2018 letter

1295 Raindagger Drive

Prescott AZ 86301

Dear Family and Friends,

As in previous years, this letter follows the same pattern.  I’ve embedded various photos in the text, so you will be able to better understand what I’m describing. I’ve added headings to the letter below, so you can skip the parts you are not interested in (or flip through the photos).   The first part of this letter covers our family, while the second part is about my escapades.

It’s been a quiet year, so the letter was only four pages when I composed it without the photos.  I’m sorry that I’m sending this so close to Christmas – as usual I am involved in too many things.  

NIGEL & DONNA

We are doing OK, considering we are both in our seventies.  I can do most of the things I enjoy, and need to do on the house, but more slowly.  

My activities haven’t changed much since last year.  I still lead a hiking group each Friday, volunteer every Tuesday doing maps at the County, and am the lead person for setting up the annual Hiking Spree for three months in the autumn, organized by a local nature center.  

The photo is from a hike with my hiking group back in April in an area called the Granite Dells – a very picturesque area just NE of Prescott.  The trail is called Easter Island because this natural formation is reminiscent of the rock statues from that island in the Pacific.  I have also become involved in an organization called Save the Dells because a developer recently bought thousands of acres land, and wants to build houses in the heart of the Granite Dells.  The organization is fighting to save about 500 acres as Open Space, and is working to persuade the City to do that.

Donna’s multiple myeloma, diagnosed in 2013, has been essentially dormant since then.  She had surgery for a knee replacement in June, which was painful and debilitating for a month or so (no driving).  That’s now in the past, so the operation was worth it.  She’s still quite involved with her church on various activities. Her main hobby is still handcrafting cards (birthdays, anniversary, etc.), and playing Mah-Jongg – she does these things with two different groups of lady friends.

This year we haven’t taken any major trips. 

OUR HOUSE

We are well settled in our house after three years.  We’ve added a few more plants out front, but all are designed for minimal maintenance.  For Christmas, Donna has been decorating the inside, while I have put up a few simple displays outside.  When the house was built, we planned ahead with three pairs of sockets outside the front entryway for Christmas decorations that can be turned on and off from inside the house.

We don’t see as much wildlife as we did at the old house – we are a little farther into town.  Quail are quite common, and a few deer and coyotes stroll by occasionally, but no javelina.   Back in March, I had a real treat one morning when I walked out to pick up the newspapers.  On the far side of my car, then parked on the driveway, I saw two roadrunners only 15 feet away – I instantly froze.  They were on our gravel landscape.  Normally, they would have run off the moment they saw me, but although they glanced at me for a second, they were too intent on each other to care about a quiet human intently watching.  For a moment, I thought at first it was a mating ritual but then realized this was anything but friendly.  It was two males claiming that this was their territory.  They were facing each other, only a foot or so apart – jumping up in the air, flapping their wings in a ferocious dance, flying above the ground in a partial circle but not actually making contact.

It seemed like the dance was going on forever, but it probably only lasted for a couple of minutes before they went off in different directions. I was mesmerized and grateful for this close and fortuitous encounter with nature. I now wish I could have taken a photo or a video. I did take a telephoto of one roadrunner that had stopped on the far side of the road –  unfortunately it was a rear view and somewhat out of focus. I have seen many roadrunners before, including one catching a lizard, but never this close up.  I had thought of them as dull colored birds but during the dance the bright white and orange marking behind their eyes was striking. It can be seen in the photo, which is not in focus but you can see the markings that would normally be hidden.

We’ve had a wetter summer than usual, which is good, but not enough to break our multi-year drought.  That is unlikely to get better as climate change is working against us.  It has been cool enough this month to enjoy some wood fires in the evenings.

CHILDREN & GRANDCHILDERN

Stephen is doing OK with his work in building/home improvement, which pays a lot better than being a bike mechanic – his job for many years.  He recently decided to do this work on his own rather than through his former boss. He will use references from satisfied customers.  He is riding his mountain bike less than he used to but still keeps fit.  He is going out with Peg, the same girl as in previous years.  I met them on a 4WD exploration back in March in the desert west of Phoenix.   He had found an unusual canyon, carved in the mud (sand and dirt), not in rock.  The photo shows an interesting natural arch with Stephen and Peg in the background, and her daughter Ava (15) in the foreground. It’s a lousy photo of the three of them, but I am bad at taking people pictures!

