Happy New Mayan Long Count

When words fail . . .

. . .  there is the long count.

Walk in the Wash

The wash from Finger Rock near our house.

One nice thing about the colder weather here is letting the dogs loose in the nearby wash, the one that comes down from the Finger Rock trail. (I have less concern about reptiles.) It means walking two houses down San Simeon Drive, then cutting across openings in creosote bushes and mesquite trees.

This giant fishhook barrel cactus or Arizona barrel
is over eight feet tall.

It's a trail for coyotes and javalinas to commute from the Catalinas to neighborhood rabbits and table scraps. Some weeks ago there was a letter to the Arizona Daily Star complaining about coyotes in the city. Well, Finger Rock wash is one approach.

My favorite landmark is a giant barrel cactus nestled near an old mesquite tree. Slow growing, such cactus might take four years to grow three inches. They live about 130 years and get about five feet tall, but I have seen very few that big. This one in the wash is about eight feet tall, even taller if it were standing up straight instead of tilting towards the south.

I like to walk the dogs without a leash. They are good kids and have learned to stay close. They like "reading the morning newspaper," i.e., sniffing everything, which gets old if I am being dragged by the leash. I make noise and keep an eye out for trouble.

Jasmine & Nazar trot by a mesquite tree.

This recent early morning, I remembered to take a camera. The shapes are so amazing, and the morning light so beautiful.

Mesquite trees come in huge, over-reaching, scrawny shapes. Branches flow wider than tall, out sideways and draped down towards the ground.

Mesquite can regenerate from a piece of root. They have the deepest taproot ever documented: over 160 feet. (They were digging a copper mine when they found the root.) Its bean pods are a staple food for locals, including coyotes.

Hardy or not, I lost one by the driveway that had been planted by a previous owner. I planted a new sapling this year with the hope that I do not overwater it to death. Life may be hardy in the Sonoran Desert, but it's all living right on the edge.

Crowds & Bratwurst

It turns out that the Fourth Avenue Street Fair in Tucson was invented the same year as the University District Street Fair in Seattle:  1970.

The Fourth Avenue Street Fair began when local merchants put tables in front of their stores to attract customers before the holidays. Now, they say, it's one of the largest in the country and draws crowds of 200,000 to 350,000.

Apparently, Tucson is unknown in Seattle which boasts that its U-District Street Fair is the longest running street festival in the entire country. That Fair began as an event to heal a neighborhood divided by hippies, war protests, and street riots. I used to go there, but missed the tear gas.

We went to the Winter Fourth Avenue Street Fair yesterday. Glorious weather; huge crowd. We'd been once before, but we'd forgotten how big it is.

It's hard to believe there are so many people hanging out at these events. Times change. Most appeared to be in their thirties or older. Given that Tucson's Fourth Avenue is close to the UofA, I expected to see more undergrads. But they seemed to be in small numbers.

Walking four blocks to get there, then meandering through the six-block site, plus side streets, left us wanting to sit down in the shade. We like La Indita, a local Mexican restaurant favorite for almost thirty years.

Trouble is, I have a weakness for hot dogs. There were lots of food vendors at the Fair, and several selling hot dogs and the like. I decided to treat myself.

The first clue should have been that I was already pretty full from my chili relleno. I had ordered a small plate, but it came with beans and I am not one to leave food on my plate.

The second clue was when I walked up to order my hot dog. Prices weren't posted. For good reason.

The third clue was the price for a hot dog. Seven dollars for a Polish or a bratwurst. (What's the difference? Two disparate peoples united by a common butcher.)  I was too stunned to respond intelligently. I paid up.

Of course, the bratwurst didn't settle well. They rarely do on a full stomach. I should leave my hot dog cravings at Costco with its bottomless soda.

Other than food and a Balinese hand fan in an off-site courtyard, we didn't do any shopping. It's all too much to take in. There was one place selling cute doggie caps, but we resisted.

Halcyon Magic

Christmas trees or, as I am beginning to think of them, halcyon trees do grow bigger.

An early scene in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker includes a magic Christmas tree that grows bigger and bigger.  At least, this used to happen in Pacific Northwest Ballet's annual productions when I saw a performance aeons ago.

They do grow bigger.  It happens as you keep buying more lights and ornaments to hang on them.

