April 2019

Books read:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Beauties: Essential Stories by Anton Chekhov

Trails walked:

West Pinto / Bull Basin / Haunted Canyon / Paradise Loop in the eastern Superstitions (April 3^rd)
Pine Canyon Trail near Payson (April 11^th)
Horton Creek near Payson (April 17^th)
Loy Canyon near Sedona (April 18^th)
Smith Ravine Trail to Spruce Mountain Lookout near Prescott (April 24^th)

Song of the month:

My Sweet Lord by Hurray for the Riff Raff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nCgDG31VhM

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there. -Robert M. Pirsig, author and philosopher (6 Sep 1928-2017)

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. -William Styron, novelist (11 Jun 1925-2006)

Unique Cloud formation along the Beeline highway

April is spring garden planting time in Phoenix. I have a small garden on the north side of the house. It gets enough sun, and the northern exposure protects the plants (somewhat) from the extreme summer heat. My son started the garden some years ago when he was toying with the idea of starting gardens for customers with enough money, but not enough time. This spring I planted 5 different varieties of tomato (nothing better tasting than a garden grown tomato), some peppers, green beans, watermelon, cucumbers, and basil. I’ll keep you posted when harvest time arrives. April is also rattlesnake season in the desert, as the snakes come out of brumation (similar to hibernation) where they have been sleeping in dens with hundreds of other snakes (Indiana Jones would love this). When the weather warms in April, they migrate from the dens to their hunting grounds which is why April is the month in which you are most likely to spot them on the move. So, this is the time of year that I like to hike with a walking stick to lead with in grassy areas where I can’t see where I’m stepping. It sounds terrifying to some, but, of the 37 years I’ve been hiking in the desert, I’ve seen maybe 30 rattlesnakes which is less than one per year, and in nearly every case, they give you a loud and clear warning before you are too near (Update: I saw a rattlesnake curled up under a bush on the Squaw...er...Piestewa Peak trail April 29th trying to hide from all the people huffing and puffing up the trail for their exercise...so, 31 snakes now).

Here is the garden's progression through April:

My song of the month is from a band I discovered on Spotify (more on this shortly). The band is Hurray for the Riff Raff and they cover George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord and make it their own. It starts out very slowly and then builds into a soul grabbing rendition. This is a great band out of New Orleans, and they have a lot of original stuff that is wonderful. Now about Spotify…our adult children have been wondering why we haven’t obtained a Spotify account where we can have access to 40 million songs anytime we want to hear them for $10 a month (which, by the way, would buy 10-12 albums in a year). No need to buy music ever again. But this is the rub for me. I can still fondly remember searching the record bins for the music I loved, coming home with an album or two, plopping it on the record player (Google it, those of you younger than 30), then slowly perusing the album cover and its mystery inner contents for the song lyrics and other fascinating tidbits while listening to the new music that I now owned and cherished. Well, then came 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, and CDs. These were all more efficient to use than albums (no need for that agonizingly difficult step of turning the album all the way over to the other side), but the interesting tidbits and album covers were either gone, or you needed magnifying glasses to read them. And then of course came the iPod which I eventually accepted many years after its introduction. With the iPod, I still purchased the music I wanted and owned and cherished it; but no more interesting tidbits to read unless it was online with a link or a file that came with the music. Now we have music streaming; no need to purchase any music; just find it, listen to it, put it on a playlist, “like” it, download it or just forget it….and with 40 million songs to choose from, it’s pretty easy to forget most of it because you can’t listen to 40 million songs, or even 1 million songs in your life unless that’s all you did. I mean, I have 17,000 songs on my iPod, and I listen to maybe 2,000 of them on a somewhat regular basis. Spotify (and other streaming sites) are great for finding new music you would like (their data algorithms are really good at determining what you like based on what you listen to); they are also great for searching for music; and they are great for forming playlists and listening to music anywhere your phone is. But…. there will never again be that same feeling of purchasing, owning, and cherishing the music the way it used to be. Does that mean that people will no longer appreciate and love their music the way we once did? I don’t know. I do know that artists get some money from streaming services, but it’s minuscule compared to what they get from actual music sales; it’s why many bands make most of their money on concerts these days. I suppose a compromise I could make is that when I hear music I love on Spotify, I can go to the band’s web page and purchase their music directly from them. Maybe that’s what I’ll do (especially since I’m glomming onto my son’s account for now, so I’m not even paying the $10 a month).

