Arizona Desert Respite

Sunset in The Superstition Mountains

 (Click on any photo to enlarge it for better viewing.)

Wednesday, March 16    Carol lies on the chaise lounge, asleep, the patio umbrella shielding her from the desert heat.  It must be near ninety degrees, but who knows?  Who needs to measure?  I stand in mountain pose in full sun, facing north to the nearby Superstitions Mountains.  We are just where we want to be.  A respite from lingering winter.  And from cancer, which nevertheless has followed us, shadowing us, muted for the moment.

Plank pose.  Downward dog.  Three beach towels provide an almost adequate replacement for my yoga mat, although my feet slip on the towels.  I'm grateful for the heat pressing into my back.  The pool awaits for when I finish my yoga.

Our first full day in the desert.  Pat and Bill have gone off to Scottsdale to visit friends.  We have the house to ourselves.  Quiet surrounds us.  Close by, songbirds perch atop saguaro cactus and hide in cholla, startling us with beautiful melodies that are foreign to our city dwellers' ears.  They sound happy to pass the day in the desert.  And why not?

Closer still, wind chimes the size of small organ pipes hum bass notes that hint of timelessness.  I think of monks at prayer.

Past Its Prime, With Mid-Day Moon

It's not our usual style of travel.  By now, we'd have logged our first long hike into some canyon in the Superstitions, signed up for a horseback trail ride, found bicycles to use and planned our next hike, early in the morning or evening to avoid the heat of the day.  Carol doesn't have the strength yet for all that.  Still, we are happy to be here, grateful for this day.

Last Days of Winter

Thursday Morning Early    I'm the only one up.  I have the patio to myself for Tai Chi.  The sky is freshly blue, the Superstitions still in shadow, silent and bold.  Later in the day, when the sun is high overhead, it will wash the drama from both.  As I begin, my hands feel the morning chill.  The rising sun paints an east-facing cliff before my eyes, then another and another.   As the sun peeks over the roof of the neighbor's house, its rays touch the side of my face and my hands, warming them.  Birds flit from saguaro to a bare tree and back, calling to one another.  A terrier on a walk with its human  runs to the fence of our property and stares at me, head tilted.  Who are you, his look says.  Do you want to play?

Night Approaches

Friday Morning    Carol and I take a drive to the Boyce Canyon Arboretum, twenty miles down the Superstition Highway.  We arrive before the crowds.  It's a lovely place.  Carol and I get separated right away when I stop to take photos.  We don't meet up until later, after I've walked the mile and a quarter perimeter loop alone.  I expected to catch up to her and don't know how I missed her.  I worry a bit, something I never do because she's so independent.  That's her illness, working on my mind.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  The photo that separated Carol and me.

Man-made pond, Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Cactus Flower, Arboretum

At the far end of the property, I spot a suspension foot bridge over a dried up stream bed with a few stubborn pools of water.  I check my map and see that it leads to an off-the-beaten-track "high trail."  Another time Carol and I would have taken this trail without a second thought.  I walk onto the bridge, feeling it undulate beneath my feet.  I stop for a moment's reflection, then return to the main loop, eager to reunite with Carol.

Saturday Morning, Temperature Seventy-Six and Rising    Mary Jo, our house/dog sitter, texts us daily with an update.  Rowdie and the house are doing well.  This morning she reports a coating of white outside and icy sidewalks.

Other Times, Other Thoughts    The massive, dramatic and stark Superstitions loom over the desert in the moonlight.  Coyotes howl. 

Strike It Rich Drive, Strong Box Lane, Desert Dawn Drive, Louis L'amour Lane, Gold Canyon Way, Mountain Vista Road, Apache Way, Pony Rider Lane, Tomahawk Trail.  Talk about a sense of place.

Carol and I walk each morning after breakfast, as far as she can handle, which is a little farther each day.  The air temperature is still in the 70's, but the sun's heat is fierce.  The dial is turned to high.

I don't think I've ever been to a movie theater with twenty-five screens.  Twenty-five!  The Harkin Superstition Springs 25 is my first.  Every staff person is not only unfailingly polite but also engages us in brief conversation - the ticket seller, the ticket taker, the concession worker who sold me my popcorn.  At the end of the movie as we exit the theater, a young man with a large trash barrel and a broom waits at the door for the theater to empty.  "Thank you for attending," he says.  "I hope you enjoyed the movie."

We see "The Lady in the Van."  Carol and I always end our movie discussions with the question, would you recommend it?  Carol:  to someone who just loves movies or is a Maggie Smith fan.  Marc:  to any one who likes a good story well-told.

Past Its Prime, Sunset

Pat and Bill's cat is a genial sort.  She's not allowed out of the house.  The yard is fenced, but there are breaches in the defenses through which rabbits and roadrunners can hop in and, presumably, kitty cats can scamper out.  She often sits motionless, watching, tail flicking.  Is it a quail?  A vole?  A bunny?  She stares so long and so intently that I want to open the screen door for her and say, "Go!  Run!  Be free!"  In reality, if she got out all she would eventually be is dinner for some coyote.

Other times, when the cat isn't asleep on a favorite chair, she sits patiently by the side of the sliding screen door, waiting for one of us to drop our guard as we enter or exit.  The call of the wild is strong.

Each evening as the sun sets, we walk the perimeter track of the golf course, which lies just beyond a small patch of desert outside our patio.  Each night we walk, until Carol gets tired, toward King's Ranch Road, a few hundred yards away and a small fraction of the perimeter.  Last night we set out in the opposite direction and kept walking until we had circled the perimeter.  A small victory on the road to recovery.

I've laughed out loud a lot this week.  Something to savor.

Evening Walk

Ocotillo Under A Full Moon

On Our Evening Walk

On one of our evening walks, I say to Carol that I am trying to conjure a coyote, or maybe a javelina, walking in the desert scrub nearby.  I badly want to see these creatures.  She replies that she is trying to conjure no wild animals.

Our Last Day in the Desert    Carol and I are up early for a drive to Tortilla Flat (not the Tortilla Flat that John Steinbeck wrote about, which later became a motion picture).  We stop early  for a mini-hike in Lost Dutchman State Park, on the other side of the Superstitions.

The Superstitions in Lost Dutchman State Park

The Superstitions in the Morning, Lost Dutchman S.P.

Brittle Bush

The drive from Lost Dutchman to Tortilla Flat is a beautiful and slow meander through the mountains over twisty, curvy roads.  We negotiate a switchback and round a curve and are startled to see below us the brilliant blue waters of Canyon Lake, created when a dam was built between 1915 and 1925.  Oversized pick-ups hauling boats are road companions now.  Such an incongruous sight after a week in the desert.

Tortilla Flat can't be much different than it was when it was founded in 1889.  In short, not much there.  It's a turn-around point for us.  Beyond Tortilla Flat the road narrows, becomes gravel and, according to an article in the March 12 Star Tribune, Arizona's Wildest Ride.

We are back at Pat and Bill's, after a stop at the Apache Junction Library to print our boarding passes, in time to loll away our remaining hours by the pool.

Little Church in the Desert

Bill and Pat Proulx, Good Friends, Crafty Card Players