We bought a couple of strings of lights and decorated a palo verde tree in front.  It's no small feat, if you know how palos verdes are weirdly bushy and razor-blade spiky. We decided a few more strings would improve it. Yesterday I put up two more and it occurred to me how true: Christmas trees really do grow bigger.

Speaking of aeons, year end, and the end of the world, has everyone seen the Australian PM Gillard confirm the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar?  Happy Yule and Merry Halcyon Days!

Cascabel on the San Pedro

The fair site in the mesquite bosque that is Cascabel.

Cascabel isn't a place as much as a concept. It's an area on the San Pedro River about five miles north of where the paved road from Benson ends. The dirt road continues down the San Pedro (it flows to the north) another 25 miles or so until San Manuel, which puts you back on asphalt again near Oracle. That 30 miles of dirt would take you past another concept in geography, Redington, all the time keeping the Santa Catalina Mountains on your left. But we didn't go past the pottery kiln just south of the old hamlet of Cascabel.

Shari noticed an article in our local Tucson newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, about a ghost town coming alive annually for a fair, the Cascabel Community Fair -- in this case, the 32nd annual. We donned our boots, packed the two furry kids in back of Smokey Ganesha (our Explorer), and headed for the San Pedro.

Cliffs by the San Pedro that look like castle walls.

The drive was well worth it.  Not the I-10 freeway to Benson, or the paved road past the Mormon church spire, but the San Pedro itself. It's a narrow band of mesquite bosque (forest) by the river bed bounded by the Rincon and Santa Catalina Mountains on the left and the Little Dragoon and Galiuro Mountains on the right.

The San Pedro saw Hohokam settlements and Pueblo people migrations. Unlike the Phoenix (Gila and Salt Rivers) and Tucson (Santa Cruz) basins, the San Pedro hasn't seen much modern development. It's downright remote. So its archeological sites are much better preserved and accessible. Its remoteness has protected it, which makes the San Pedro feel particularly special.

One of two quilt booths

They claim over a thousand people come to the two-day Cascabel Community Fair. They probably had more this year, given the newspaper article. There was a regular stream of cars on that dirt N. Cascabel Road, and there were scores and scores parked under mesquite trees.

According to one Fair organizer, there are about a couple of hundred people living within a ten-mile radius, a very diverse community. They create the event, and we met some of the nicest people. The nucleus of the Fair is a homestead where a pottery kiln had been constructed. Pottery, alpacas, local honey, quilts (yes Cini, quilts), jewelry, paintings, cards, and even Christmas bric-a-brac were for sale. The food booth, the largest of the booths, had banks of crock-pots loaded with chile (bland, but hearty) and whatever it is that makes a sloppy joe.

And the band plays on.

Locals had bumper stickers against freeway and high voltage electric lines in the valley.  Apparently, the powers that be had an idea of constructing a freeway bypass of Tucson that would have run the length of the valley, and another idea to lace the valley with high tension towers. Among the two dozen or so booths were tables devoted to the local environment.

Three guys were playing music, mostly country (some Hank Williams) and vintage pop, and all good. The amplifier, mercifully and tastefully befitting the bosque setting, was turned to a setting where you could hear the music without wanting to shield your ears and run.

The artist community castle.

It struck me that most of the attendees were older people.  The hippie generation is grey-haired. More SUV's and BMW's than pickups and funky vans. But there were lots of pickups. A teenage gothic couple, all in black with that metal-pierced look, seemed awkwardly dressed for the occasion, but they were enjoying the event.  Another awkwardly young (probably local high school) couple seemed to be on their first date.

A short walk away was a sort of a funky forest castle. A Tasmanian guide (been here for thirty years but still had a thick accent) offered admission for a dollar.  He said it was built by Mexican construction workers using their own techniques and materials and had served as an artist community. We spent a buck and Shari toured the upstairs loft where she found an altar with pictures of Ramakrishna and Anandamayi Ma. Nice.

So I think we will give the Cascabel Community Fair very high marks indeed. I'd like to go again next year and drive a few extra miles to see the hamlet that's supposed to be the ghost town. I'd take the big camera with a telephoto lens and get a better shot, early in the morning, of the cliff that looks like castle walls. And maybe I will spend a dollar and go inside the artists' castle while Shari holds the two furry kids outside.

May Google not sue me for infringement.