Farther West

Arizona is once again taking my breath away. We left Cottonwood where we were working at Dead Horse Ranch State Park to work at Buckskin State Park near Parker, AZ. We are now 4 hours west of where we were before, and practically in California now. Buckskin State Park, where we are living and working, is right on the Colorado River, which separates AZ and CA. This is a place that is frequented by spring break kids and retirees. I can definitely understand why. When I leave my trailer (yeah, back to trailer life woot woot), I can take a stroll down to the beach and take in the beauty of AZ and Cali at the same time. There is tons of beach/ river rat fun going on here. People speeding by on their boats, people drinking on floating dock bars, and people hiking the mountains that are right on the river. Yup, there’s not only river beauty, there’s also mountains that make up the scenery. The mountains are not as impressive in height as the ones in the Sedona/Cottonwood area. But they still manage to be stunning. They are everywhere. Almost like rolling hills. Tons of palm trees at the base. The mountains are brownish/red and dusty looking with sparse dried out vegetation. There are lots of wrinkles that catch the sun. The sky is incredible too. It’s always blue skies and sunny and about 75-80 degrees in the day (real chilly at night though…desert). We start work at 7am while it is still dark out. As we’re working we see the moon and sun in the sun in the sky at the same time. The moon hovers above the mountains on one side of the sky, while on the other side of the sky the dawn hangs around the mountains and the sun eventually pops up. As soon as the sun makes it above the mountains, the sweatshirts come off. Our work here is pretty exhausting. It’s all manual labor. Very tough stuff too. We are still not doing any of the trail work that we were promised. So far we’ve been removing bushes, taking a barbed wire fence down, moving hundreds upon hundreds of heavy rocks, and removing weeds from the campsites… all landscaping work really. By the end of the day, I’m sunburnt and covered in three layers of dirt. I literally have a red neck and farmers tan. Sore muscles. Showers feel better than ever. The weather makes the work ten times more doable. Once again, we are surrounded by old people in RVs. They’ve been really good to us though. The other day at work a woman that we had never met, Blanch, brought us cookies for an afternoon snack. It was a nice excuse to sit down and relax. Sometimes I think people think we’re convicts though, because of the work we do on the side of the highway. I feel like I’m living a country song. There’s no cell phone service in the park so I’ve been going to a gas station right down the road a lot to make calls. At least once a day I am sitting at a picnic table at the gas station drinking a glass bottled coke. Country song, right?

Three more weeks of working here then the project is over and we’re headed back to Denver for another transition week.

Jerome

The town of Jerome sits tucked away on the green slopes of Mount Mingus in the Verde Valley area of Arizona. At night when we are outside of our studio/cabin in Cottonwood, the only thing we can see besides brilliant stars is the illuminated little town that appears to be a couple thousand feet above us. At night, the town looks like it is floating in the sky. It is well lit among a very dark mountain. Even in the daylight, Jerome is a very cool place. Once a gold mining town, then a ghost town, the town has a very European feel. The narrow streets are filled with homes and shops that wind back and forth that rise in elevation so that each street is just a little higher than the other, and everything seems to be cozely on top of each other. It would be very fitting if the streets were coble stone. They’re not. Besides the very quaint and cozy feel, Jerome also has a spooky side. If you leave the main center of town and follow a street to the outskirts, you go back in time to the mining and ghost town days. There is “museum” of the ghost town, which seems more like a junkyard with very old-fashioned trash. On the chilly late afternoon when I went it was pretty creepy.

