Sedona down to Payson via some state parks.

We left Sedona after a last visit
to the art galleries which are full of interesting and quirky pieces.








Montezuma Castle

I got a mornings flying in with the Central Arizona Flyers before we moved on to Montezuma Castle. This is a pueblo people’s building, another built in the shelter of an overhanging cliff. When the early white explorers saw it they assumed that it was too well built to be a product of the local Indians and thought it had to of Aztec origin and this is the reason for the name.
We could only look at this 5 story 20 room dwelling built high on a vertical cliff and marvel at the agility and the endurance of the builders in the 12th century. The stream below was a reliable source of water and the flood plain provided fertile soil for the squash, beans and corn that was their staple food. Yet this dwelling with its attached lower village of 45 more rooms at the base of the cliff was abandoned by the early 1400s.

Fort Verde

The Fort is the best preserved example left in the southern states. Unlike the movie forts the southern forts had no stockade but relied on good lookouts. Anyway the local tribes avoided big set piece battles preferring to make hit and run raids on supply trains and small settlements or patrols. The soldiers sent to garrison this fort had no idea of how to track the raiders but they employed scouts from local tribes who could. We learned how the tribes were not united but in fact existed in a state perpetual intertribal slave taking and raiding for horses so it was not difficult for the scouts to feel OK about working with the army
. In fact as most of the tribes were crammed into one tiny reservation, this was a way for a young man to acquire wealth and status. In 22 years 11 scouts won the USA’s top award for valour. As this was only 120 years ago the oral memories of the scouts live on in the minds of their descendents and someone had tracked them down, recorded them and edited the stories into a some short films. It was quite eerie listening to a first nation slant on the Indian wars.

When the forts were abandoned at the end of the Indian wars those parts made of wood were dismantled and the timbers reused elsewhere, those made of adobe could not and were just left.
The four we looked at were adobe and were refurbished as living quarters. The commanding officer’s quarters were well furnished and quite genteel in contrast to the bachelor’s quarters which had guns stripped for cleaning on the dining room table and a poker game in the back room.







Tonto Natural Bridge

This was a find. We only stopped here because it was on our route to Phoenix. We had seen other natural arches including the rainbow arch at lake Powell, supposedly the best in the USA and expected this one to be less impressive. We were wrong.. This arch is different.
A different set of geological circumstances resulted in a massive arch of travertine over a river.


The trail down to the bottom of the canyon and back, taxed Carol’s strength to the limit as she is recovering from a severe bout of shingles. We walked over the top of the bridge and dropped down into the canyon.
Apparently the water flowing from the top of the bridge is still rich



in the mineral travertine and the bridge is still being built one drop at a time. Although there are no signs of first nation dwellings it is hard to believe that this site with it’s reliable water supply and convenient caves was never inhabited.

We are sitting in the rain in Payson at 5000 feet glad that the forecast snow level has been moved upwards to 7000 feet. It has been a long time since we have had some serious rain but we might get 2 inches today. This will produce "gulley washers" as the soil does not absorb the rain very well and it floods off into theses temporary rivers.

Williams to Sedona

Horrible Zoo

We visited a deer farm / petting zoo near Williams on Route 66. The pigmy goats were seriously cute and seemed to take turns in the bath tub in the middle of their small compound. The deer expected to be fed by the visitors as you were prompted to buy a cup of deer feed on the way in as you bought your ticket. Some deer were full up and content to lie in the dust in the shade in the middle of their compound others looking like they were eating for two would follow you around waiting to be fed.
I was concerned by the lack of stimulation for many of the animals who did not have visitors in their compounds. All they had was a small area of red dirt and a little shade.
Some of the animals, like the caribou are used to cold climates and must really suffer in the heat of the Arizona summer when daily temperatures approach 90f.


The whole place had not one blade of grass, just rocks and red dirt. Tiny fenced compounds with no enrichment, at best a shed offering some relief from the Arizona sun.

All in all I did not like this place and believe it needs looking at by someone with the animals welfare at heart.

Oak Creek Canyon

This leads down from Flagstaff to Sedona and is a mini grand canyon. The road was impressive and I wish the information given by the visitors centre had been the same. We were expecting to stay in one campground which was closed even though the web site said otherwise, the one we were directed to was open but took tents only although the web site said short RVs were acceptable, our final site we were directed to was miles away and there were several others closer that we were not told about. We finished up in Cottonwood at The Dead Horse Ranch State park. It was OK just further than we needed to go.

