Warm Leatherette

JWise Photo of the Day

Car accident in Phoenix, Arizona

It seems our neighborhood is becoming more attractive to people desiring a moment taken from the pages of Crash. Between a shooting of a police officer last week and a couple of traffic-stopping major accidents near our intersection, my confirmation bias is triggering a false sense of things going to shit around me. Of course, I don’t believe that for a second but how else should I try to milk some drama out of these events that are simply a normal part of life? Due to my title reference, I had to look up that old song that was part of my high school years back when Daniel Miller of Mute records fame released the song of that name by his group, The Normal, based on J.G. Ballard’s book. Well, I thought everyone knew that song and then I read that only 30,000 copies had been sold following its release, I’d imagine that back then that not many people had read Crash either. Anyway, I don’t mean to imply that the person in this car accident started masturbating in their cave of airbags hiding some peculiar sexual proclivities or that the paramedics who took the person away started in on a session of fornication en route to the hospital, it’s just that since I was 14 or 15 I’ve never been able to see an accident in the same way and keep Warm Leatherette out of my head. Life would probably have been a lot more normal had I listened to more Led Zeppelin and stuck with reading Stephen King.

Not Much in Ajo nor Why

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John Wise wearing new socks in Ajo, Arizona

The great luxury of new handmade socks inspires a wonderful sense of appreciation that these were made just for me, for my feet alone. As if such a gift could be graded, these have a special story that catapults them into their own category of impression. You see, this yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners in Britain was sent to Caroline just before Christmas by her friend Claudia, who lives in Germany. The first bit of yarn was cast on back in January, and I noted that she was working on them while we were at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California. The knitting continued on our subsequent trips to Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, Douglas, Arizona, Mexico City, and San Cristóbal, once again in Los Angeles, and now here in Ajo, Arizona, where they are being declared finished.

Arizona Route 85 leaving Ajo, Arizona

Indecision is the key to flexibility was the adage we learned from boatman Bruce Keller while rafting the Colorado River a dozen years ago, and as this trip south was packed with a lot of indecision, we are now practicing our flexibility by pointing the car northwards early in the morning instead of doing anything more down in a part of the state where there’s little to do, not in Ajo and not in Why.

Gila Bend, Arizona

Arizona Road 85 mostly passes through the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge and the Barry M. Goldwater Range used for bombing practice, with very little opportunity to take in the sites on the way to Gila Bend.

Gila Bend, Arizona

We were okay with that straight drive-through as we were on our way to getting a greasy breakfast, the kind we could only get on the way through the lesser populated areas of America. Sure, we could go to Denny’s, IHOP, or Waffle House in Phoenix and other big cities, but those options would kill us if they were part of our routine. We’ve passed the Space Age Lodge and Restaurant many a time but have never stopped; that all changed this morning. Breakfast was every bit of greasy we could have hoped for, with two weak-looking eggs, a small mound of hash brown potatoes, toast, and a side of bacon for me. Flavorless coffee rounded everything out, adding all the happiness to a day we needed.

Gila Bend, Arizona

Out behind the restaurant are train lines, and on one of the tracks, a bunch of cars are traveling west. In the distance, I could see another train traveling east right at me; this obviously demanded that we hang out and watch these giants pass.

Old U.S. Highway 80 north of Gila Bend, Arizona

This road was one of two options I’d entertained traveling on prior to our departure on Friday. One direction out of Ajo would take us west and then north for a visit to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, and then there was Old Highway 80 out of Gila Bend, which was made nearly redundant after AZ-85 (mostly parallel to this old road) was opened in 1977.

Iron Cross Blister Beatle in Arizona off AZ-80

As we were out here looking at owls, hawks, and various other birds, we came across this mean-looking ant-like thing that Caroline thought was a crazy-looking ant, but on further examination, I was able to determine that this beast was an iron cross blister beetle. My wife got lucky regarding this encounter as she skipped picking it up (she, in fact, picks up a lot of creepy crawlies to get a closer look or better photo) because this particular insect will hurt people. It’s not only toxic to animals, but it’s toxic to us too, not that Caroline snacks on the bugs she picks up, but in this case, there’s a substance on their legs that causes our skin to blister…hence the blister beetle reference.