One beautiful sunny Saturday we ventured past Jerome, driving up the winding highway that took us up to the top of the Mountain. At 7000 feet we came to a gate. We had not yet seen the summit, we just knew we were towards the top. No views yet. So we parked and got on foot. The mile that we walked to get to absolute top was green and snowy. I was shocked by this contrast of what I knew of Arizona’s red and bare rock scenery. We walked over a frozen lake (in T shirts and shorts). Climbed up some rocks through a forest and came to our first clearing at what seemed like the tip top. Holy ****. On our side there was giant green mountains and on the other side of the horizon was the red mountains of Sedona and past that was Flagstaff. It was a crazy sight. From where we were we could see the Lagoons inside our state park. Like the dork that I am, I put on an Ingrid Michaelson song (“End of the World”) while we were taking in the views. Up there I realized something… That since I went out to Colorado I’ve been chasing views. It’s a weird revelation because I always thought that I was all about the journey. Don’t get me wrong, the hike is always lovely, but there’s something about coming upon a place where it feels like you have a giant’s perspective of the nature around you. Puts a feeling in your stomach. This blog entry needs to end, its getting way to cheesy. Thanks for listening. Let me know what you think about the journey/destination…

Love Love Love!

AZ

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”- Kerouac

Denver, Texas, Denver, Boston, Denver, Arizona.

The past three months…Packing, driving, unpacking, settling, packing, driving, settling, over and over.

Right now, this is exactly what I want to be doing. Just when I’ve been in one place long enough that I get restless and start to itch for a new place, we’re hitting the road. Cottonwood, Arizona is our latest spot. In just the first few days it blew Texas right out of the water. Don’t get me wrong—I loved life in TX, but Arizona has a beauty that I’ve never experienced before. The red rocks that jet up into the horizon, blue sky and sunny 60 degree days, and the out door activities. Ah it’s wonderful!! The environment is just perfect (I’m not too keen on the political atmosphere. Not Surprised about that though). My AmeriCorps winter round project in AZ is broken up into 3 parts. For the first month we’re located in Cottonwood, living and working at Dead Horse Ranch State Park. After this we will live at Buckskin State Park for a week, then onto Lake Havasu State Park for the last 3 weeks of the project.

On our way to Cottonwood, AZ we drove through a snowstorm in the rocky mountains of CO, through green and yellow mountains of eastern Utah, through red rocks and clear sunrises of Native American reservations, to the unfathomably vast Grand Canyon. I feel like I’ve already done more in AZ in two weeks than my whole time in TX. Behind the studio room that seven of us are living in (it’s kind of ridiculous…non stop sleepover) there are hiking trails and small mountains. Cottonwood is a small town but there are some very cute restaurants and bars. Last night we went to my favorite bar that has a wall of tap beers, couches, board games, wifi, and last night was bluegrass/folk live music. There were literally people of all ages. We were definitely among the few young people there. There were tons of middle-aged people drinking wine, and even elderly people dancing with beers in hand. It’s a very lovely atmosphere. We live 20 miles from Sedona, which is known to be a place of bliss and spiritual, emotional and physical healing. People attribute this power to the numerous vortices that are apparently present. People of Sedona say that a vortex is a sight of energy influx and a portal. I want to learn more about this, but people seem to really believe in the power. I attribute the joy that I feel in Sedona to the unbelievable red rock landscape, the blue sky, and the outdoor activities there. Yesterday I went on a 12-mile mountain bike ride on the mountains of Sedona. I’ve never done mountain biking before and at times I literally thought I was going to fly off my bike or my heart would explode from exhaustion. We are at a pretty high altitude here. It’s about 3000-4500 feet depending on the town.

I don’t think I’d be happy on this project if it weren’t for the atmosphere. The work we are doing is pretty brutal. We’re working to remove Cattail from the lagoons in the park. It involves a lot of sawing in the water, raking out giant piles of the weeds, freezing in the mornings, getting wet, exhausting your muscles, and not thinking, from 8 to 4 everyday. Its been a struggle to get through every work day. The morning hours go by very slowly. Luckily last week we got to switch up our work. We went out to Fort Verde, which is a historical state park. We did tons of digging, moving piles of dirt and gravel, and painting. It was really enjoyable because of having difference tasks, we had a very cool sight supervisor, and we were able to have conversations with each other without having the motor saw muffle out our voices.

We only have two more work weeks and one more weekend here in Cottonwood. It feels like there’s lots more to do in the area, but I’m getting pumped to pack up the truck and move to Buckskin and have a new environment to explore.