Subtitled; When selfies are good. 🙂

My kids sent me this pic last night while they were gathered in my kitchen.  That’s Tooney (short for Mr. Toontzes) in the middle.  I love you guys to the moon.

…………… is to be truly alive.

There are moments, more and more, when I get a little overwhelmed with this whole experience.  I hate to keep using this analogy but it is the best movie I’ve ever watched.  And I keep thinking that it won’t end with the words “The End”, but rather with, ……. “to be continued”.

I want to thank my good friends Ro and Tim for once again taking such good care of me.  For me, our times together are so precious.  Many of you reading this will remember that I was able to spend many days up north near Crosby at a cabin on Rogers Lake.  It was their cabin and through their generosity and trust became a very special place for me.  My time there with them, and by myself, doesn’t have a word that adequately expresses what a gift that was.  It was a place of peace, rest, and sometimes healing for me.

The cabin now belongs to someone else but the friendship lives on.  And that is the greater gift.

This is another place in the Tucson area that I hope to come back to time and time again.  The first time I was here I took a tour of the place.  This time I came for Mass.  It is a special, holy place and one of the prize works that adorn my walls at home is a sketch my friend Tim did of this Mission.

This site is on the National Historic  Register but is also a working parish serving the Tohono O’ogham Reservation and surrounding area.  It was built in the late 1700s and has undergone a number of restoration phases that are ongoing.  It is one of the oldest parish churches in the US and in it’s history has been a part of both the US and Mexico.

This is the mission school at San Xavier.  It was established in 1864 and since 1940 has been staffed by the Franciscan Sisters of Charity of Manitowoc, Wisconsin.  It serves mostly children from the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui Tribes.

Although it is perfectly acceptable to take photos inside (not during Mass of course), I have always had a personal difficulty with taking pictures in worship spaces.  It doesn’t bother me at all that others do, it’s just a personal choice for me.

Having said that, walking into this church is like stepping back in time.  Little is known about the workers and artists that created this sanctuary, but the detail of the sculptures, statues, murals, and paintings takes your breath.  When I think about how old it all is, I can hardly get my mind around it.  I encourage you to go online and search San Xavier del Bac to look at some of the images from inside the mission.

Tomorrow (Wednesday), I’m off to explore other parts of Arizona.  I am well and hope you all are too.

I’ve been here many times now. Each time I visit my friends Ro and Tim, my stay always includes a trip up to the swap meet. It doesn’t take much convincing. They like coming here regularly as well.

How do I describe this place? It’s like the largest garage sale you can imagine on dirt. It’s the state fair of used stuff. I won’t use the word junk because for me it somehow feels disrespectful to the fact that for a lot of these people this weekly gathering on Saturday and Sunday is significant to their income. There are no yuppies selling pottery in this place.

My guess is this meet covers somewhere between two and three city blocks. Many of the vendors have “permanent” structures that they sell out of.

But there are as many that come and put out tables covered with tarps. There is lots of food sold both prepared and unprepared. One of my new favorites is bricks of raw coconut. Salsa, nuts, honey, and vegetables are abundant.

The prepared food is mostly Hispanic but with a couple of Thai places thrown in. And it’s all prepared in the old way with the exception that there are no open fires. Eating is one of the reasons I like to go, and of course the people watching. Both are superb. If we didn’t have somewhere else we were going, I’d still be sitting at this place eating their burros.  Carnitas con papas y frijoles, ummm, ummm, ummm.

If you’re ever in Tucson on the weekend, plan a couple of hours in the morning to experience the swap meet. Almost anyone can tell you how to get there. Oh, and my suggestion would be to arrive hungry.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico

I guess I feel on some subconscious level that I would always get here someday. I have a photographic poster on my wall entitled Places of Power that was taken at the Gila Cliff Dwellings Caves. I don’t think of it as sacred ground like I do say, Gettysburg or Arlington or Ground Zero. But calling it a place of power is not a mistake. The place has an unusual history and to be in the presence of the evidence that a people seven hundred years ago transformed these caves into dwellings gives it an inspiring aura. It may be the ultimate, early, home improvement.

