Laughlin, Vegas, Valley of Fire

Our whirlwind vacation of gambling has come to a close. We didn't win big, but we didn't lose much. Especially considering that 85% of the time was spent in a casino. Well, apart from driving. With this trip, we have officially put 30,000 miles on our car. You know, the one we bought with nearly 9,000 miles on it. Five years ago. (We don't drive much, can you tell?)

The picture is from our day trip-within-a-trip to The Valley of Fire. It's the place that inspired us to move west. Our first visit to the park was on a tour. This time around, we got to drive through it ourselves and explore it more. I'd go there again in a minute. Fascinating rock formations, petroglyphs all over the place, and busloads of cranky Japanese tourists who only know the English word "shithole". (If you think you're in a shithole, honey, you need to just stay home.)

Apart from a bit of an inconvenience with the last night's check-in that wound up taking three hours, and also found me growling at an exceptionally snotty old bat who I then called "meat" (in the consumable, liver-and-a-nice-chianti sort of way), it was a good trip. I'm in no hurry to go gambling again, but that's really nothing new.

Death Upon Death

We went on one of our excursions today. Actually, this was a "do over" of a previous excursion, because we really screwed up the first time around. We were looking for the ruins of Sasco, and despite internet resources aplenty we missed it by a good 20 miles or so the first time around. The "roads" we were driving the first time were more like ideas of general direction which didn't have quite so many plants as the other bits of the desert. (I don't care what the "Ironwood Forest National Monument" signs said. That's a friggin' desert. It's a "forest" like I've got hair on my head. Sparse, short, and depressed in its singular loneliness.)

Today was different, in that we looked at one of them there newfangled things called a "map". Perhaps you've heard of it? It's a cartographic dream! Thanks to the map, we found Sasco with no difficulty whatsoever. The ruins are in relatively good shape. The cemetery had a headstone with a date as recent as 2006, which took some of the mystique out of the whole thing. A cemetery for a ghost town shouldn't have anything more recent than the early 1900s to be chill-worthy. Most of the markers had no names or dates. They were apparently somewhat mass-produced, in a homemade sense. Concrete crosses formed in a mold, and placed at the heads of the graves. Some were original, though, so that made up for the recently departed. This particular image is of a nameless tomb that had a nameless cactus take hold and grow in the concrete. The fishhook barrel cactus, though small, was still strong enough to crack open the concrete in search of nutrients and moisture. It found enough of both for a while, but eventually it died as well. Now, an unmarked grave in the desert in a ghost town has only a sun-blackened cactus to distinguish it from the other graves.

Death doesn't fool around in Arizona.

Umbra Aurum

Lamont Cranston, fallen on hard times, digs in the dirt looking for precious metals and loose change. Or interesting rocks, at the very least.

We went prospecting. (Yes, really.) Somewhere in Arizona. (Maybe.) I will say with unrestrained certainty that we found neat looking rocks. And since the title of this post isn't "WOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" you can pretty much guess we didn't find our weight in gold. Or even loose change. Still, it was fun, and we're going to do it again. I guess that's the official definition of "gold fever".

In other news, thanks to Sam's sleeplessness I get to pitch Contactify as well. I tried it, it works, it's linked on this very page. Not that people were clamoring to contact me or anything, but I like nifty little things like that. Thanks Sam!

In other, other news, today marks the anniversary of the date we arrived in Arizona. Goodbye year two, hello year three. Tempus fugit and all that.

Finally, I have learned something annoying from our recent gold-hunting excursion. See, it was very, very quiet at night. Quiet enough to hunt wabbits. That means that the only thing I could hear late at night were the noises in my own head. Since I normally fall asleep with the TV on, I did not know that the noise count is up to two distinct frequencies: one high, one low. They do not harmonize well at all. All that means is that it's nearly impossible for me to fall asleep in silence without drugs or extreme exhaustion. Sucks for me. (Yeah, I know. Boo hoo.)

My Legs and I Are Not On Speaking Terms

We went to Peña Blanca Lake today, as the first stop on a day planned with much enjoyment for all. It's south of us, nearly in Mexico, but a short drive to reach. We took the unpaved road to a parking area (marked with an "X" on the right side of the map), and walked down a trail to the lake. Once there, we decided to walk around the entire lake. Yes, you read that right. Walk around the entire friggin' lake. The trail was narrow, rocky, Bullwinkle, and had patches of snow here and there. We weren't going for any land speed records, though, as we stopped now and again to take pictures. Naturally. It wasn't bad at all, as it was refreshing to be outside and still be chilly rather than feeling all hot and incinerated. When we finally reached the spot on the map marked with a "Z" (center left), we decided to just walk up the road rather than continue our off-roading ways. By that time, hiking had lost its appeal, and sitting in the car became very enticing.

I'd like to pause to point out that we had initially stopped and parked at the "X", and did not know how far the road went between the "Z" and the "X". If you were to draw a semi-straight line between the two on an overhead map, you'd say: "Gee, if you keep hiking, you'd get back to the car much, much quicker than if you go all the way up on the road!" If you were to say that, and you had an overhead map with you at the time, I would heartily agree. However, you and your damn map were nowhere to be found, so instead we walked on the road. Did I mention that the inclination of the road was up? Uphill really sucks when you're sick of walking. Paved or unpaved.

My head is sunburned, my legs hurt, and I'm going to ceremoniously destroy my boots for being ridiculously uncomfortable. But it was worth it, because we got to experience this:

As for the rest of the trip... eh. We were supposed to go see some ghost towns. Old Glory was on the map, but no road existed for it. Despite there being a road on the map. Ruby was closed. Yes, closed. It's privately owned now, and the owner only has it available on Thursday - Sunday. Plus, he charges $12 per person to see the place. Expletives were shared by all when we finally got to Ruby. Partridge was gone, Arivaca was there, but nothing to write home about. So, all in all, it was a good day. My legs may even forgive me. Probably by about Tuesday.

New Year Spooktacular

One of the great things about living in Arizona is the plethora of ruins. Towns that were once booming have now crumbled and have been mostly reclaimed by the desert vegetation. Fairbank is one of those towns, and we were fortunate enough to visit it on New Year's Eve. Of particular interest, for us at any rate, was the fact that the Fairbank cemetery was readily accessible. Most of the graves were like the one pictured above. A simple wooden cross, and a pile of stones. They were scattered without rhyme or reason on a hilltop a half mile away from the town. One grave, presumably that of a child, had had some recent visitors. Evinced by the toys left at the base of the weatherbeaten (weather-blasted, really) little wooden cross. With no name on the cross, I doubt the visitor was a relative. But it just goes to show you that graves and markers are made for the living much more than they are for the dead.

Today, we drove along some very... interesting... roads in order to visit Camp Rucker in the Coronado National Forest. ("Interesting" = the kind of dirt road you're better off walking on than driving on) Not only did we get to see ruins from 1880 or so, but we got to see something we haven't seen in quite a while: snow on the ground! Yep, it's been cold here, but we were at about 6,500 feet. That's above the snow line, apparently, and we got to trudge around in the stuff for a while.

It's nice to visit, but I'm glad I don't have to shovel it. Makes for some cool pictures, though. (No pun intended.)