I've been wanting to read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe for some time. It's considered by many to be the first great novel written by an African, about Africa. It's still required reading in many African schools. The author is from Nigeria and has heavily influenced the writing of many of the great new African writers like Chamamanda Ngozi Adiche. It's set in the late 1800s, in the time of white colonialism. The story is focused on Okonkwo, a fearless Igbo warrior in the village of Umuofia. There are several issues explored in this relatively short novel (around 200 pages). Okonkwo's father was not a great man and was considered lazy by most in the village. So, Okonkwo became his opposite. Through hard work, and good networking, he created a prosperous life for his 3 wives and many children. For many years the people in the village lived as they had for centuries, hunting for food, harvesting yams, making offerings to their gods, occasionally fighting with other villages. After an incident involving Okonkwo's forcibly adopted son, Okonkwo was banned from the village for 7 years and had to return to his mother's village and restart his life with his wives and children. During these 7 years, and in the time when he finally returned to his village, the white missionaries started coming. The villages became divided between those who wanted to keep the old ways with the old gods, and those that believed in the new Christian god. Achebe did a nice job writing in such a way to fully understand why some would choose one way and some the other way. For example, their tradition stated that whenever a woman gave birth to twins, it was considered a sign of evil and the twins were left in the forest to die. There were other examples like this which made it easy for some to disavow their traditions in favor of this new, more benevolent god. But the white man had laws that interfered with other traditions which included arresting and hanging villagers inconsistently for perceived crimes, and this made it easy for some to disavow the new Christian god and the white man. It was a great peek into the beginnings of colonialism in this particular village...the way it happened methodically and at times heavy handed. I wasn't enthralled by the story, I wasn't riveted. It was good, but I certainly appreciate it for the path it paved for African authors and a native viewpoint of the continent, rather than the white man's viewpoint (Hemingway, Conrad).

For the first hike of the month, hiking buddy (HB) and I picked the eastern Superstitions. As you may have guessed by now, I love these desert mountains. I would estimate that 90% of the people who hike the Superstitions, hike in the western part, which leaves the eastern section somewhat free of people. I suppose it’s mainly due to the extra hour or so it takes to reach the trailheads out there from Phoenix. This is the only part of Arizona in which I’ve spotted a mother bear and her cubs. The wilderness area here reaches 5,000-6,000 feet in elevation vs the 2,000-4,000 feet in the western Superstitions. We created a 10 plus mile loop from the West Pinto / Bull Basin / Haunted Canyon / Paradise trails. There were no cars on the 10-mile dirt road, no cars in the trailhead parking lot, and no people on any of the trails. The road from US60 to the trailhead is a bit confusing as the first few miles meander through private commercial copper mines in the Globe-Miami area before reaching Forest Road 287A (Google Maps got it right but was confused at times). The mines in this area are huge, open pit mines. Arizona mines provide more than half of the copper in the US. People love to complain about open pit mines killing mountains (which they do), but people also love their electronics and their plumbing and wiring in their homes. The last 6 miles of the road is fairly rough and slow going. We started at the Miles Ranch trailhead which is at, what appears to be, an abandoned ranch site with a small building and some corral fencing in a beautiful green valley with the west fork of Pinto Creek running through it. The creeks all had water in them on this trip which made nice background music. It was a tough 10 miles due to the 3,000 feet in elevation gain/loss, very rocky trails, and some bushwhacking. A machete would have come in handy for about 2 miles on the Bull Basin trail, and if you would like, you can go up there and find some of my DNA on the many thorny bushes on that trail. But we had great views of Mound Mountain, Sawtooth Ridge, and Government Hill. The last 2 miles along the aptly named Paradise trail were beautiful; rippling creek waters, pine trees, junipers, sycamores, cottonwood, oak, and even a 15-foot waterfall which was unexpected. A nice day in paradise and isolation…we were happy that the car started because help would have been a long time coming (I think a portable car battery jump starter is in my future).

One of several open pit mines on drive to the trailhead

Ranch building near the trailhead

Rocky trail

Bushwhacking to find the trail

Trail Art

Great views on top

Sawtooth Ridge view

Beautiful creeks everywhere

Look ma! A Waterfall in the desert!