By entitling this post Worth the Trip 2, I’m once again referring to the time and effort it takes to experience this place. It is forty seven miles north of Silver City. Doesn’t sound too bad but it’s a trip that takes every bit of two hours. It’s the kind of mountain road I’ve come to love.

All things being equal, I would choose to drive it without pulling a trailer, but I was hoping to stay somewhere up near the monument area.

The second part of the trip, the walk up, is not as taxing as Carlsbad but it is a hike that rises 750 feet above the floor of the canyon that is already close to six thousand feet in elevation. It’s the kind of hike that flatlanders feel, but the reward is worth the effort. Bring good shoes and if you like the extra stability of a walking stick you’ll be glad you brought it.

The photo of this tiny waterfall I took mostly to give props to my son who has done a whole shows worth of waterfall photos from Minnesota and New England.  You can see them at blainewilliamvolden.com                                                                                                Click on Projects and then Freshwater.

This is the view across the canyon from the caves.  It is believed the people who lived here were experienced growers and grew corn, squash, and beans up on the mesa.  Although it doesn’t seem far away, a trip down from the caves and back up to the mesa probably took most of a morning.

I made two trips up to the caves, one in the afternoon and the other the next morning.  I wanted to see it and take some pictures in two different light conditions.  By the way, a number of you have asked me about this;  All of my pictures have been taken, and in some cases edited, with my iPhone 5s.

When I got back to camp after an evening of glassing the hillsides for critters, my neighbors were there to greet me.

This was my second visit to this park and, God willing, there will be more. This park is a work in progress and the next project will be a spot specifically honoring servicewomen.

These two photos are from my first visit and they are of a sculpture commemorating the Bataan Death March.

Whenever someone is scrolling through the pictures I have on my phone they always seem to stop a little longer on these.

When I was here last they were busily trying to get ready for the dedication of the Viet Nam Memorial site. They were in the final stages of landscaping the site and mounting the granite panels on which were etched the images of the people from New Mexico who gave “the last full measure” in Viet Nam.

The helicopter that is perched above the wall was added just recently even though it was always a part of the original plan. The site continues to develop as funds are raised.

A couple of personal observation as a Viet Nam Vet; I am personally glad that they chose a Medivac ship, instead of a gunship, to display above the site. I would have loved to be in the room when that discussion took place. I can’t imagine you could talk to anyone who was “on the ground” in Viet Nam that wouldn’t express immense appreciation and respect for the men who flew in these medical helicopters. In addition, I want to say that I’ve been to “The Wall” in DC numerous times on two different trips to that city, and my head and my heart are permanently and emotionally attached to it. I can barely think about it without getting emotional. But having said that, this site in Las Cruces is a work of art as well and invokes in me all of the same feelings.

The people involved in the development of this site deserve tremendous respect and appreciation for their work. And I’m sure it was a difficult labor of love for family members when they were choosing the image of their loved ones to be etched in the granite of the memorial.

There is a panel dedicated to each branch of the service and within those panels are photographs etched in the granite as well as the unit patches that served in Viet Nam.  That’s my sister and I reflected in this panel.

This map is on the ground in the center of the site.  As a fund raiser companies and people can have dedication inscriptions added to one of the bricks.  You can see the upside down helicopter reflected in the granite.

As I wrote earlier in this post, a visit to this park will be a regular part of my visits to this area.  It is a good and hallowed place.

I am relieved to tell you that the report of my friend’s passing was miscommunicated to me.  It was in fact his mother who had passed away, so I owe him both my condolences and my apology for any inconvenience my hasty post may have caused.

Tommy,                                                                                                                                You left us way too soon.  There’s a hole in the world where you were.   But know that we who are left behind are not only sad at your passing but rejoice as well.  We celebrate our knowing you.

