Arizona - staying closer to home

With Rick being sick our hikes, when they happen, have been shorter so we have had time to spend around Clarkdale.

When we first got here I found the landscape rather boring but it is growing on me - the flat valleys, deep canyons and distant hills. The sun sometimes picks up some red in the hills, foreshadowing Sedona and the mountains change colour as the suns shadows play across them. In many ways it is like the Mediterranean areas I usually go to;very dry and mostly scrub vegetation. Unfortunately no sea, olive trees or vineyards.

 

Dry "washes" between the hills.

We walked down to the train station and this is looking back towards the Lodge. At this end there is a large deck and the sun hits it late afternoon. It's a great place to sit and read watching the landscape, the train when it pulls back in, the occasional bird.

Still not much luck with the bird photography. Neither they or my camera are co-operating. I think he is an Western Bluebird and I caught him just as he was taking flight.

Down at the train station we inquired about tickets and ending up booking on line for next Wednesday. They have an old VIA rail car.

Its a steep walk back up from the train station then flattens out through "downtown" (which is one block long).

Another afternoon I went to the Clarkdale Museum (Open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, manned by Historical Society volunteers)

This was part of the bank in the 1920s. There was a bank robbery (makes sense this was a rich mining town)

Shots were fired and this pocket watch saved a mans life.

Displays included a section about the Native Americans in this area. They were herded off to San Carlos Apache Reserve where a number of different bands were forced together. After the Indian Wars, the forts closed down and the reserves weren't being policed by soldiers anymore so many of the local Apache and Yavapai walked home, which took some of them years. When they got back their land was now settled with ranchers and they squatted where they could. Many worked at the copper mine and Mr Clark built an Indian School to try and stabilize the situation. Currently there is a small Yavapai Reserve just south of Clarkdale.

The town was entirely owned by the copper mine and there was another display that listed all the buildings in town and their selling price when the mine closed and the company sold off its assets. There was a bank, grocery store, hardware store, theatre, laundry, central heating plant, restaurant along with hundreds of houses that had been rented to the workers. The houses were listed for sale at $1000 each.

 

That same afternoon there was a Rock and Gem Show in the auditorium (built by the mining company in the 1920s). Not really interested but I wandered around - lots of crystals, polished rock, some carved and some made into jewelry.

Most of what was for sale is native to Arizona or at least the US but this piece, that caught my eye, is Bumble Bee Jasper from Indonesia.

The seller pulled out some more and was happy to tell me about buying it sight unseen and being overjoyed when he cut it and found it to be such a vivid piece.

I have also been painting though the scenery is a bit intimidating.

I am not happy with this one and I think I will futz a bit more with it. Both this and the first one were done working from photos I'd taken.

With this one I sat, on a bench, in the sun and spent a lovely afternoon just immersed in the process. Only down side is that watercolour dries up in the pan very quickly here.

In spite of not feeling great, Rick has continued to take advantage of the clear, cool nights with very little light pollution. His gear used to consist of just a camera and a tripod but over the years he has added to the tech to help him find the areas he wants to photograph, track them, have control from his phone and more that I just don't understand.