It says "A Novel" on the front cover of What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons, but after reading the book and then reading a bit about the author, I wonder if this is more memoir than novel. In either case it is a stunning debut for this new author. The woman telling the story, Thandi, is raised in an upper middle-class neighborhood near Philadelphia by her South African mother who is a nurse, and her African-American father who is a university math professor. In South Africa, her mother is considered "coloured" which is neither black, nor white, but mixed race, though in the US she is considered black. Her South African extended family all still live within 20 miles of each other near Johannesburg and they too are upper middle class. Thandi was born as apartheid was ending. Her family would spend winter holidays in the summer of South Africa in a nice vacation home they owned. If you had a nice home in Johannesburg (or Joburg as they call it), it was normally surrounded by security fences, cameras, even guards due to the high incidence of violent crime there. When her relatives would visit their home near Philly, they would ask where the security fencing was and if they were in danger. She thought Oscar Pistorius’ version of his crime (the disabled South African Olympian athlete who purportedly killed his girlfriend because he mistook her for an intruder) was plausible as there was an extreme fear of violent crime there. This was another short novel (around 200 pages) filled with so much of everything. The story drifts back and forth in time and place and many times goes completely off script and into essays on Winnie Mandela's crimes; Kevin Carter, the South African photographer who won a Pulitzer prize for his devastating photo of a starving child in Sudan being watched by a vulture (he committed suicide weeks after he won that Pulitzer); relationships, race, and coming of age. The Guardian's review of the book called it "a debut of haunting fragments." Her thoughts are deep and revealing. In the end, the story is about the pain of grief and how one can (or cannot) handle that grief. Her commentary on relationships with strong women are familiar to me as I'm married to one, who also gave birth to one! I look forward to more from this author.

We are taking care of our daughter’s dog (DD) while she’s on a 3-week river trip, so I decided to take him on a long walk in the mountains. We walked around 11 miles (5.5 each way) on the Pine Canyon trail near Pine, Arizona. The first quarter of a mile of this hike is on the Arizona trail, so that’s another 0.03% of it that I’ve done! We didn’t hike all the way to the Mogollon rim as that would have required a 22-mile hike. But it was a nice walk in the woods from the Pine trailhead. There was a lot of up and down, with around 1500 feet of elevation gain/loss and nice views of the Mazatzals. The town of Pine was visible throughout much of this trail due to its many switchbacks. I think that the upper end of the hike would get you out of view of the town and I will do that part, hopefully, later this year. The dog was very excited to explore an elk carcass and all the smells surrounding it (see photo below). Other than the elk carcass, the hike was uneventful. Just a nice walk in the mountains with temps in the 50s. After the hike we visited my father-in-law who lives in one of those “tiny homes” in Pine. It was a nice visit and he was very happy to show us around his new place (the tour didn’t take very long😉). You often hear about young, environmentally conscious people living in tiny homes so it’s heartening to see someone not in that demographic living in one. They are very nice and cozy, around 400 square feet and he loves living in the mountains. On the way back home, I spotted a very artistic cloud on the east side of the Beeline highway. It’s the photo you see at the beginning of this blog (no photo-shopping done here).

Arizona Trail marker

Nice views along the way

Finishing off his kill?

Lots of trails to follow

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte surprised me. I was expecting an old-fashioned period piece, some of which are pretty good (Great Expectations), others of which are difficult to read because of the more formal way people spoke then (The Scarlet Letter). But I found this book quite easy to read and the story was really advanced for its time with its independent, intelligent female protagonist. This book was published in 1847 under the pen name of Currer Bell (same initials as Charlotte Bronte, but a male pen name). Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights was published under the pen name of Ellis Bell. At the time, it was thought that these great novels would be seen as “not feminine enough” to be written by women, therefore the decision to use the pen names. I wonder how much JK Rowling (Harry Potter author) was influenced by Jane Eyre. Jane was an orphan, raised as a child by relatives who hated and mistreated her (same as Harry Potter). She then went to a boarding school (Jane was 10, Harry was 11) where she learned and flourished. Then she went on adventures to discover her true self. I'm sure somebody has already written about this similarity. The thing I loved about Jane Eyre was her fighting spirit and her strong principles which shone through at all points during her life, whether she was poor and destitute, or rich and comfortable. She never takes the easy way out if it compromised what she felt was right. From her childhood where she was badly treated, to her boarding school, to her days as a governess, then her short period of homelessness, next, as a teacher, and then when she finally finds true love, happiness, and satisfaction (even though her particular climactic situation would not be ideal for many). I enjoyed this book all the way through.

One of Arizona’s many treasures is the hike up Horton Creek to its namesake spring east of Payson. It’s become very popular these days and summer weekends are like a giant traffic jam up there. However, on a Spring weekday, DD and I had the springs all to ourselves. Although we did pass a tour group of around 10 Instagramming Korean women hiking out as we were hiking in. It’s about 3.5 miles from the trailhead to the spring, near the junction of Horton Creek trail and the Highline trail which traverses the base of the Mogollon Rim. It was a beautiful day, with some rain sprinkles and nice clouds and temps in the 50s. And the creek was running high and clear with some nice small waterfalls and the sound of the creek throughout the entire hike. DD enjoyed chasing the squirrels and wishing he could climb trees.