Old U.S. Highway 80 north of Gila Bend, Arizona

We don’t get a lot of rain in AZ, but apparently, we can pump enough groundwater that for one hundred years, we’ve been irrigating desert lands to grow corn, cotton, citrus, melons, and a bunch of other foodstuffs that allow for these beautiful contrasts between dark greens, the desert, and deep blue sky.

Fire near Gillespie Dam in Arlington, Arizona

What we thought was a wildfire turned out to be a controlled burn, a stinking, eye-irritating, scorching of some earth that is understood by some and lost on us…

Historic Gillespie Dam Bridge in Arlington, Arizona

Lost on us until we reach this Gillespie Dam Bridge and realize that the burnoff of surrounding brush works to protect this 95-year-old truss spanning the Gila River.

Gillespie Dam in Arlington, Arizona

“River” seems relative as the Gila kind of just stops here over on my right. I suppose that when monsoon season arrives, the waters likely move beyond the remnants of the broken Gillespie Dam and find their way to the spillway still remaining here at the section of the dam pictured below. As for the pooling waters, they are actively being pumped out and sent to irrigation canals.

Gillespie Dam in Arlington, Arizona

The ground behind Caroline on the left is still smoking from the fires that obviously burned earlier in the day. Not only is there water in front of us, but behind the wall and in those small coves is even deeper water, and it is back there that we are listening to fish splash about, as are a couple of nearby fishermen trying to entice them to join the party in their ice-chest sitting nearby.

Historic Gillespie Dam Bridge in Arlington, Arizona

While the dam failed back in January 1993 due to an extreme flooding event occurring in Arizona that year, the bridge, while damaged, survived and was subsequently repaired. Well, our day is turning out to be quite interesting.

Hassayampa River in Buckeye, Arizona

Strike another positive impression into our scorecard as here at a Hassayampa River crossing we are seeing water running over the desert. In our 27 years in Arizona, we can’t remember seeing water in the Hassayampa, though as I write this, I have this vague notion that we once saw water running through a broad expanse of the river bed where it passes underneath Interstate 10 west of Phoenix. [Note: The Hassayampa mostly flows underground. There are a few areas that have perennial surface flows, but they are upstream near Wickenburg. Water in this part of the riverbed is a seasonal occurrence. – Caroline]

Glossy Ibis roadside in Arlington, Arizona

As we passed a cattle farm near Arlington, there was a field being flooded, and at first glance, it looked like common blackbirds poking around for food in the water.

Glossy Ibis roadside in Arlington, Arizona

Of course, I failed to bring the long lens once again as we ventured into nature, and now I’m suffering by not being able to capture a close-up image of these birds. It turns out that they are Glossy Ibis. Look closely; they have a rainbow of hues shining off their feathers. They were first seen in Arizona just 19 years ago, so they are not common at all. Also seemingly not common within our own species is this ability to be easily entertained by such ventures into places of relative nothingness.

Down Around Ajo Way

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Sunrise in Ajo, Arizona

A slow day in the Desert Southwest started with the sun pouring into our east-facing window. Like an alarm clock hammering at our ears, the light of day insists that sleep is over. Into the morning we go.

After using those supplies of the hygienic type we secured last night, we started our journey south. Ajo, though it means garlic in Spanish, is no place for culinary delights by a long shot. Just getting breakfast is a chore. Likely due to the carnage of two years of pandemic, Google and the business listings of Ajo are out of sync. Luckily, we found Oasis Coffee at the main square, where we were able to get some decent coffee, a bagel for Caroline, and a bacon egg panini for me. Behind the wife was a gaggle of Brits that we learned were also heading down to the national monument; we were determined to beat the crowd, so it was time to drop the pen, go find some water, and point the car towards the trail. That was until Caroline thinks “bathroom” but finds half a dozen of those gray-haired people of English descent already in line ahead of her; she’ll just have to pull up a tree or cactus somewhere south of here.

