Dec. 13th.09 - Florence, AZ 10:30pm

Got a tiny bit closer to nature today, or possibly just as close as retired folks tend to get outside of a golf course.

We went out to the Theodore Roosevelt dam, which lies at the base of a startlingly enormous lake a ways north of my folks' place. It's up in the mountains, like right up there in and around what seems to be copper mining country. We passed through a mining town or two, one of which was quite affecting. I believe it was Globe, or possibly Miami. Either way it was quite jarring; it seemed kind of like a more modern version of an Old West ghost town. The buildings are newer, as is the infrastructure obviously, but at least 70% of the buildings are just as boarded up along the main road through town. The streets were all but empty (until you drove past the Wal*Mart at least, which is quite obviously the one commercial enterprise in the entire god-forsaken place that is actually flourishing, aside from the local coffee shop), which I would assume has more than a little to do with the fact that it's post-church Sunday football hours. The houses I could see from the road were dilapidated at best with rusted out vehicles and crumbling fences their only borders. I would have loved to wander around for an hour and take photos, but what's one more wasted opportunity? Some out-of-work miner probably would have beaten me up anyway.


As we completed the drive to the dam you could see the mountain ranges where the mining had occurred in years past, the steps down from level to level clearly delineated. While there was only a few ranges amongst literally dozens of others, if not hundreds, it's still kind of shocking to see that kind of willful destruction marring an otherwise breathtaking natural landscape. Of course, I was also en route to a dam that had been constructed by First Nations labourers out of chunks of one of those mountains that had been exploded for that express purpose so...


I got some decent photos at and around the dam site. It's quite impressive: there's a huge blue bridge that was put up to handle the traffic that used to pass directly over top of the dam itself. The overlooks at the dam site say the bridge was originally put together by stonemasons that crafted the dam at the site of a mountain they blew up to provide the raw materials. It's the biggest ever hand-built in the US, with labourers pulling tools and materials dozens of miles through the mountain ranges using teams of mules.


More than 40 people died during the construction, which is a statistic people always trot out for large-scale, old-timey projects like this. But it lacks context. People were making $2.50 a day to labour on it but there probably wasn't a lot else going on. Maybe they got bored and drunk and jumped off the site. Is that more or less noteworthy than the guy who was riding up the Apache Trail behind a burro that dropped a boulder because it wasn't securely fastened and it knocked him down to the riverbed below? I don't know.


Anyway, the dam was extended some 30 years after construction because the flood plain calculations originally done were way off the potential water levels. Right now the lake sits pretty much on that original build line for most of the year, but in times of heavy rain/snow in the state it can go higher. I guess someone forgot to carry a two somewhere in the calculation process. I believe a certain Michael Bolton would call that a, "Monday detail."


So the dam was pretty impressive, but it pales significantly in comparison to the incredible wonder that lies directly behind it. See, the water from the dam supplies a series of three lakes that lie on the low side. They travel for about 25 miles or so, probably less, travelling with pretty good speed South and West from the Roosevelt. They wind in and around numerous hills and mountains; the dam typically only allows enough water through at any given time to keep them around their optimum levels. Following along with them, and eventually past them, is the Apache Trail, which shows up on a GPS unit as "Highway 88." But the "highway" is almost entirely unpavedand often shrinks to little more than the width of a large car of SUV.


The trail, apparently one of Roosevelt's favourite things in the world, originated with "marauding" Indian bands, according to some tourist info found at Tortilla Flats (basically a diner on the opposite end of the trail from the dam). It was the worn path the First Nations tribes used to make their way through the area's precarious mountain passages before the white man showed up. It proved to be the most efficient means to facilitate the dam construction and Teddy decided it should be kept intact because it combined the best parts of the Grand Canyon and other noteworthy American park features, adding its own ineffible quality (I'd call it the constant sens of potential bloody catastrophe). Since then the trail has been mostly maintained, graded intermittently after flash floods that are common in the hills. It serves as an incredibly scenic, slow-moving, and precarious driving route through the mountains. The 24 mile route takes roughly an hour and a half to complete. I wouldn't recommend running out of gas at any point.


It was a terrifying but spectacular experience. Kind of like driving the Crow's Nest Pass in BC at midnight but more dangerous. This dusty trail has no guard rails at any point, save for a few hundred metres of ascending mountainside towards the end. However, what is there is too flimsy and too high up to really offer any kind of protection. Top speed is about 12 mph due to the constant blind corners and ever-narrowing road surface. At a few points you come to spaces with signs that warn of "Flash Flood Zone" -- not at all unsettling on a cloudy day with intermittent drizzling. There are also numerous one-lane bridge passings. The road is constantly rutted and loose rocks of varying sizes and sharpness are littered throughout.