SEDONA

Next day we back tracked to Sedona which was a find. The weather is great. We are back in shorts. The shops are interesting. Carol is happy and goes shopping. There is a good flying field nearby. John is happy and goes flying. There is a really nice RV park inside Sedona within walking distance of the free bus service which runs around the interesting bits. So the Trek is happy and gets a rest.


We spent a day using the free shuttle bus and exploring the shops, art galleries and quirky little courtyards on offer.

Sedona is a four seasons playground for everyone. It has history and archaeology; arts and culture; power shopping; outdoor sports. It also has much to offer in the spiritual and metaphysical fields plus internationally known Vortex meditation sites which are locations having energy flows in those deeper dimension that the Soul can soar on.



All of this with a backdrop of some of the most spectacular scenery in the world including SNOOPY.



Finally flying after many frustrations

I got a good days flying in with the Central Arizona Modellers,
after fiddling with the tank on my big Yak and replacing the throttle servo on the little delta which then performed nicely now I have increased the size of the fin to avoid the involuntary inverted spin.

Sacagawea

As we explored the North East USA we kept coming across references to the heroic exploits of Lewis and Clark whose journey across ¾ s of the northern USA had been the second non native expedition to the Pacific. However we found out in Sedona that one reason for their success was their Indian companion, Sacagawea, and her infant son. This Shoshone woman, married to the French trader Toussaint Charbonneau, accompanied Lewis and Clark from the Mandan villages to the Pacific Ocean and then came back with them.
Indians who might have suspected the explorers were on a warlike mission would have been reassured by seeing Sacagawea and her child with the soldiers. According to William Clark, "The Wife of Shabano our interpreter We find reconsiles all the Indians, as to our friendly intentions. A woman with a party of men is a token of peace."
She did all this carrying her child on her back in a papoose carrier.

SQUIRREL

We are staying in Flagstaff in a Ponderosa pine forest. It is a commercial campground but unlike many
it has a healthy wildlife population including this cute little fellow. It is an Abert's squirrel or tassel-eared squirrel. With it’s long tufts or tassels of fur on its ears red stripe on it’s back and bushy white edged black tail with white fur on the underside it is also pretty striking..

It turns out that Abert's squirrel is a favorite game of hunters and its flesh is often eaten. The fur is not particularly valuable yet has been used for pelts.

Carol got this video clip from through the Trek door. BROADBAND NEEDED

Lake Havasu Cars Boats and Planes

CARS

One of the big car dealerships in Lake Havasu cleared its sales lot for a classic car and hot rod show and it was quite a show.





Here are two hot rods that we really liked. Both were very well crafted and the chops were subtle with a really good finish.

I loved Carol's reaction to this little additional feature on display.






However not all the cars were immaculate chassis up restorations. Some people just polished the old pickup, turned up and parked.




Others were a little more creative.








BOATS

Ok this one is a bit of a stretch but I liked it for the title. At first you will not see anything out of the order until I tell you that the model seaplane fly-in took place just to the right and the circuit and landing approach was directly over the passing boats, one of which was the local ferry.

PLANES


The local flying club, the Desert Hawks, put on this 3 day fly in every year. The weather was unkind for days 1 and 3 but day 2 was perfect. Lots of 1/4 scale Cubs and little electric foamie Northstars flying really well. I did not see the WW1 job fly but it looked very scale.

MY PLANES


Over the last 10 months I have been putting together a fast little home brew delta to handle the windier days. I had built something like this many years ago and although I did not have any plans or measurements I thought it looked about right although I was not sure about the CG and the size of the fin. The CG seemed to be a long way forward. I did a calculation which showed it to be about right.

After a final aileron and range check I fired up the ancient MDS 38 and tossed it into the air. I was pretty sure it would fly as the thrust to weight ratio was clearly better than one to one but boy was I surprised. I was instantly into a huge loop as I had dialed too much reflex into the ailerons. As it screamed of the top of the big vertical split S it accelerated to warp factor 13. It was a busy 30 seconds as I went for low rates and trimmed in some down. Even on low rates it was still twitchy but boy it is quick and tracks really well on low passes. I was glad I had painted the underside half black as I tried for some twinkle rolls on high rates. But all good things come to an end and as I pulled a tight turn it went into an inverted spin and I could not recover it. Shutting the engine down just before it hit I watched it hit the desert just off the runway. Not too much damage and I will soon have it back in the air with a bigger fin.















I got some nice flights in with the YAK after this but after 10 months of absolute engine reliability I have been having engine problems and it is it still deadsticking. RATS!











Many thanks to the Desert Hawks for letting me fly at their great site.

Hunters and Fishermen US style.

Camo man [with the odd woman].