Catholic Church in Ajo, Arizona

Starting our drive south of Ajo, I was wondering why a place would be named after a herbaceous bulb related to the onion that doesn’t seem to be related to this town in any way. Wikipedia came to the rescue by informing us that Ajo might have gotten its name from the similar-sounding Tohono O’odham word for paint (oʼoho). As for Tohono O’odham, they are the original dwellers on these lands, and their name means Desert People.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Search out the extraordinary and be prepared to be surprised. Here we are at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument down in a tiny corner of Southern Arizona, but that is deceiving as it turns out that this desert outpost with very few roads is more than 12 times bigger than Paris and almost 4.5 times bigger than Munich. Yep, it’s that big! There are about 101 miles (162km) of dirt roads through the monument; of those, we’ll only be able to visit 21 (34km) today.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

The one paved road through the park is an artery traveling between Mexico to the south and Why, Arizona, and points beyond to the north. Our first stop will be the visitor center to pick up the Junior Ranger booklet so Caroline can nab a badge from this park. As it turned out, my wife was going to have to step up to adulting as this national monument offers a “Desert Ranger” program for non-kids.

Cristate Cactus at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

The first question has Caroline wishing for the Junior Ranger booklet where she can draw cute pictures and write poetry because asking her to describe and diagram the genetic mutation that leads to cristate cactus formations has her stumped. That is until I offered her the explanation that this is a defect in the apical meristem and as far as the diagram was concerned, she was on her own.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Our wish during this visit to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument was to make our way over the 41-mile-long Puerto Blanco Drive that would have brought us past Quitobaquito Springs (closed for restoration work), but the ranger informed us that there are sandy parts of the road and that at a certain point, we will be limited to one-way traffic so turning around becomes impossible should we hit a part of the road we’re not comfortable negotiating.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Instead, we are heading up the popular Ajo Mountain Drive.

Caroline Wise at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

What was the lesson learned from visiting this particular organ pipe cactus that was a short walk away from the gravel road? For me, it was I should have worn my hiking boots as random unidentifiable cactus needles are able to penetrate the rubber soles of my walking shoes, and while I didn’t need pliers to remove them, it’s a rude moment when a needle meets flesh.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

I would like to imagine that nearly anyone looking at this image would be able to figure out the reference to organ pipes.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

After a good stretch of washboard dusty dirt road, we run into some paved sections that are always delightful as, for a couple of minutes, our car is turned into the greatest luxury ride ever.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Guess how many cars have passed us at this point? Mind you that we’ve already been crawling around out here at a snail’s pace for a good hour. Well? The answer is NONE!

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

E-bike rentals here at the park would be ideal as the 21 miles of this road are too much to walk, but the car is allowing us to drive too fast. Being realistic, the argument against e-bikes could easily be made that most visitors are only interested in getting a glimpse of things the quickest way possible.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

The Desert Ranger booklet points out that standing right here should be the largest organ pipe cactus easily accessible to those driving by, but all we found were these whale-like looking skeletal remains of what once was the said cactus.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

The ocotillos are in bloom, and why it took me so many years to learn the details of this semi-succulent plant is beyond me. First of all, the name is Spanish for Little Torch, which should be obvious enough from the color and shape of the flowers. This plant that is able to live for nearly 60 years is related to the boojum tree. Finally, the fresh flowers are edible and can be used in salads; when dried, they can be used as herbal tea.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

We’ve reached Arch Canyon, and the one and only hike we’ll do out here today. Look closely at the big blue spot in the rocks, and just above that is a minuscule, fragile-looking second arch. I’ll just go ahead and tell you now: the trail that would have taken us up close and personal with the arches eventually would get too hairy for me, so this will be the best photo of it that I was able to take, but we wouldn’t know that until we got deeper into the canyon.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

So, we started our pleasant hike over a well-groomed trail thriving on the exquisite beauty and solitude out here.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Looking back on the way we came.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

It was just around this corner where a steepish ascent up some slick rock marked by cairns would have taken us up the mountain for a more intimate encounter with the arches, but like I said…

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

As we turned around just beyond those signs, one of them warning us about immigrants and traffickers, I spotted the smallest arch I’d ever seen. About 25 feet overhead was this tiny opening I don’t believe a hand could have fit through.

