Not The Grand Canyon But Other Great Things

While the guys were in the Grand Canyon, our niece, Mar, and I did a few things too. Since B had the camera, Mar did the picture taking.

The first place that we went to is in Flagstaff. Originally, it was out of town. Now it is surrounded by the college.

Three Irish brothers by the name of Riordan came to this area. The first brother came with his wife and family and was employed by the owner of the mill. He encouraged his two brothers to come. One brother later ended up going further west, but the other two stayed. The sister-in-law came to visit and ended up married to his brother. They raised their families here. After the rail line came through, the man who owned the saw mail wanted to sale, so they bought him out. Originally, Flagstaff was a railroad town, but they turned it into a mill town.

They first lived in homes in town that still stand. One is now a Pizza place and I can't remember what the other is. They had this place built in 1904. It has over 13,000 sq. feet of living space and 40 rooms. It is actually two complete homes with a common area connecting them, known as the billiard room. In this room, the windows facing the back of the house have pictures that were developed onto the glass. You only see them from inside. Some are of the Grand Canyon and some are of Indians.

The brothers also did much to develop the town. They built a hospital, a community hotel, three Catholic churches, brought electricity to the area, etc. One of the brothers was also responsible for the building of a reservoir so that the town could have water year round. It is still used today.

This is looking at the back of one of the houses and part of the common room.
This is the front of one of the houses. They also had full basements under them, electricity and running hot and cold water.



The next place that we went to was Walnut Canyon, east of Flagstaff. More than 800 years ago people, who we now call Sinagua - Spanish for "without water" - lived here. At first, you don't see any cliff dwellings, but then the more you look the more you see. There is an "island" that extends out into the canyon that you can walk around and go past some of the ruins. There has been restorative work done to some. You can see others on both sides of the canyon.

This is looking towards the "island" that we went around. You can see modern stairs in the middle of the picture.



This is the visitors center from the island. You have to zoom in on these pictures. Below the visitors center you can see dwellings at two different levels.

This isn't like the pictures where you see several stories in their dwellings. These are quite small and most are just one room. These were across the canyon.

Notice the hole above the door. That was to let the smoke out. You can still see the soot on the ceilings of the rooms. They say that after the walls were built, they finished both inside and outside walls with limestone making them white.

We went past an area that had two rooms with a connecting door. I over heard a person saying that they thought the Sinaguas were less than five feet tall. This is me standing in the other room in front of the connecting door. And I am just under five feet. I sure felt tall.


This shows a couple homes.

They believe that the Sinaguas leveled the floors with dirt. I did notice what looks like a low shelf along the back wall in most of them. Also notice how narrow the space is in front of the homes until it drops off. Some areas it was a bit more but not much.


This was taken across the canyon, on the side of the visitors center. If you look, you can find four different areas of homes.
Another interesting thing was that the stream in the bottom of the canyon was dry. The rim is around 7000 feet and the canyon floor is 6340 feet. The dwellings are about one third of the way down from the rim. They believe that the Sinaguas collected runoff in the spring and during rainy seasons. They grew some things on the walls of the canyon such as melons, grew corn on top using a ditch system and small dams. They have also found remains of one room pit houses and Pueblos on top. There is also eatable berries and nuts at different levels in the canyon.

This was an interesting area. If all or most of these homes were occupied at the same time, this would have been a very busy area. It is hard to imagine it today.

After we left this area Mar drove on east to a Meteor Crater. About 50,000 years ago an iron-nickle meteorite, estimated at about 150 feet across and weighing several hundred thousand tons, struck the rocky and barren plain with a force greater than 20 million tons of TNT. The original crater was 700 feet deep, now about 550 because of erosion of the walls. It is about a mile across the rim.



Since there is nothing on top to compare it too, it is hard to tell just how big it is. At one time they thought that they could drill and find the meteor in the bottom. They have since learned that it melted and blew outward from the hole. There are two fenced in drill areas in the bottom. It wasn't until we looked through telescopes on the platform below the rim, see the next picture, that we saw the six foot astronaut and flag, as large as the one they put on the moon, attached to the fence.

They learned much from this area that has also helped them identify other meteor craters.

The guys may have had fun hiking down into the canyon, but we had a great time too. And we even did some hiking. Me in the bottom of the crater.



Not really me in the bottom, just a place to take a picture making it look like you were in the bottom.

New Sites And Things To See

We left California for Arizona on Monday. We traveled through flat desert land

and then it turned into hilly desert land.

The flowers in the desert are starting to bloom. We came across many prickly pears. This one had one blossom and many buds.

The plant will be beautiful when it blooms out. We also saw two with fuchsia colored blooms but didn't get a picture. We saw lots of these.

We also say lots of these growing along the road. They look like a little poppy.

We took a side trip to stay at Burro Creek. It is down in a canyon off the Joshua Tree Parkway. I wanted to get some pictures of the Joshua Trees but didn't get to.These pictures are at Burro Creek camp ground.