Just recently we have seen a large number of men dressed in camouflage gear. This is serious business over here with the right to bear arms somehow spurring on a subset of American men and the odd woman to don camo, and head to the woods looking for something to kill. Some prefer to kill bambi using a scoped modern sniper rifle others take advantage of extended open seasons offered to more primitive weapons. This has lead to the explosion in bow hunting.

Hunting with bow and arrow seems barbaric to us as an arrow kills by bleeding the animal. You must give it time to die, at least 1/2 hour on a good hit or longer on poor hits as much as 5 hours or over night on a bad hit like a gut shot.
Elk, whitetail deer and turkey are popular prey for bow hunters.

But one shot, close range, 1830’s technology muzzleloader rifles are also popular hunting tools. Licenses are limited, so there are few hunters in the woods.
Individuals who possess a valid concealed carry permit may carry a concealed handgun for hunting. Only pistols having
a barrel at least 4 inches in length are legal for use in the woods Well this one meets that requirement.





One piece of equipment that almost all hunters possess is their trusty steed, a camo ATV.


Oh yes, all this camo is rendered useless by the legal requirement to wear a bright orange jacket to reduce the risk of being shot by another hunter.






Despite this there are deaths and many injuries every year as "buck fever" grips the hunter who fires at anything that moves.















The complete angler US style.

In the UK this phrase conjures up an image of a fisherman with rod reel and wicker creel stalking his quarry, on foot along the banks of a stream.






It is a little different over here. Firstly he needs a boat,
and if he is after bass it is a BASS BOAT. It will be very gaudy, usually metal flake and will be capable of at least 60 mph with its 200 hp motor. Then he needs a trolling kicker outboard and an electric outboard. He has to have an electronic fishfinder and most will have two with multiple sonar sender units. Having found the fish he will use a GPS to store this hot spot and an electronic chart to keep track of his position. It will have two or three large ice boxes one of which will be dedicated to keeping his beer cold.
His swivel chair will have repeaters and remote control devices allowing him to see the electronics and move the boat to the fish.


Oh yes, he needs a rod and reel as well.

Laughlin, Oatmen and on to Lake Havasu

We stopped off for a couple of days in the southern corner of Nevada where it joins Arizona. Laughlin and Bullhead look across the river at each other. Laughlin has the casinos, Arizona the punters.

Laughlin's started in the 1940's a motel and bar that catered to gold and silver miners who dotted the map, and to the many construction workers who built the nearby dam on the Colorado river. In 1964 Don Laughlin, owner of Las Vegas' 101 Club, flew over the now derelict motel and offered to buy the property. In less than two years the motel and bar, now called the Riverside Resort, was offering all-you-can-eat chicken dinners for 98 cents, play on 12 slot machines and two live gaming tables. The Laughlin family lived in the other four rooms.

The U.S. Postal Service inspector insisted Don Laughlin give the town a name-any name-in order to receive mail. Don Laughlin recommended the name of Riverside or Casino, but the postal inspector used his name instead. As Don Laughlin is a car buff he has a museum and showroom of some great american iron and a few imports.


Across the River, Bullhead City flourished in the glow of the casino light. Shuttle boats transported customers from the Arizona side of the river to Laughlin's glitter gulch.

We headed out of Bullhead and up to another old town which used to be supported by gold mining.
This one is called Oatman. It also used to be a stop on the road to California on Route 66.

Now it pans for tourists and instead of salting
mines with nuggets of gold it arranges for donkeys to wander its streets and arranges gunfights outside the bank every hour.

It even has buildings of national interest,
or at least that is what the sign says.



Yes, this one believe it or not!





The donkeys follow the tourists mooching
for carrots, which enterprising shopkeepers just happen to have for sale. The whole thing is really well organised and even the babies are covered by a no carrots sticker system. They die if they eat solid food too soon. See the sign between the little ones eyes.


We headed on south to Lake Havasu where we found that an american really had bought London Bridge, or at least one of them, transported it to the desert and rebuilt it there.

Zion to Las Vegas

.
Why should women marry men with a pierced ear? Answer at the end.

Mukuntuweap

We visited Zion National Park after driving past the Vermillion cliffs up the ‘staircase of strata’ from the land level with the top of the Grand Canyon.
We also saw a Walt Disney style restoration of a western town including boot hill.






Just when we thing we have seen enough red sandstone we found something different.

Originally named Mukuntuweap Park because the local Piute Indians called it that It means the place where the land go straight up. The Mormons found it and were so impressed by what they saw that they called it Zion, the promised land. The names of the features are a mix of Piute and Mormon names, eg. The Temple of Sinawava.