Cristate Cactus at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Another organ pipe cristate, also referred to as a crested cactus, was found, but the saguaro cristate described in the booklet couldn’t be found; maybe it is now gone.

Cristate Cactus at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

I can’t remember ever seeing this cristate mutation in the Phoenix area; I wonder if this is an environmental factor due to elevation, weather, or soil chemistry.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Come to think about it, why don’t these organ pipe cacti call the desert up in Phoenix home? From Phoenix down to the Mexican border and beyond, these lands are all part of the Sonoran desert. As a matter of fact, the Sonoran desert extends 260 miles south to Guaymas, Mexico, and yet, saguaro cacti are only native to Arizona. Of course, the internet has all the right answers. It turns out that organ pipe cacti require predictable, warm-season rains and rocky soil, and the Phoenix area doesn’t meet those requirements.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

Flowering jumping cholla, also known as teddy bear cholla, is what’s leaving the needles on the ground I’m stepping on; this is my best guess.

Caroline Wise at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Ajo, Arizona

After nearly 5 hours in the monument and some serious noodling to figure out the physics, chemistry, biological function, and symbiotic relationships between various plants and creatures, it was time to turn in the 40-page questionnaire that tested Caroline’s knowledge that might allow her to become a Desert Ranger and as you can see for yourself at her swearing-in ceremony, she is now a fully qualified Desert Ranger with distinction. She earned this extra title for explaining how cycles of the moon influence the hydrological function of organ pipe cactus and the volume of water exchanged with the environment during these transitional times. Yep, she’s that smart…O estoy tan lleno de mierda.

Ajo, Arizona

So, from the visitors center, we were supposed to head down to Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, but things didn’t work out that way. The proverbial confluence of events conspired against our inner Schweinehunds, and we headed north instead of our dreamed-of Pollos Sinaloa El Angel for lunch near the ocean. Giving up that grilled chicken had us feeling defeated as that really was the only reason for driving hundreds of miles into the desert at the cusp of summer, that and the Carne Asada we enjoyed yesterday.

Mining Museum in Ajo, Arizona

Seriously though, we were warned that passing through Sonoyta on the border carried risks of police trying to fleece tourists passing through for any perceived infraction; one anecdotal story from the ranger at the park of having his phone stolen down in Rocky Point by armed men, and then the admonition to be very aware of the U.S. side of the border closing at 8:00 p.m. and the heavy traffic on holiday weekends. Sonoyta hotels often sell out due to travelers after waiting hours in line being turned away when the border closes. Too much hassle in our book, so we returned to Ajo, sat down for lunch followed by a coffee back at Oasis, and then drove across the way to visit the closed Ajo Historical Society Museum.

Mining Museum in Ajo, Arizona

The rusting hulk of a Kilbourne & Jacobs Automatic Air Dumping Car is a relic of the mining industry made by a company that was founded in 1881 and went bankrupt by 1923. I think this logo plate weighs more than the bumper on our Kia.

Mining Museum in Ajo, Arizona

This is the train car from just above.

Mining Museum in Ajo, Arizona

I was considering the effort to restore that decaying train car, heck we see people on YouTube restoring anvils, lanterns, knives, planes, cars, etc., well restoring that car would be interesting to me. This got me thinking of restoring the 100-year-old wood cart this broken wheel is attached to, so I researched the world of wooden wheels used for these types of projects, and it turns out there’s a market out there. I’d imagine it is a small one, but for between $300 and $1000 apiece, people are able to acquire wood wheels for their covered wagons, carriages, cannon wagons, and vending carts that require an old-world appeal.

Mining Museum in Ajo, Arizona

Ajo was the site of the first open-pit copper mine in Arizona, for what that’s worth.

Ghost Figure by Val Uschuk of Ajo, Arizona

The Ghost Figures of Ajo are sculptures distributed around town by Val Uschuk, who seems to spend her time between Durango, Colorado, and out here in the remote desert. The pieces are worth seeking out, and when we are in Durango in August, we’ll be sure to keep our eyes open for the ones that are installed there.

