Hola Chicos y Chicas…well, we’ve only a month left on the road. Now we’re out of the desert of Arizona, and up in the high elevation Mediterranean climate of northern San Diego County in Julian. This time of year its Main Street aroma is one of pies baking. The sidewalks are filled with folk who wish to take a part of Julian back home–which mainly is pies. There was a heckuva storm over the weekend that we missed.
This leg of the journey began in in Tucson, where we met with Barbara Johnson. Who is she? We first talked in Portal AZ, in the southeastern corner of the state at the Portal Cafe. We connected the first time when we parked in the lot. Barbara was traveling with a friend who thought about buying property in Portal. The second time was on our last day in Portal. Barbara and her friend sat at a table under the covered patio. We waved hello and enjoyed lunch. As we were in the car getting ready to leave, Barbara walked over and said she’d like to stay in touch and that we were welcome to stay at her Tucson Airbnb. She gave us a card with her number. We texted while in Tucson and agreed to meet. The Tohono Chul Botanical Garden where we originally planned to gather was over crowded so we met at the nearby Whole Foods instead. We felt connection with Barbara and talked of many things including justice at the border between Arizona and Mexico. She’s someone easy to be with. That Saturday she joined in a demonstration supporting humanity. Here’s a photo she sent.
After leaving Tucson we drove to Usery Regional Park where we camped in site #49 near the restroom and appreciated the shade of our campsite’s Palo Verde tree. Palo Verdes produce chlorophyl in their bark, and the bark is green. The day time temperatures were in the upper 80s. Here at camp volunteers rake the granite gravel so it has a Japanese garden look to it. We swam at Chaparral Aquatic Center in Scottsdale for $6 each. Refreshing.
The following day, Thursday Nov. 13 we joined Cousin Karen–my Uncle Sub and Aunt Bertie’s daughter–and her daughter Jayden at Chop Shop in Mesa. The food was advertised as healthy and served as worn out ingredients for Bill and I. The best part was catching up with the cousins. Jayden works concessions at Diamondback Stadium and mom and daughter raised our awareness with their love of baseball. Good peeps, these two.
Later we picked up dinner for my niece Renaya and joined her at the outdoor table of her sons’ school Heritage Academy downtown Mesa. Renaya treated us to a play Radium Girls, based on a bestselling nonfiction book published in 2018. The story concerns 1920s-era women who painted watch faces with radium-paint, which illuminated in the dark and caused bone cancer in the jaws of the women. They placed the paintbrush in their mouths between dips in the paint. Reid, now 18, played Arthur Roeder, president of the U.S. Radium Corporation, who downplayed the girls’ illness and death. It took several years, and court cases before the company actually acknowledged the harm and deaths radium caused. His younger brother Quinn, played a role as the mailman boyfriend of Grace, one of the Radium Girls who took her case to court. Compelling acting. A story that rings true today.
The following day we left camp early and drove to Prescott, to reconnect with a close friend, Kateri, named for the first Native American to be canonized–Kateri Tekawitha. Kateri returned to Prescott a few months ago after living in Virginia near her daughter’s family for a little more than three years. The weather was not good to Kateri in Virginia. She is in her element in Prescott and it’s where she’s meant to live. She teaches Memoir and published a book this year, Small Retreats: A Journaler’s Memoir. It’s a good read and provides prompts to consider in writing our own life story.
We’ve been friends since 1986 when she was my editor at The Acorn weekly newspaper in western Los Angeles County. I credit her influence for my success as a writer. We’ve seen each other through all kinds of weather, and talk once a week. Being with her in person reminded us of why we’ve remained friends all these years. She’s a lot of fun and truly a great friend. She treated us to lunch at El Gato Azul, one of the best meals we’ve had on this trip. The staff are fun, too, and tell us they love their job.
After our epic catch up and delicious lunch–I ordered blue cheese beef tacos–Kateri toured us through the granite boulders of Watson Lake and the Granite Dells, an area we’d like to camp in next year.
Following a slog through rush hour traffic on AZ 101, we made it back to camp a few minutes before my niece joined us after her work at Grand Canyon University. That evening Renaya joined us for dinner in Cafe Marion. Afterward we walked around the campground loops and enjoyed a shooting star and the views of the night sky.
We talked of many things and truly reveled in our relationship with my late brother’s daughter who was born the same year we were married–1979.
The following morning Renaya once again visited us at camp and drove us in her truck to Coon Bluff at the Salt River not far from camp. We enjoyed the full flowing river and even saw one of the wild horses that live in trees that line the river.
Later, we drove to Sun City AZ and met with Bill’s brother Mike and his wife Stephanie. They are newly retired and spend half their time between home in Southern California, and the other half in AZ near their son Eric, his wife Jessica, and their daughter Loren, nicknamed ‘Lo.’
After lunch at their community’s golf club, Eric and Lo stopped by his parents’ home. We loved seeing Mike play hide and seek with Lo, nearly two now, and her total happiness at playing with her ‘Pa.’ Stephanie has designed some beautiful quilts, one which celebrates Thanksgiving on her dining room wall. Next is this Christmas-themed quilt, which will be sent out to have long-armed designs quilted into the fabric.
Nov. 17 we woke up at 1 AM to walk to the restroom. We were troubled to hear a woman yelling at her partner. The disturbance caused Bill to stay awake until 6 AM when we rose to pack up and drive to Julian CA. We experienced a few kerfuffles locating a Starbucks in Goodyear, a busy Phoenix suburb. The first two did not suit Bill’s vibe. We each felt frustrated by the indecision, and the intensity of the area next to the freeway, and finally found a third Starbucks where we could sit down and enjoy dark roast coffee and gruyere bacon egg bites. We lost our good juju for a moment, and were reconnected after hearing Wilco’s California Stars playing at the coffee shop. The song reminded us of the feeling we like to keep while traveling.
While driving we listened to our Audible book The Rose Field, a long-awaited third novel to Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust series. Narrator/Welsh actor Michael Sheen does a superb job of creating the various voices of this completely immersive story about a quest to preserve what fuels our imagination, and the forces that wish to eliminate free thinking. The main character Lyra Silvertongue, is on a quest to reunite with her spirit animal Pantalaiman, who has left her at great pain to help her find her way back to herself. Characters in this world have daemon spirit animals who act as their conscience and guide. Our son Raymond consulted ChatGPT and learned a fox would be his spirit animal if he lived in Lyra’s world.
Stopped in Quartzite to eat at Mountain Quail Cafe, which makes down-home diner food. It’s a great place to view characters. We took a new route along CA 78 through Brawley–good feeling ag town–and admired the sand dunes of Imperial Valley.
When we rolled into camp site #20 at William Heise County Park, we found ourselves in misty clouds at 4150 feet. No longer desert, we are camped among towering Coulter Pine, cedar and various oaks. The temperature has dropped 40 degrees and we’re wearing warm clothes and run our electric heater, which we did not do in Tucson or Mesa. The air smells of autumn leaves, wet from the recent rains. This morning we hugged our friend Liana, a librarian at the Julian Library.
Alrighty, time for dinner that Bill made–turkey, rice, beans and prickly pear cactus tortillas from Tucson. Our next chapter includes a visit to the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, followed by Bill’s 71st birthday, and a week with our son Raymond, his partner Gino, and our grandson doggies Rogelio and Chicharrón.