But that's just the driving surface. While one side of you is constantly an arm's length away from the hillside the other overlooks a chasm of hundreds of yards, an expansive lake that moves more like a river lying either far below or not so far below. As you progress you climb and descend six or seven degree inclines, which is a lot steeper than it sounds. We started out from the dam side, which plummets to the lowest point possible early on. That also meant that the further we went the higher we climbed. As the lakes below dried up we went high and higher, climbing and climbing up ever-changing rock faces and formations, looking down on several diverging mountainous valleys. We saw large cave mouths directly above us and thousands upon thousands of tall cactus plants dotted the hillsides. They flourish living so close to the water, growing up to two dozen feet tall and sporting as many as half a dozen appendages. Many of them had been attacked by cactus grouses, birds that hollow out a part of the sturdy plants to live inside of them.


I would've given anything today to kayak down those lakes, to let the current carry me as I stared up at the mountain peaks. I want to have every fleeting feeling of total insignificance I've ever had confirmed by that environment. I want to be nothing to a landscape that has taken hundreds of lives before I ever came along. I want to twist in the wind and have nothing but hope and sweat going for me. Maybe that's all I've got now but I want something tangible to fight against, be it the wind or the water or the current, instead of my usual boring insecurities and emotions.


I'm dreading going home.

Dec. 12th.09 - Florence, AZ before midnight

Mercifully little to think about today.


We drove into Mesa today for the giant flea market, a long-standing relic from my childhood and yet another thing that wasn't quite the same as I remembered it, another memory distorted by time, age, and distance.


I don't think it's aimed primarily at tourists, so I'm inclined to believe that consumerism and the bastardization of Native American art and lifestyle are what passes for culture among the locals. The closest thing to art in the whole place was some kind of burned/brushed steel; there were enough booths offering them that I guess the technique must be pretty well-known in AZ. They were basically metal sheets cut to a circle, then cut and burned into desert scenes with roadrunners, coyotes, cowboys, geckos, horses, "Indians", Aztecs playing pipes, or, somewhat inexplicably, people golfing. Sunsets also came frequently into play. Other than that, it was various cactuses grown for sale, carved or ceramic dogs/coyotes/desert animals/etc, printed t-shirts with the same. There were socks festooned with "USA" and various patterns of stars and stripes. A hundred or so stands in the middle of the rows boasted cooke-cutter leather goods including (but of course not limited to) fanny packs designed to hold YOUR PISTOL. Seriously.


Without exaggerating, there were hundreds of vendors at this thing. It spans a space equivalent to dozens of city blocks. Booths are co-ordinated by quadrant, like a massive parking lot. Which it basically is.

The food provided no further insight into local customs of cuisine. It consisted mostly of salsa, popcorn, nuts, hot dogs, and pretzels with plastic liquid cheese and giant rocks of salt draped over them.


It's like this place is strapped somewhere between a foreigner's vision of middle America, Texas, and Mexico and nothing else really belongs here. It's where people from elsewhere come to settle down in an inoffensive place with no discernible climate and no local customs or traditions to be forced upon them. Even the Native Americans that seem to influence some of the culture (undoubtedly in the most stereotypical way possible) rarely stayed here. Before white settlers came they followed food and water through the state, leaving behind the structures and sensibilities that served them while they were here.

Arizona today is new, indistinct, directionless, and absolutely fleeting, vague and non-descript and overwhelmingly white.

My memories of the flea market 20-some years ago were more colourful but likely represent the exact same thing, possibly in an outdoor setting. Aside from a few tasty/humorous brands of salsa and hot sauce there was little redeeming it for the adult me. The world doesn't need 200 more water features in rich people's backyards or another thousand cut-price off-brand golf clubs. Almost got a sweet faux-snakeskin belt though, so I guess it can't be all bad.

Not much else happening today though, which isn't a bad thing on a vacation. Dinner with other retired couples at G & S', delicious but way too much food. I'm so tired of overeating. The book B lent me is already helping though. Sixty pages in and I've already learned eating fatty/salty/sugary foods only leads to more of the same, something that should be obvious but I think I definitely try not to think about the addictive aspect of my often-horrible diet. I have to start considering it more actively. Sixteen-hundred calories a day should be achievable. It's been years since I was more than halfways satisfied with my appearance. Maybe Kate Moss is right and nothing tastes as good as skinny feels (no, she isn't).