The Long Way Round – Trip 7

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

John Wise and Caroline Wise at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

Happy Good Friday, and it is. I’d forgotten that Caroline would be off today, so last night, I was surprised for the second time to find out that we’d be able to leave for our weekend getaway whenever we chose. But this opened up a dilemma for which I wasn’t exactly ready. You see, all week, I’d been working on details regarding other trips by moving some days around, adding activities, deciding that we’d head out over the 4th of July into the Wasatch mountain range east of Salt Lake City, adding the Zuni reservation to the mix by nixing something else, and booking a night in a hogan in Monument Valley for the second time in 14 years. After juggling these hundreds of threads, I had to turn my attention to working out in greater detail just what we’d be doing this weekend.

We already knew that we were heading to Ajo, Arizona (garlic in Spanish) and then down to Organ Pipe National Monument for some hiking, but that was it. With a brain already fixated on travel plans, I brought up the map and knew almost immediately that we should simply go the wrong way. Instead of driving west, we’d go east. Ninety minutes east of Phoenix is Miami, and in Miami is Guayo’s El Rey, and at Guayo’s El Rey we’ll be stopping for lunch. A lunch of carne asada at my favorite place for just that.

After eating, will we backtrack? Heck no. We’ll drive another 10 miles east before turning south to make the long detour around Tucson before finally taking a quiet road to Ajo, where we are booked for the next two nights. But don’t go thinking that this was all I could come up with tomorrow; we’ll be having lunch at a grilled chicken stand in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, on the Gulf of California, though those details and the rest of today will have to wait for us to get underway. At the moment, we are sitting at King Coffee Roastery down the street from home while I’m starting today’s post, and Caroline is knitting away to finish the new pair of socks that she’s promising I’ll be wearing before the weekend is out.

No, seriously, I typically hate any food photos I shoot; well, the donuts a couple of weeks ago turned out okay, but I have no eye for shooting meat. But then I thought, maybe this is like nature images where nothing I capture ever even remotely is as appealing as what we experienced with all of our senses tuned to wonder, and that years from now, when for one reason or other, I can no longer enjoy the worlds best carne asada, I’ll be able to look back at this one and remember the sense of yummy it offered me, though the image of it was less than appealing.

The signs around town mention the poppies, but had we ever been in Miami to see them in bloom? Had we simply overlooked them, or were we so uninspired that day that we couldn’t be bothered? I do have to admit no small amount of annoyance after driving the road between Superior and Miami as speeding lunkheads plow aggressively over the winding roads as they impatiently need to arrive somewhere that always seems to be dictated by some kind of emergency if their driving is any indicator. It’s hard to stop and smell the flowers when survival and stress are wearing you down.

Today, with the decision to let time be damned, we took the long way around by going well out of our way to turn a 2.5-hour drive into a nearly 8-hour tour east, south, west, and a little bit north just so we could get out and smell the nearly scentless wildflowers of the Arizona Desert on a spring day.

I’ve never seen a thistle I didn’t like, though the same cannot be said after touching one of these spiny plants.

We’re on Arizona road number 77, traveling south; the astute might notice I’m looking north for this photo.

Oh, more wildflowers, we must pull over, or how else will we use all that time between lunch and the setting sun to occupy ourselves when today’s destination doesn’t hold a ton of things to do?

The reminder that the drive wasn’t all about grand vistas and flowers but included a good deal of brown, tan, lifeless, dull dirt, leafless plants, and desert stuff that isn’t always amazing in its repetition. Hmmm, that sounds cynical and like the words of someone failing to appreciate the complexity of what a desert embodies. I should never give in and take the world around me for granted; I, better than most, have a pretty good idea of the formation of our planet, the upheaval, and the chemistry that has been working over millennia to form every bit of organic everythingness that must be here for me to begin to make even the smallest of observations. So let me reframe this: wow, just look at this spectacular dirt being eroded right next to the road for everyone who passes to witness just one more bit of nature at work on our behalf.