I will miss you greatly.

In loving memory of my dear friend Tom Streefland.

Ok, so a critical piece of equipment when you own a pop up camper is the crank handle that you use to raise and lower the top of the camper.  This crank fits into a receiver of a winch that is mounted on the tongue.  All through this trip I’ve been a little paranoid about keeping track of this crank handle.

After leaving the Carlsbad area and arriving at my sister’s in Las Cruces, I was going to do a couple of repairs that required opening the camper.  You guessed it, my crank was nowhere.  Well, it was somewhere, probably laying on the ground in or near Brantley Lake campground.   Thinking back, I remembered that I was almost ready to leave, had closed up the camper, and had the crank in my hand, when I received a text.  One that I wanted to answer right away.  I laid the crank on the tongue of the camper. Yup, that’s what I did.

It has been my habit when leaving a campsite to pull out of the site, stop on the road and walk back around the site to make sure nothing was laying under where the truck or camper had been. Unfortunately, the crank did not fall off the tongue when I did this. But of course did fall off sometime later.  Yikes, what a dummy, especially in light of the fact that I had been so aware on this trip of taking care of that crank handle.

First I called the only RV dealer in Las Cruces. He said he didn’t carry anything like that but referred me to a company in Michigan where he would order it from if someone wanted him to.  I looked up the closest Palomino dealer (my camper make), which was in Tucson. Before I called them I did a web search of “palomino camper crank”. A link to both ebay and Amazon popped up. I clicked on the ebay link and sure enough there was a picture of my crank. The source was listed as Fun RV and Boat Center, Anthony, TX.  Folks, Anthony, Texas is right on the Texas/New Mexico border 18 miles from Las Cruces. You can’t make this stuff up.

My web search had brought me back to a mere 18 miles away.  The next day I drove over to Anthony and picked up a new crank.  God looks after fools.

But the other end of this story is kinda cool too. The guy who runs the parts counter at Fun RV is a great young kid who listened patiently to my story with a smile.  He told me he gets lots of calls about cranks.  He also told me that he had started the web based parts service.  He takes classes at New Mexico State in Las Cruces and after taking a class on web marketing pitched the idea to his owner.  He talked to some of his fellow students and his instructor and began to keep track of all the things they would get calls about. He would propose to his boss investing in inventory of various products and selling them on line.  He proudly told me, “We now sell over three times as many parts on line as we do over this counter. And we continue to add more.  I’m kind of a hero around here,” he said.

Great story, great young kid.

If you’ve been to one cave have you been to them all? I don’t know. I remember that I went to Crystal Cave in Spring Valley, Wisconsin with my mom, my aunt, and my sister and cousin. I only remember that it was cold. I was probably 9 or 10.

What I would say to anyone about Carlsbad is that it’s worth the trip. If you’re traveling in the southwest it’s worth the trip to get there, and once there, it’s worth the trip down. Why do I say it’s worth the trip down? Because it’s a workout. And, in my opinion, not for the faint of heart both in the literal and figurative sense. The elevators at Carlsbad have not been functioning since last fall and probably won’t be functioning again until this summer sometime. What that means is handicap people and elderly folks are out of luck. There are areas of the caverns that are handicap accessible if they can get down to the bottom of the cave by elevator. Without the elevators each visitor is faced with a steep 800 foot vertical walk down on a switchback path. And a return trip up the same steep path. As I said, it’s a workout but I’m glad I made the trip because it’s like no place I’ve ever seen and I think that would be true for most.

Trying to take pictures down in the caves was a trick I couldn’t figure out. The lighting that has been developed in the caves to allow and enhance the viewing and enjoyment of this unique place plays all kinds of tricks on your flash. Honestly, I took a lot of pictures in the caves and deleted most of them. Here are a few that “survived” for your amusement.

Lucky for you there are tons of great photos on the web. The place is amazing.

Brantley Reservoir State Park outside Carlsbad, NM.