hornpipe)

     Each evening we relaxed round the campfire and watched the sky whilst the sun set and the full moon rose.

A fuzzy shot of the rising moon.

     The rising sun the following morning. At this time of the year it gets quite windy too. And it did blow. This is also the time of the year for tarantulas to be on the march finding shelter for the coming winter and we saw a few. Rangers are happy when we don't indiscriminately kill the local fauna from fear.

One unlucky angler . . . but the ladies were productive crocheting and chatting.

     Did I mention the fourteenth century pueblo ruins? Much of the site is covered to preserve what remains after the looting of the white man. Ancestors of the Zuni and Hopi or the Mogollon people or perhaps the Anazasi built these dwellings along with a sacred kiva.

     An immature buteo possibly a Swainson's or a red-tailed hawk, I'm not an expert.

     A snapshot taken on one of my walks . . .