Then the Santa Catalina range of mountains screams at me, “You even care a lick about that little bit of dirt roadside when this kind of majesty is here to astound you?”

After negotiating our way through the chaos of Tucson (Little Phoenix in its boringness), we were on the quiet and scenic Arizona Route 86 for the rest of our drive southwest through Sells before turning northwest on our way to Ajo.

And this is why you turn a 127-mile (205km) trip into a 341-mile (558km) meander, a great lunch, colorful wildflowers, terrific mountains, and a fantastic sunset.

But the sunset wasn’t over yet, with the shifting high clouds and the evolving glow of the horizon offering us a thousand beautiful views that changed with the curve of the road, the cactus in the foreground, and which part of the sky was capturing particular spectra of color.

Our motel is on the sketchy side, with the amenities not what they might have been at one time. With no soap or shampoo in the room, we had to track that down. Stepping back out of our room, we heard a commotion around the corner from the housekeeper and the girl from the front desk: they were dealing with a snake. It turned out to be a non-venomous western ground snake, a pretty reptile with its orange and black bands. It slithered away after we caught a glimpse of its snakeness, heading for a hiding place behind our room.

After we were done hunting snakes, we informed the ladies that we needed some supplies of the hygiene type and were offered the basics. What they couldn’t help with was the musty old smell of our room, but we don’t pay $77 a night on a weekend with high expectations anymore; after all, it’s no longer 2005.

With the A/C on and a window open, we took a walk out along the road under the full moon, the peaceful quiet of the desert broken by the sound of giant truck tires barreling down the road as the partiers were approaching the hour that the border into Mexico closes for the night. Trying to keep an eye open for snakes that might look for warmth out on the highway while being aware of speeding vehicles that might not see us, we strode along, enjoying the pleasant evening.

Back in our room, still too warm and funky, I turned to blog chores as Caroline tucked into the Kindle and her reread of Tracks by Robyn Davidson. None of this lasted very long, as we were tired following our marathon drive.

And so this was how trip number 7 of the year started out as we ventured into the desert for a mini-vacation close to home.

A Note Regarding the Mundane

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day

Palo Verde tree in bloom Phoenix, Arizona

It’s allergy season, tax season, the approach of summer, and the space between those things and our travels. It’s easy to write about a trip somewhere as there’s a kind of excitement of going places, but what of these days when routine happens on a regular basis? Every day, we head out early in the morning, typically before 6:00 a.m., for a walk, and we suffer from the allergens that fill the air at this time of year. Every day, I think about doing the taxes, but I have until the 18th, so there is time. The air-conditioning is now on every day as temperatures have consistently been in the mid-90s here in Phoenix. It’ll likely stay this way, only much hotter, for the next four and a half months. Nearly every day, I find myself at a coffee shop at one point or other, typically first thing after dropping Caroline at her office.

I finished working out a two-week meal plan as we focus on the older things in our pantry and freezer that need to be eaten instead of thrown away; rarely do we ever throw food away. Writing about the once-a-week ritual of washing clothes is definitely of no interest for a blog post, but that kind of mundane thing is part of the mundane human maintenance usually glossed over. Gas is supposedly more expensive, and I guess it is, but that seems inconsequential in the scheme of things, considering I’m paying $45 a gallon for iced soy lattes at Starbucks in the afternoon on top of the $37-a-gallon Americanos I drink in the morning. But these details are just boring, maybe even hackneyed.

If I’m adequately busy and productive during the day, I’ll “reward” myself with mindless entertainment in the evening. This is either had by reading or trying to find something of some minor value on YouTube; the latter is typically a failure, with me plumbing the depths of stupidity and probably contributing to the rot accumulating somewhere in my brain that will show itself the older I get.

This quick burst of the mundane already needs to come to an end as here at 5:00 p.m.; it’s about time to go pick up Caroline and deal with the traffic of getting home. Our dinner of crockpot beans is finished, so there’s no real culinary excitement going on there unless you are a bean aficionado like we are, in which case we are dining on Lina Sisco’s Bird Egg beans cooked long and slow with bacon and onion. So, maybe not everything is exactly mundane today.

