Location: Tulsa, Holbrook
When: Early May
Miles traveled: 1201.8
Price of gas: 3.79 to 4.39, but also saw 5.10
Interest: Giant Saguaro
Grocery store: Safeway
High point: "Getting the train to China" (old fashioned metal playground with kids)
Low point: Getting used to the warm weather resulting in feeling cold when temperature drops below 70
One thing learned: What it was like to work in a gold mine
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Giant Saguaro in bloom
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My visit to Arizona started in the south east, camping at a night sky preserve just below Tulsa. It's challenging to look for stars when the moon rises early and is 4/5th full. Serendipitously, I had trouble sleeping multiple nights, and once on my way back from the bathhouse in the early AM saw two shooting stars! I have also seen hints of the Milky Way during my travels, but no awesome views of it. During the day, I visited Saguaro (pronounced sa-wah-row) National Park. It is a nice place to see and learn about giant saguaro cacti. Saguaro grow and live longer than humans. Flowers develop on the top of the cacti yearly after the plant has been growing for 35 years and their arms (side branches) start growing after 60 years of life. They are at their full height after growing ~150 years. The green folds of the "trunk" expand and contract depending on how much water is in the plant. They also have ribs on the inside which provide strength and support needed to grow tall. Another interesting tree is the Palo Verde (pictured below on left). During droughts, it drops it's leaves and small branches to conserve water and relies on the green trunk for photosynthesis.
's exclamations when they saw the state on my car's license plate! Quail and rabbits were abundant at Lost Dutchman SP, and I grew accustomed to the quail's song. Lost Dutchman is the name given to Jacob Waltz, the man who found gold in the Superstition Mt in the late 1800s. Goldfield mining town was built in the area during that time, and now is an interesting tourist ghost town. Visitors can eat at two restaurants, buy gifts at a number of shops, dress up in 1800s period clothing to have their photograph taken, watch an old west gun fight (November to April), and learn about the history on various tours. I enjoyed the gold mine tour more than the gauge railroad tour. Here are somethings I learned from the mine tour...
In the 1890s, a loaf of bread cost 5 cents and a normal day's wage was $1. Underground in the mine, workers earned $2 to $5 a day. $2 if you were in charge of emptying the toilet, $3 for almost all the other jobs, and $5 if you were in charge of the elevator shaft lift. Most of the workers were 13 to 20 year old boys. Each day they received a gallon of water and 4 or 5 candles before going into the mine. The mine was lit by candle light, and they used as few candles as possible since no one wanted to chance being underground in an emergency without any light. A 40 minute pitch black ride down an elevator shaft took them 1,000+ feet into the mine where they
hammered 3" by 7' long holes into the rock walls. When enough holes were drilled into an area, dynamite sticks were inserted and one "lucky" person lit the fuse. This "lucky" person got 58 seconds to run on uneven rock floor that was littered with rocks, tools, and mine cart rails, in the dark with a one candle beacon shining from the "safe" area where all the other workers had already taken cover. After the explosion, the loose rocks with gold and other precious gems were sent to the surface. The mine eventually had seven levels where over a thousand people worked. Ground water became a challenge and pumps were designed and installed on each level. These pumps were not electric, a person had to constantly pump a lever to move the water to the surface. After five years, the water in the mine became too much and the quality of the gems had also diminished. The mine was abandoned and it flooded. When the mines closed, the town died. I don't know the numbers, but the mines, while active for only five years, made a large profit from gold, silver, and other gems.
Traveling north again, I made my way to Holbrook, a town near Petrified Forest NP. Sometimes described as two parks in one, Petrified Forest NP is actually a small area inside the Painted Desert which continues farther north west. And unlike Saguaro NP with its one entrance/exit, this NP is point to
point. Most visitors enter at one end of the park and exit at the other
end. The south entrance focuses on the abundant petrified wood, and the
north entrance focuses on the geology of the painted desert. Since I already visited a petrified forest in Mississippi, I was more
interested in the Painted Desert aspect of the park.
For two days I explored, driving the length of the park on day one and stopping at many scenic view points. On day two, I hiked for two hours in the park's northern red wilderness area and then hiked the Blue Mesa Loop. It was fun to hike "off trail" in the wilderness. Park rangers could be consulted before hand for directions to various places of interest, but I was not interested in "going somewhere". I just wanted to enjoy the experience of finding my own way "there" and back. While there were no maintained trails, the many foot steps of other hikers became a trail and the washes (dried river beds) were also easy to follow. Deciding to divert from a wash and clamber down a large rocky area was awesome! And later seeing the many footprints of other who chose to go through the rocks, did not lessen my enjoyment. I picked a rock formation in the distance and hiked to it. Then after a break, I hiked back a different way. The red dirt areas were softer to walk on than the white dirt, and the red crumbled more easily under my feet. In a large wash, patches of slightly darker dirt told of ground water just under the surface.
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| Wilderness |
The Blue Mesa Loop is a popular one mile paved trail located near the middle of the park. Here most of the layers in the rock have a blue or purple hue, where as hiking in the north the layers were red. The colors help indicate when in history they were deposited. The blue layers are much older than the red layers. As I'm not a big history buff, I did not concern myself with the details. I enjoyed hiking the Blue Mesa Loop because the layers or bands of color were more distinct than in the north. It was also cool to recognize a rock formation that I sketched the night before. I had taken pictures of this area when driving through the park and had then drawn one of my photos. When hiking, I recognized the formation by it's shape and bands of color which I had drawn the previous night.
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View from Blue Mesa Loop trail
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The last location I'll talk is Horseshoe Bend, in Page. Parking costs a horrible $10 for such a short visit, but it was a beautiful sight! With binoculars, I spotted some people resting on the bend's inside shore, their bright colored boats sitting on the beach.
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Horseshoe Bend
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Newspaper Rock petroglyphs
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View from binoculars
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Petrified Forest NP/Painted Desert
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Petrified toast, an amazing french toast style mixture of cheese, butter, and garlic!
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| Pottery from Mata Ortiz, a town in Mexico |
The Blue Mesa Loop is a popular one mile paved trail located near the middle of the park. Here most of the layers in the rock have a blue or purple hue, where as hiking in the north the layers were red. The colors help indicate when in history they were deposited. The blue layers are much older than the red layers. As I'm not a big history buff, I did not concern myself with the details. I enjoyed hiking the Blue Mesa Loop because the layers or bands of color were more distinct than in the north. It was also cool to recognize a rock formation that I sketched the night before. I had taken pictures of this area when driving through the park and had then drawn one of my photos. When hiking, I recognized the formation by it's shape and bands of color which I had drawn the previous night. 