This is the main road across the canyon.

There is another interesting feature in this area. I was looking at the broad lighter colored layer of rocks and noticed that it didn't line up in one area.

There is a fault line here, which extends across the camp ground to the other side where you can also see that the hill slipped.
This is a different kind of cactus that was in bloom in this area.
Looking out the door of the trailer we could look across at the hillside across the river. It was hard to tell if we were looking at water reflection or a sand bar. It looked like water, but then again it looked like ground.

Finally, B walked down and stood at the water's edge. It is all reflection.

Traveling to the camp ground, we saw along the roadside lots of flowers with large white blooms. I said that if we saw some more, I wanted to stop and get a closer look and to take a picture of it. We did see some and we found a place to pull off. I went across the road and got these of it. The blossom is about three inches across and, as you can see, the stem and leaves are thorny.
These were also growing in the area.
We say other cactus varieties in bloom which I have pictures of from before. Here are some that remind me of a lit torch. (You have to zoom in.)

However, the best may have been this. After taking the above pictures I crossed the road and started back across the gravel pull out to get into the truck. I was about even with the front wheel when I heard a buzzing and saw this.





Needless to say, I backed up. I went to the side some and got this.

After we toss a couple rocks at him, he headed for under the trailer. I think he was looking for some shade. I'm not sure but that we may have ran over him. I hope not.

The road that we took may have been slow, but how scenic and interesting.

Small And Beautiful Blossoms

As some of you may know, the early months of this year brought lots of rain to California, which ended their drought. It has also been a blessing to the things growing around here. Compared to the last years, the plants that we had seen have larger blooms and there are a lot more of them. It has also brought into bloom many wild flowers.

Last Saturday B and I were hiking the trails. We were seeing lots of flowers now starting to bloom. The shrubs are about through. In the past couple of years that we have been here, we have not seen many of these flowers.

While we were hiking, it brought back memories of when I was a kid and riding with my Dad checking on the cattle on the mountain. Dad always seemed to know which wild flowers were in bloom and where to go to find them. When we were ready to head back home Dad would say that we needed to go to such and such a place. Once there he would pick some flowers, get his handkerchief wet into which he would wrap the flower stems, and then put them in his saddle bag until reaching home where he would present them to Mom.

So, as we headed back I started to pick a few of the different kinds of flowers that we were seeing. I made it a point to only pick from areas where there were lots of that kind growing. Also I limited it to small blooms. The largest are about one inch in diameter. That ended up with this. (You may want to enlarge these photos for better viewing.)

We also say a white blossom that was interesting. I had not taken my camera so I didn't get a picture of it. Since there was only the one bloom I didn't pick it. I tried to see if I could find it on the Internet to no avail.

So on Monday we went hiking again and this time I took the camera. After almost two miles we did find the plant and there was still a bloom on it. As you can see, it is the only bloom on the stem. There looked to be some very small buds further up the stem. There wasn't much for leaves at the bottom. I have no idea what is name is but we thought it was very unique.

So then we went picture 'picking.'

At the two mile area, which we call the picnic area because that is where we picnicked with W and C the first year were were here, there were several small blooms. This is an over view followed by individual ones. You will be able to see them better if you enlarge the pictures.
These next ones were so small, you had to get down close to see them.
Those are leaf pieces on the ground.

There were also some of these in the same area. They just looked like some fuzz on a stem until you looked really close.
Then there were a couple varieties that seemed to like each other and were growing together. They also seemed to love the sun.




There were also several of these in different areas. The buds all came out at the end of the stem.

In another area, there were about three kinds of very small flowers. I tried to get pictures up close of the yellow ones but they didn't turn out. They were maybe 1/4 inch across. You can also see some orange color in the photo. These were even smaller blossoms.

There are lots of yellow blooms now besides the ones I have shown. Here are a couple others.There is also a small purple bell, about an inch long. It's blossoms open as the end uncurls, sort of like a fern uncurls.

I also liked these small purple ones with their yellow, pointy center.

There are several bunches of these red flowers. They have been blooming for awhile and are on more of a bush.I laugh when I see this one because it looks like it just can't quite make it blossoming, but there are small blooms that come out on the edge. In the second picture you can see who it likes to be near.
It is interesting how in nature the color of flowers that grow together really go together.

Because of all the rain, there is also lots of grass. Also the yucca plants are much fuller and thicker this year. Most of their blossoms are all white, but this one had some color also.

Looking out across a hill it is pretty seeing them growing up and blooming.B is standing by the one on top of the hill on the left of the above picture.
Last but not least was the small yellow flowers growing along the path, shortly after starting up the trail. They remind us of the butter cups that we had in Montana.
Note the little violet colored and shaped flowers growing next to them, again complimenting colors.
Besides the flowers that we got pictures of, there is one other thing that I got.

A tick, the same kind that B got in February. That meant that we had to make a trip to town to get antibiotics as they also carry Lyme disease. They are sure more irritating to the skin than the ones I use to get when I was a kid.