L.A. to Phoenix

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Last night, somewhere about an hour after we went to sleep, the sound of a racing car engine woke me first. The squealing tires demanded I jump out of bed, quickly followed by Caroline. Our room on the third floor of the Garden Suite Hotel facing Western Avenue offered us the perfect view of the intersection at 7th Street and Western. What was going on down there took some time to decipher. The smell of burning rubber, a ton of smoke, roaring engines, and the sound of the crowd spilling into our room, but tired brains took a moment to compute that we were witnessing our first-ever sideshow, also known as a takeover.

Then it all starts to come together: someone disabled the street lights, there was a coordinated effort to shut down the streets in such a way that law enforcement wouldn’t easily reach the intersection, enough people showed up to make a sizable audience, and then the mayhem ensues. Get your tires smoking, turn into the circle, and hammer the gas. Passengers were hanging out of windows, and kids were darting into the middle of the street where cars encircled them, pouring smoke over everything. On the edges, other kids were trying to touch the cars when they weren’t jumping out of the way. This lasted nearly 15 minutes before a police helicopter showed up, and maybe 5 minutes after that, we could hear sirens from the approaching police. With the explosion of a large firework right in the intersection, things broke up, the crowd scattered, and cars pulled away in all directions, leaving us astonished at what we’d just seen.

Seven hours later, as we crossed the intersection, the smell of burned rubber was still present, and the idea that we heard, saw, and experienced what we did in the wee hours of last night felt like a dream.

Here we are across the street at Sun Nong Dan Korean restaurant that we visited last night. This is what $30 bought for breakfast compared to yesterday. First up was hot barley tea, followed by the banchan: kimchi (spicy), pickled radish (yummy), pickled onion with jalapeno (okay), garlic chive in sesame oil (oh my god, my mind is blown in amazement), and a side of brown rice (dyed purple with black rice!). Caroline ordered the Tta Roh Guk Bap (beef brisket with dried cabbage Soup), and I went for the Yuk Gae Jang (spicy beef & leek soup). Both had a good amount of spiciness to them; this wasn’t just some mild gochugaru added for coloring.

We were promised a partly sunny day, but all we see is gray, occasionally dark gray hinting at a chance for rain, but that won’t ruin our day as our dispositions are sunny enough. Hmm, I read those last six words and think I need to mash the backspace key and delete that cheese, but there’s a hint of truth there. You see, we always know we might be hit with unfavorable weather when we travel, but what exactly is unfavorable? Is cold, wet, windy, or too hot a negative for successful travel? Maybe this is why so many people think they need to go to Cancun, Hawaii, Ibiza, Tenerife, Miami, or other places at only particular times of the year. Well, that would be a setup for disappointment. All of today’s photos were shot under gray skies, that is, until we reached the Palm Springs area of the Californian desert on our way home when the sun finally emerged.

So now that you know the weather and our attitude towards it, I can share that we are at the Huntington Library and Garden in San Marino, California. In yesterday’s post, I wrote how we got our dates backward for when we were supposed to be here and at LACMA; well, the staff here at the Huntington had no problem exchanging the tickets and letting us enter right away, which was a big relief. Our first stop is at the library and this statue of Commodus (son of Marcus Aurelius and movie villain in the film “Gladiator”) as Hercules holding his son Telephus; I guess it’s kind of like the image of Trump as Rambo but also holding a baby Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Close-up detail of one of the original Gutenberg bibles that still exists. This volume printed on vellum is incomplete just as the majority of the 48 remaining bibles are, but lucky Caroline and I have also seen a complete copy at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the one at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Next time we are in Germany, I want to make a point of seeing the Frankfurt University Library copy that is also complete, and since I’ve also seen the one in Mainz, Germany, it’ll take me to have been in the presence of 10% of these old bibles from 1455.

An example of cross-writing where back in the days of expensive writing paper, the author would write their letter in the traditional top to bottom fashion and then turn the page 90 degrees to continue writing. This page at the Huntington Library wouldn’t be here if it didn’t hold significant historical importance; it is from Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, written to her friend Marianne Hunt in 1819.