I had a nap this afternoon; the last vestiges of my dream involved me having dozens, maybe hundreds of dimes in my mouth. Disconcerting, to say the least.

A moment of total regression followed: after waking from the nap I found everyone gone to G & S' for dinner. I saddled up Pa's bike and headed over. A slight decline in the grade of the sidewalk had me picking up speed so I downshifted as fast as I could and pushed for top speed the whole way there. I flashed back to thousands of summer days I was left to race home at dinner time for grits while the sun waned behind me, pushing myself to squeeze the last bit of excitement and joy I could out of the daytime. Nothing as an adult makes me that happy, not even the re-creation of those moments.

Where does that leave me? Drunk and lonely, evidence would suggest. Dad told the dinner guests about how my brother J and I, at about four months old, managed to somehow shift our separated cribs from opposite sides of the bedroom to the point where we could reach through the bars for each other. We were never so happy, he said, as when we could be in contact with one another. We even used to literally sleep on top of each other, stacked like Lego pieces. One on the bottom watching TV at like 3 years old, the other in the same position, lying on his stomach, literally on top of the other.

Where is that today? Is that need for a symbiotic relationship something I'm inadvertently looking for in a partner? Do I want too much, to be too close? Something tells me that's something that can't be replaced.

Dec. 12th.09 - Florence AZ, past midnight

Had a good day with my ol' father. It started with a tiny flashback to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Loreburn, a place I miss dearly. See, he made waffles and we pretty much only ever had waffles at Grandma and Grandpa's when I was a kid. I kind of love that, that something so common can hold a genuinely special and meaningful memory. Because it started with waffles but Grandpa and Grandma's was also the place we were most constantly awash in extended family, it was the only time we went to the beach, the only time we went fishing, the only time I remember my Grandpa being vital and mobile. After being around him as a child I would never have expected to see someone's body betray them so badly, as it did in his later years. I'll always be afraid of aging because of that. I miss him and I hate myself for ever taking him for granted.

We went for a great round of golf later in the morning and it turned out to be pretty much the most beautiful day ever in all of time. I only played well on maybe a third of the holes, but the actual performance is inconsequential when it comes to golf. For me, anyway.

We had lunch and some mid-day beer at the house and then took a short drive into the country to get some supplies for dinner. The first stop was a family-run pork farm/shop. They raise and butcher their own animals, offering pretty much anything a pig has ever been turned into in their little storefront. We got some pepper bacon and some chops for tomorrow's breakfast and dinner respectively. We also stopped at a very cool olive farm and mill, which is apparently a pretty big deal. They make all sorts of different olive oils, some infused with citrus and garlic and hot peppers and whatnot. I recognize the label; I think they have distribution into Canada, which is pretty cool for an independent farm/company that does everything locally. They also have a variety of crafty things made out of olive wood, fresh-baked artisan breads, a diner with a full menu, and a viewing window where you can see the olives being pressed. You could probably spend a fairly interesting afternoon there taking it all in. We also stopped at San Tan Flats for a beer before heading home. I think they want to come back for dinner before we leave, but it was interesting even just to see. The restaurant side isn't that large, but the bar side is huge and open-air; most of it is outdoors, centered around a dance floor placed directly under the night sky. The only problem was when they opened it was technically illegal to dance outdoors in Arizona. I know that sounds like something you would read in a bullshit email forward, but it's quite true. They got cited and fought it, eventually going to court. The case was thrown out and the law was repealed, I believe. Either way, dancing is now both allowed and encouraged.

I liked our little commerce trip. It seemed kind of like the antithesis of what my cynical Canadian self has come to expect from America, the land where convenience and size are the greatest concerns, where chains and brands rule with an iron fist. To see these family-run businesses doing industrious, multi-faceted work on their own, without name or brand recognition behind them, is always encouraging but somehow more so in this environment. It speaks to what used to be the overriding virtue in the States, back when hard work and desire made anything possible.

Anyway, it was kind of cool to hear my Costo-shopping dad talk about how he feels it's important to go a little bit out of your way once in a while to support the little guy who's doing something unique and wonderful. I don't really remember that being a priority for him at any other point in my life.

I am very sleepy right now, even though I feel like I've been sleeping better than I have in months. I actually nodded off in the car this afternoon while in the midst of a conversation with dad. Travelling through the countryside and seeing all the agricultural work in the region led to some other good chats, the importance of agriculture versus civic development being chief amongst them. Maybe I'll outline that a bit more later.