Becky is doing fine too, as are our grandchildren Abby (15½) and Andrew (13½).  Abby is doing well at high school with good grades. She enjoys time with her friends and some sports.  She was 15 and 6 months in October, so now has her driver’s permit.  She had driven the car on and off for some months before, going around parking lots to get practice.  She’s a sensible and careful driver.  Andrew is doing OK at junior high – next year will be on to high school, the same one as Abby.  We went to hear him perform in his school choir in the Spring.  He played on the volleyball team that won a local championship, and he also played flag football outside of school.  Now that the kids are older, we don’t see them as much – they are very busy with activities and friends like most teenagers.

The major news with Becky is that she became engaged in August to her long term friend Rick, who lives in Connecticut.  He is also in the gun industry, as the leader of a consortium of companies who work with government and private companies.  It’s a long distance relationship as they live on different sides of the country, but find ways to get together every few weeks, either at business meetings or just to enjoy each other’s company.  Becky still travels quite a bit with her job, working for one of the top gun lawyers in the US, headquartered in Washington DC.   At the end of November, we had Thanksgiving at Becky’s house – the two of us drove down to be with the two kids, plus Becky and Rick, and Cindy.  It was good to all relax together.  Her next-door neighbor is a professional photographer and he came round to take some photos.   Here is one showing Rick & Becky in the back row, with Cindy, Abby and Andrew in the front.  Their red hair hasn’t faded! 

The divorce between Michael and Liz has at last become final, which is good for everyone.  Their children, Thomas and Jack (7 and 5 respectively), spend part of their time with Liz, part with Michael per a parenting plan.  Michael married Kelli shortly after the divorce was final – they had been living together in their rental house for a number of years. She has a daughter (Olivia aged 8)

and a son (Jacob aged 15).  All four kids get on pretty well, especially Olivia with the Thomas and Jack, as they are all close in age.  Michael has been working for Mitsubishi’s airplane division for almost a year now, on their latest aircraft – I think similar to a Boeing 727.  It’s a job he really enjoys because of his flying background, and it’s very close to Moses Lake.  He’s had some problems with his asthma recently.  

Liz has moved out of the house they lived in when they were married, into a larger house withmore room for the kids to play outside. She is doing well at her job in the medical clinic where she has worked for years.  We last saw Thomas and Jack almost 12 months ago when the three of them visited Prescott for a few days at New Year.  The photo shows the three of them on top of a nearby mountain – this peak is amazing (pure quartz)!

OLD FRIENDS
In September, we had a short reunion in Prescott with two other couples.  We all emigrated 

from England over 50 years ago and have kept in touch, despite now living at opposite ends of the country – Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts.  The photo shows us at a local restaurant, and you may notice that we have aged just a little!  The fellows in the back are John Woodward, John Beattie and myself.  The ladies are Donna, Chris Beattie and Pam Woodward.  John & Pam had married in England before they came over – John Beattie and I had mixed marriages – we both married American girls!

LOCAL NEWSPAPER

I am still writing my biweekly column in our local newspaper, the Daily Courier.  Each article is about 600-words and describes an Amazing Place – the name for my column. I also include two photos.  The photo on the right is an interesting petroglyph inscribed on some red rock – not in Sedona but in a National Monument called Montezuma’s Well.  I think the ferocious creature on the top is a mountain lion.  

The following photo was taken in Sedona on my favorite hike, also used in one of my articles.  These are pictographs not petroglyphs.  Petroglyphs are pecked into the rock, while pictographs are painted on the rock using natural pigments.  In the photo, they are mostly reddish brown but you can see some fainter ones in white.  A little farther on, they used yellow pigments. They date back to around 1400 AD and would have disappeared by now if they had been exposed to the rain and the sun. They are next to two Indian ruins in a large alcove, so protected from the weather.  I think the figure with the square shoulders is a god – much more imposing than the smaller stick figures, and the various animals.  