Lots of small waterfalls along the way

More waterfalls

Calm waters below the spring

Trail Art

DD with Horton Spring in background

After the first few pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, I was thinking to myself that this is really only a cute and creative children's book and I was nearly to the point of stopping reading it when all of a sudden the conversations between Alice and some of the characters started to get interesting. The word play is what grabbed me finally. The entire chapter on the Mock Turtle was my favorite, filled to the brim with puns and word play. And just look at some of the quotes and conversations from this very slim book:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

I was half humming Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit as I was reading about Alice eating mushrooms to make her larger or smaller. The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and I Am the Walrus were inspired by this book. Lewis Carroll (that's his pen name, his actual name was Charles Dodgson) was also a mathematician, and wrote several books and pamphlets on symbolic logic, religion, and politics. A very bright and imaginative person. However, there was some controversy about his attachment to young girls, including drawing and photographing them in the nude which his defenders say was not seen as unusual in that period (Alice was based on the 10-year-old daughter of Oxford's dean who was Charles Dodgson’s boss). His defenders also state that he was pure in his love for children (same thing Michael Jackson's defenders say). I have no idea if Lewis Carroll was good or evil because I'm not a Victorian era England historian, but he would likely have been castigated today for some of the things he did (he was a lifelong bachelor, hung out with kids a lot with no other adult supervision, made nude portraits and photographs of them...). And, somewhat ironically, Vladimir Nabokov (author of Lolita) is the person who translated Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into Russian! I've always been a strong believer in separating the art from the artist, mainly because most great artists are strange in some way.... however...oh never mind, this is getting too dark, I don't want to go all the way down that rabbit hole...(see what I did there?).

Through the Looking Glass was published 7 years after Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I enjoyed this book even more than the original. The whole concept of another world with wild and deranged characters existing on the other side of the mirror seems like something only young children could imagine. And then to overlay the story and Alice's movements as a complete game of chess! She has engaging conversations with Kings, Queens, and Knights who can only accompany her through specific patches (chess squares) of land. Not to mention unicorns, Humpty Dumpty, a walrus, TweedleDee and Tweedledum, and a bread-and-butterfly. And more great quotes:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

“Who did you pass on the road?" the King went on, holding out his hand to the Messenger for some more hay.

"Nobody," said the Messenger.

"Quite right," said the King; "this young lady saw him too. So of course, Nobody walks slower than you."

"I do my best," the Messenger said in a sullen tone. "I'm sure nobody walks much faster than I do!"

"He can't do that," said the King, "or else he'd have been here first.”

Say or think what you will of Lewis Carroll, these books and the conversations, ideas, and imagery are spectacular. And it's totally understandable how the music and drug culture of the 60s turned to these stories for inspiration.

April is generally a perfect time of year to hike in the Sedona area with cool mornings and warm days. Sedona is another Arizona treasure and there are some spectacular hiking trails surrounding town, most of them filled with tourists from all over the world. HB and I chose the Loy Canyon trail. There are other Sedona trails that I would recommend over this one if you haven’t hiked in red rock country before (Bear Mountain, Sterling Pass, Cathedral Rock, Brins Mesa, etc.). However, the lure of Loy Canyon is that there are fewer people and the hike takes you from brushy desert to lush canyon to tall pines in about 5 miles and 1800 feet of elevation gain. The trailhead is located on Forest Road 525 about 9 miles northwest of highway 89 south of Sedona. The first 7 miles of the road is a nice smooth dirt road and the last 2 miles are a bit rougher but still probably ok for most sedans (maybe not a Prius…). The trailhead is just outside the gate for the Honanki Heritage site, a nice set of ancient cliff dwellings from the 12^th-14^th centuries. I would highly recommend a visit here in addition to the Loy Canyon hike if you have the time. The first 4 miles of the trail is a steady, slight incline through high desert and beautiful Loy Canyon. Then the last 1.2 miles is a tough uphill scramble out of the creek bed to a saddle near Secret Mountain and the Secret Mountain trail where we ate lunch among tall pine trees and a cool breeze. Someday I’ll walk the Secret Mountain trail, but the trailhead is a 3-hour drive from Phoenix, so it will be a long day. The hike back to the car was much quicker and we enjoyed the lowering sun lighting up the red rocks on the drive back down FR525. By the way, there are some great dispersed camping spots along this road with terrific views of the red rocks.