The most visited area is a cull de sac with limited parking. Matters came to a head some years ago when they had 5000+ vehicles chasing the 400 parking spaces. Now you park and ride the shuttle which is free.

We rode to the end and walked up the canyon until the walls closed in and we were walking on the bed of the Virgin river. Everywhere there are warnings about flash floods and stories of people trapped in the canyons when they happen. We were glad to know that there had been no rain for some time and none was forecast. But the river still flowed and water still ran down the walls of the canyon from high seeps. Fossil water, from long ago rains, seeps out high on the cliffs creating hanging gardens and micro climes with ferns, frogs and green grass in the desert.

Even though this was the end of October and many other camp grounds were empty or closed the two large campgrounds in the Park were full and we just got in. Unlike some other parks we had visited climbing is allowed here and the vertical walls were dotted with fluorescent lycra and festooned with multi coloured ropes spinning webs up the canyon sides. The many climbers were telling “There I was stories”[ waiting to die] the mountain bikers were in their granny gears pedals whirling round with minimal forward process but the serious cyclists whistled past us all in their replica Lance Armstrong outfits. It was as well they did. The shuttles are not allowed to pass moving cyclists but the message had not gotten to the ones we had to follow. This family toiled up the slope with mum, the tailgunner, frantically waving us pass and calling to her brood to hug the kerb as they wobbled on. Eventually an Armstrong clone shouted the reason to them, they finally stopped and we went past waving thankfully.

Because the river in the canyon flows all year round, a rarity in this region, it has a long history of habitation from the Clovis point makers through the pueblo people, the piutes then the usurpers came in, first the Spaniards and then the Mormons all reliant the river to sustain life.

Las Vegas

We parked the RV in the car park of our hotel and booked in. It made a nice change to have the bed on the floor instead of coming down from the ceiling, and a power shower with as much hot water as we wanted. The first evening we strolled up the strip. Things have changed a bit since I was here last, no one was walking around with little buckets of coins for the fruit machines, and all of the shops are now designer . The locals go to the local outlet mall to get their cut price clothes, so that is where we headed.

The following day we went to the enchanted gardens at the Mirage casino, to see the white lions and tiger cubs.
Neither of us is keen on captive animals,
but these were kept in very comfortable surroundings and the four 6 month old cubs had constant human companionship to keep them stimulated. There were plenty of toys to play with, including a plastic bath in the pond. The boldest of the cubs was quite happy to sit in it and sail around.She also seemed to prefer to swing on her keepers leg ,in preference to playing with her ball .

BROADBAND NEEDED




I suspect these cubs will be used in the show when they are older, if one of the handlers ever recovers enough to resume. Some time ago one of the partners of Seigfriede and Roy met with an accident. One of the white tigers got a bit over enthusiastic apparently and put him in intensive care. He is still recovering. The tiger wasn’t blamed and is still living on the ranch with the rest of them. These white tigers and lions are probably safer in captivity than in the wild. White animals ( not albino ) have a hard time from other animals and man. The colour is a recessive gene called leucism ( as was Charro) and seem to be a target.

We could have watched these babies all day, they were happy and well cared for, as were the adults. All looked as if they had just been brushed.

The next day we split up and John went off to play poker whilst I hit the shops. In the evening we went to see a show, the star being an Elvis
lookalike, along with Ann Magaret , Donna Summer, Justin Timberlake,and Jay Leno it was a very entertaining show and a good evening.

John’s bit on Vegas

It was good to get away from the Trek for a couple of days and endless hot water to shower in without worrying about running out of water was wonderful. Las Vegas is still tacky but the shops have definitely moved up market and the décor is better in some casinos. The Belagio where I played some cash Hold Em is an example of better taste and it has a great dancing waters set up out front. Also Paris .
with its balloon
was impressive but I wonder how many Americans know about the Montgolfier brothers taking to the air many years before the Wright brothers.







I also had the chance to fly at the Tournament of Champions field in Las Vegas.

Bill Bennett created the North Las Vegas model airport for the TOC with a heavy asphalt base runway of 200-feet by 600-feet, most always in the prevailing wind and at no time have the sun in the eyes of the pilots. He did all this, fenced the field, built a rameda and then turned it all over to the city of North Las Vegas with the stipulation that the field must always be available to any modelers who wished to use it. I wish I could say I had a good day but my usually reliable OS 120 AX cut on me early on every flight. RATS! However I did win at Hold Em and We enjoyed a meal out at Ceasers Palace on some of my winnings.

The answer. They have experienced pain and then bought jewellery!