Most of these Amazing Places are in the Prescott area, but some are up to 100 miles away.  They are sites I have found since we moved to Prescott in 1996 (I moved to Phoenix in 1978, so maybe a few places from there). I ran a survey in the newspaper this week and found out more about my readers – probably 100 or more people.  The majority of them are over 65 and live in this area, but six are not local – three live in the Phoenix area, one in Flagstaff and two in California.  Over 80% of them are mainly armchair travellers – only a few of them visit a place after reading about it.  They enjoy finding out about new places they hadn't heard about, and learning about the history.

The photo on the right is of an Indian ruin above a deep canyon, called Sycamore Canyon, in the same general area as Sedona.  It was also built in a natural alcove – this time into a huge cliff of black volcanic rock. The red rock of the pueblo had to be carried up from below, a very laborious task.  I think the local tribe would have been involved, not just the extended family who finished up living there.  You can’t see from the photo, but there were three separate rooms, one with a flat roof that would also have served at a patio.  Its roof is supported by large beams of ponderosa pine – those trees would have been cut down with rock axes and then carried to the site.  This Amazing Places is only known to a few people, and I didn’t give any directions because I am concerned that with too many visitors it wouldn’t remain in such a pristine state.

I have also met some interesting people as a result of my articles.  Mike is a collector of old documents and has access to many newspapers and magazines, dating back a hundred years.  Tom is a geologist, with a wide knowledge of mining.  They are both good sources for history for my articles.  Another person is Cal Cordes, who is 92 years old.  His grandparents bought a place in the middle of nowhere in 1883 that was a stagecoach station.  It later expanded into a sheep shearing station, a railroad station, a supply store for the local ranchers and miners, and of course a saloon.  It is called Cordes after the family, but today almost a ghost town.  Cal’s mind is still as sharp as a tack.  

Here is a photo of the Agua Fria Canyon from a real ghost town called Richinbar – the rusty pipes are remnants of the mining operations.  The view of the canyon is quite spectacular, about an 800-foot drop. If your Spanish is poor, Agua Fria translates to Cold Water.  The Richinbar mine was sill in operation when Cal was a boy – it produced gold and silver worth over $6 million (calculated at today’s prices).

One Amazing Place I described was quite different in that it wasn’t above ground, but an underground tunnel.  Its history wasn’t just a few hundred years ago but hundreds of thousand of years – created by a volcano.  There is a volcanic field in the Flagstaff area, which last erupted a thousand years ago, so it is dormant now but who knows when the next eruption might occur – geology is not a fast process.   When a volcano erupts, the lave flows downhill like water, sometimes quite fast depending how steep the ground is, and they may keep goingfor miles.  Kilauea on the big island of Hawaii is a well-known and current example. When a lave stream flows downhill for days, the top and sides of the flow get cooler and they form a “skin”, which can become quite thick.  When the flow eventually stops – because the 

volcano ceases to emit molten lava – this skin remains, forming an empty tube.  The molten lava has flowed out at the low end and spread out.  Over time, this tunnel or lava tube gets covered by soil and rocks, and maybe by volcanic ash, so is no longer visible.  The photo shows Slate Lakes cave, where the stream branched out in two directions – that’s me in the middle (at one point I sat down in the dust, hence the mark on my backside). 

The last photo is of a cabin built from volcanic rock.  It was built back in 1880 by a retired soldier named Wales Arnold. He and his wife, and an adopted Indian orphan girl, lived there for a decade.  It was located next to a stream in the middle of nowhere, and designed as a stronghold against the Indians – back then Indians and Anglos were sometimes still at war.  The walls are two feet thick, which made the inside quite small.  There are “portholes” in each wall that were designed for shooting out with a rifle – a small hole on the outside but a much wider hole on the inside to allow firing in all directions.  If you have a keen eye, you may be able to spot the small hole on the right of the doorway.  The wooden door is gone, but the rafters for the roof are still there.  The corrugated iron from the roof still litters the ground. 

Since I started writing in August of last year, I have written 35 articles.  I still have another 20 or more to go.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, love Nigel & Donna