Dec. 11.09 - near Florence, AZ, midnight

More consumerism and excess today, but only after a little bonding time. After breakfast Dad and I went on a bike ride to literally every corner of both sides of the development. The scope of this goddamn thing keeps surprising me. They put up dozens of homes in a couple of weeks, just an astounding building pace. And it's happening in the middle of nowhere. Retail prices and groceries are at rock-bottm but someone is prepping to make a mint of Sun City Anthem. The community center/gyms/gathering places and parks alone are very daunting and no doubt pricey. The kind of things public money could never even envision, let alone execute.

We stopped at the historical monument at "Casa Grande," both an incredible site and an incredible sight. It's basically the remains of a community, an ancient town built and lived in by the Hohokam, a whole people that seem to have vanished into thin air. Historians suspect some other Native American tribes are descendants but there is no definitive physical evidence to confirm those suspicions.

The ruins at Casa Grande are incredible for so many reasons, the least of which is that some aspect of it has survived this long. It was discovered in the early 1900's, about 500 years after it was likely abandoned by the Hohokam. The centerpiece of the community is the "great house" the name hints at. Lying in the center of the community it stands at least 80 feet tall, constructed more or less out of materials gathered from the desert floor, the rudimentary building products forming a base wall that stands four feet thick and is more or less solid concrete. The building itself is just four degrees from lining up with true north. The building has windows that line up perfectly with the sun and moon during the winter and summer solstices. Another skylight lines up with the moon on some obscure 18 year cycle, a very rare and uncommon part of its rotation apparently. The Hohokam were apparently some kind of astronomers but no one can figure out where that knowledge came from or what the true significance of those events was to them.


The "great house" is the centerpiece of the ruins and the community that once existed around it but a lot of outlying infrastructure also remains and shows the ingenuity they had in planning and forming their home. They even built large "ball courts" as a space for social games and gatherings, shaped like an early version of a hockey rink. There were four or five different designs for outlying buildings, each with its own drainage system for the rainy season. The pots and bowls they constructed were fired by burning mesquite trees and, over time, they grew more and more intricately patterned and decorated.


I dropped $30 on a book about the tribe and the ruins, a collection of essays by archaeologists that worked on the site or studied the Hohokam. Its quite fascinating because this site is really the last vestige of the tribe, the last evidence they even existed. Scientists are really clueless as to what might have happened to them; an entire people just up and disappeared. We know that they abandoned most of their settlements along the Salt River and relocated to the Gila River area and it has been postulated that as their canals dried up they were simply unable to survive the conditions of the desert. But the lack of any kind of concrete history is both troubling and fascinating. They have these sites that people can visit and learn about their history, how they lived and what their lives were like, but the ultimate ending remains a mystery. Even something as simple as their pots and bowls raises more questions than can be answered. There are enough pristine examples preserved by the desert that we know they went through several different styles and practices during different periods, but we don't know what lead them to discover how to create such smoothly finished surfaces and create a functional glaze. When did functionality cease to be their primary concern, giving way to the constantly-evolving and complex decoration and painting? Is there a correlation between the increase in contact with other tribes, the subsequent increase in trading, and the importance of what we would today consider pleasing aesthetics?


Their agricultural prowess is also worth noting. They harvested rivers and tributaries that have since long gone dry for their survival, carving out an incredible series of canals to draw water to their communities for irrigation and a sustainable drinking water supply. This is, of course, done with tools made from stone and bone long before white settlers arrived in the area. The scope of the work is beyond comprehension in a lot of ways.

So it is very compelling stuff, but I have to admit to feeling a bit of guilt about it considering its been years since I did this kind of reading about Canadian First Nations. Probably since University. Whoops. Might have to correct that.


In the interest of keeping a consistent theme we spent most of the rest of the day shopping. Shoes, pants, sweaters, all half or sometimes a third of what I would normally expect them to cost. Apparently people are so desperate to make any sale at all they'll give you a drastically-reduced price on an item that isn't even on sale as long as you tell them you thought it was. So Sarah Mills will get her wish; I will come home with three new pairs of shoes, new work slacks, and hopefully a fresh and healthy new outlook on life to go along with them.

To that end: I don't think I thought about my relationships back home for more than two minutes today. I'm calling that a victory.

Take me to sleep, Legs McNeil and Polar Bear Club.