The stacking of coincidence to make for synchronicities isn’t lost on us. First, we go to Mexico City, and Caroline learns that it used to be a city surrounded by a lake. Then, yesterday at LACMA, we visited the Mixpantli exhibit that has a floor map interpreting the phase between Tenochtitlán becoming Mexico City. Now, here at the Huntington, Caroline spotted this map printed in 1524 of Tenochtitlán created as conquistador Hernán Cortés was causing the fall of the Aztec empire.

The various gardens here are part of the attraction for visitors who get to explore 130 of the 207 acres that comprise the grounds.

Couldn’t help but think of Kehinde Wiley’s presidential portrait of Barack Obama with this shot.

Inside the 55,000 square-foot Beaux-Arts mansion that Henry Huntington and his wife Arabella called their winter home. At other times of the year, you might have found them somewhere between mansions in New York or their home in Paris, France. Huntington made his fortune as a railroad magnate.

This is such a big, beautiful room, and normally down there at the end is the famous Blue Boy, a full-length portrait by Thomas Gainsborough painted in 1770, but it’s over in England on display until May 15 at the National Gallery in London. This is the first time the Blue Boy has been back in England in 100 years, and is likely the last time. In its stead is a modern interpretation commissioned by the Huntington of the Blue Boy by artist Kehinde Wiley. Interested in seeing what it looks like? Visit the Huntington; it’s worth your effort.

While there are more than a few paintings from Edward Bird here, it doesn’t seem like the artist ever gained the kind of reputation that would make his work extremely valuable.

This is a small overview of the very crowded Japanese garden. I know it doesn’t look that crowded, but I waited to get this photo with so few people in it, and like I said, it’s a small corner of it.

Next we headed to the new Chinese garden that was still under construction when we visited last. This place is perfect.

I might now be wishing for blue skies and sun, but I’d like to think that we’ll return here again and maybe on that day I can get a shot of this view in full glorious sunlight or maybe we’ll really get lucky and come back for a summer twilight visit

Part of the transition zone between the Chinese and Japanese gardens, I believe.

For Caroline.

Back at the Japanese garden, though, we are just skirting it on the way to the Australian corner of the Huntington.

Last time we were here, the bonsais were chained down as something pricey had been stolen; looking around now there are enough surveillance cameras to dissuade potential thieves, I hope. This bonsai is an elm tree.

Almost missed this plant and flower as it’s kind of away from the trail. Caroline first noticed the peculiar gray metallic leaves, and then, on our approach, there were maybe half a dozen blooms distributed between two of these giant Australian plants.

The squirrels seen across the grounds are fluffy, fat, and cute, but they are not the only wildlife.

Initially, I wanted to avoid the desert plants as I feel we see enough of them where we live, but obviously, we don’t live in all desert areas and my memory didn’t remind me of the opulent beauty on display here.

Are these edible?

There are thousands of impressions, if not millions more, here at the Huntington, but I can’t share them all. It was a toss-up if we’d even visit this garden as there’s also the nearby Descanso Gardens just 10 miles away in La Cañada Flintridge that we would like to return to. We are scheduled to return to Los Angeles in July, but it’s awfully hot here, so maybe we’ll swap an October trip to Chinle, Arizona, with that one?

Okay, time to go; we are both getting hungry here shortly before 2:00 p.m.

Yes, we bought fresh strawberry donuts from the world-famous Donut Man in Glendora, but we didn’t tuck into those right way; we are way more reasonable than that. After collecting dessert, we headed over to El Gallo Giro in Fontana, where we thought of stopping on Friday night before visiting the Northwoods Inn. In this case, our memories were far greater than the food we found today at this popular Mexican fast-food restaurant. On the other hand, the donuts were everything we’d hoped for and more.

We pulled off the freeway at Desert Center to find a brass plaque that noted the role of the town in the founding of Kaiser Permanente, but couldn’t find it. Now, at home writing this, I found an article from 2014 that already spoke of the theft of that sign. While we couldn’t find what we were looking for, we had this opportunity to look back west at a terrific sunset before continuing our way east to Phoenix as we continued to nibble on donuts and finish our coffees.