Loy Butte near the start of the trail

A true scramble to the top

Under the overhang

Great views near the top

Pine trees on top by Secret Mt trail

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) wrote 2 novellas, 11 plays, and over 200 short stories. Haruki Murakami, who has written some of my favorite novels, references Chekhov in some of his stories, but up to now I hadn't read anything by him. I picked up a collection of 13 of his short stories at the library, called The Beauties: Essential Stories which contains three of his most famous ones: The Lady with the Little Dog, The Kiss, and The Bet. Chekhov, himself had an interesting and eventful life which, many times, provides the inspiration for great artists. His abusive father eventually went bankrupt and the family became destitute. Chekhov helped the family survive by tutoring and writing articles and short stories for various publications. He eventually became a medical doctor and once famously said, "Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other." I guess that quote doesn't fare too well in today's #MeToo environment, but it's still a pretty good quote...I enjoyed all 13 stories in this collection, but the one that stood out for me was "The Bet", in which a rich banker and a young lawyer argue which is the worse punishment: Execution or life in prison. The banker states that life in prison is worse and lawyer says that ANY life is better than death. The banker bets the lawyer two million dollars that he couldn't last 5 years in confinement and the lawyer says he could last 15 years for that amount of money. So, they shake hands and arrangements are made to keep the lawyer confined in a small hut on the banker's property. He's allowed books and writing material, but no company. He must wait out the 15 years to the minute or the bet is lost. During those 15 years he undergoes profound changes, at first being depressed, then reading the classics, then learning different languages. He went through one period where he only drank wine and wasted time doing nothing. Then he studied religions, science, nature, history. The day before the 15 years ended, the banker (who had lost most of his money in speculations and couldn't afford to pay the bet), went to the building with intent to suffocate the man with a pillow while he slept to void the bet, but as he was about to do this he saw a long letter the prisoner had written on his philosophy of life. He had renounced the world and all its wars, death, and destruction, and the two million dollars and planned to leave the building 5 hours before the deadline and void the bet himself.... which he did.... the end. Wow. That's just one 10-page story. The guy was a seriously great writer.

By the way, if you’ve managed to read this far, you get rewarded with this awesome website I found which contains most of Chekhov’s short stories and many other great classic works of literature for FREE. It’s here: https://americanliterature.com/

Temperatures in the Phoenix area were hitting the mid-90s, so HB and I headed up to the pines in Prescott for a cool walk in the woods on the Smith Ravine Trail to Spruce Mountain Lookout. Prescott’s population has more than doubled since we moved to Arizona in the early 80s (around 45,000 now), however Prescott Valley just southeast of Prescott has grown from around 2,000 people in 1980 to nearly 45,000 today! Prescott Valley is now a very long and slow series of stoplights and strip malls all the way into Prescott. However, the towns have done a good job of adding and maintaining the many recreation trails in the surrounding mountains. We’ve done several hikes in the area but have yet to even put a dent into exploring them all. The parking area for the Smith Ravine Trail is tiny and very easy to miss. Google maps knows exactly where it is, but it’s still well hidden on the west side of Walker road around 2 miles south of Lynx lake. The trail starts out steeply in a burned-out area with lots of new growth but no shade for the first half mile or so, and before you know it, you’re in the cool shade of large pine and spruce trees. The trail winds 3 miles from Walker Road up to Forest Road 52A and is peaceful, shady, and generally uphill, but not a lung burner. We decided to add on another mile and a quarter and walk up Forest Road 52A to the Spruce Mountain fire lookout station. We didn’t see a single car on the road and only saw 2 mountain bikers and one hiker on the Smith Ravine trail. When we reached the lookout tower, we scratched our heads and said, “We’ve been here before!” And it’s true; in March of 2017 we hiked up the Groom Creek trail which approaches the tower from the west side of the mountain, today we approached from the east side. Who knew? There are terrific views of Granite Mountain, Bill Williams Mountain, and the San Francisco Peaks from up here. We were even able to see a fire from the picnic tables that was in the area of Wet Beaver Creek east of Sedona….we pondered climbing up to the fire tower and letting the ranger know about it, but figured she would have looked at us and wondered if we thought she were blind or something…so we decided against it. The hike back down to the trailhead was a breeze, mostly downhill. Not much wildlife to report other than birds and lizards; but we did see a death struggle between a baby millipede and some small flying ants…we could just hear David Attenborough narrating the struggle….”the tiny millipede wrenches its body in opposition to the relentlessly attacking flying ants in a life and death struggle which occurs each day in our natural world.”