On the Road to Why, Arizona

Brittlebush

Brittlebush © 2013 Bo Mackison

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Checking the map, 112 miles to Why, then south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
Highway 86, Ajo Highway, I head west on the road of roadside memorials
and shrines, over a hundred I photographed two years ago.

Through urban sprawl, then open space.
Silver Star Road, brown earth, barbed wire fences.
Robles Junction.
Water puddles in the irrigated fields at Buckelew Farms.

Fuller Road. Battered mailboxes line the road, a row of scraped paint,
crushed metal, gunshot holes and red flags.
But where are the shrines and crosses? Gone. Scraped from the desert.

Kitt Mountain is due west, mountain dotted with white observatories,
celestial connections on the highest peaks.
Telephone poles string across the desert scrub. Earthly connections.

Tucson Rifle Club. Members Only.
Hayhook Ranch Road. Ranch For Sale.
Watch For Animals Next 54 Miles.

Yellow bundles of brittlebush and desert marigolds crowd the median strip.
Gravel piles stands where once there were roadside memorials,
a road widening project and the adjacent desert has been scraped level.

A bush of orange mallow, waving stalks of purple pestemon,
white Ajo lilies, like bridal bouquets dropped along the road.
Tohono O’odham Nation. Green desert, red earth.

San Pedro Road. Coyote Trading Store, open for business no gas.
Asphalt shoulders, graded hills with rolls of burlap hold back the earth.
Where are the memorials? Relocated? or destroyed?

Pan Tak Road
Kitt Peak Ahead, Turn Left
Road construction Expect delays

The road is wide, the shoulders wide,
and safer for the driving living.
Less need for memorials on the side of the road.

Saguaros relocated from the easement, twenty feet tall, propped with 2 by 4s.
By law, saguaros must be relocated.
A saguaro must face its original direction, or it will die,
another road casualty.

Gouged earth. One giant saguaro still stands
upon the graded bank, its roots exposed and twisted in the air.
Yellow earth movers shovel the ancient earth into piles.

This is progress. A safe road is a good road.
A good road is a safe road.
Smooth and homogenized, the desert tamed.

Three hawks soar high. Far enough west, the road narrows.
Red plastic ribbons flutter from branches marked for the bulldozer.
But for now grasses encroach over the yellow lines.
Mesquite and tree cholla crowd the roadside.

Butterfly and Beads Memorial

Butterfly and Beads Memorial © 2012 Bo Mackison

A single white cross remains, decorated with butterflies and beads.
The peak of Baboquivari, I’itoi’s sacred mountain, pierces the desert-scape.
Border Patrol. Their green-striped white truck is parked
under a mesquite while they search the scrub.

Littering Unlawful
You Are Entering Sells, Arizona, Population 2734
Komkcʼeḍ ʼe-Wa:ʼosidk, Capital of the Tohono O’odham Nation
The O’odham name means Tortoise Got Wedged.

Indian Oasis School Baboquivari District

Watch For Animals Next 10 Miles
Papago Assembly of God

Highway 19 Junction, Hospital Here
The Shell gas station pumps regular for 3.47.
Two wild horses, white and shaggy, graze along the road,
unperturbed by passing trucks.

Eugene Tashquinth Livestock Complex hosts
76th Annual Tohono O’odham Rodeo
January 26 – February 4, 2014

Tree cholla forest.
Yellow flowering mesquite, seed beans swing in midday breeze.
Road to Nolia. Turkey vultures. Triple decker saguaro.

Quijotoa. A historical marker tells me
it is Papago for Mountain Shaped Like a Carrying Basket.
The carrying basket had pockets of gold and silver.
And a mining boom in 1883.

Ghost towns. Logan City, New Virginia, Brooklyn, Allen City,
there was only a small pocket of precious metal.
The desert reclaims the abandoned.

Highway 15 Junction to Santa Rosa Casa Grande.
Desert sprawl, yellow blossoming brittlebush color the cactus floor.
The road narrows, ocotillo arch over the pavement. Toothpick saguaros.
Quijotoa Pentecostal Church of God.

Red and purple bows tied to mesquite branches,
remaining traces of a roadside memorial.
The dirt is leveled, the pull-off blocked with a rock pile.

Flashing lights on a Park Ranger’s truck slow oncoming traffic.
Three teen runners jog in the truck’s exhaust fumes,
one carries a banner. Unity Runners.

Road to Pisinemo.
San Si:mon. Tohono O’odham High School.
San Simon Health Center.

Flash Flood Area Next 10 Miles
Why 18 miles. Ajo 28 miles
Chain cholla glitter silver in the sun.

HIWAYRVPRK next road. Shuck Toak Road
Desert Diamond Casino, asphalt parking lot.
Coyote Howl RV Park. Abandoned.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument © 2014 Bo Mackison

Highway Junction 86/85
Lukeville 27 miles. 10 miles to Ajo
Approaching Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, A Biosphere Reserve

12:46 pm. March 18. 86˚F.
Blue skies. Windy.
Relentless sun bleaches color from the desert.

The organ pipes loom tall,
massive and thick, multi-armed.
Alien. Grotesque. Beautiful.

~~~~~~~

Not so much a poem, more a travel log.

Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen, Gate B13, Salt Lake City Airport – A Valentine Poem

Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake © 2014 Bo Mackison

Twelve faux wood tables greasy with biscuit crumbs.
Twenty four red metal chairs, unforgiving on the spine.

I choose a corner table, the walls at my side and back, protection with
a panoramic view of other diners, the terminal.
Wide windows frame the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Rachael hustles in her wide-screen TV kitchen, preparing Valentine Specials:
blood orange champagne cocktails, bacon and egg spaghetti.
Tarragon and onions sizzle in the skillet. They glisten.

Diners huddle over their chicken and fries
as low clouds move in, delaying connections.
Colorado, Long Beach, Phoenix. Cancellations. Re-booked flights.
The fast food joint fills with tension from rushing,
and worse, boredom and waiting.

The TV audience explodes with enthusiastic applause.
Rachael exclaims, “Stunning.” She swirls pasta on her fork.
Toasts with her blood orange drink. “Happy life.”

The chicken and biscuit crowd ignore her.
Overweight, balding or baseball capped, ear buds dangling.
A man seated one table over, he taps his foot, wipes his fingers with a paper napkin.
And slides a fancy card from a paper sleeve that advertises Deseret News,
studies the basket of roses on the front, then reads the message.

You have a pen? he asks, shrugging. Red faced.
I mean, can I borrow your pen?

I pass my pen, he nods, studies the card again.
Sucks on the end of my pen, then writes slowly, with deliberation.

He lowers his gaze and returns my pen, motions to the card.
My first one, he says, shrugs again. Valentine, I mean. Never had no cause for one before.

I nod.

For my wife. Our first one. I’m on my way home. It’s a surprise.
He stuffs the card into his duffel, steadies the duffel upon his back.

Thunderstorms have moved in from the north. Rain obliterates the view at Gate B13.
Another delay. We wait.
He stares at the window, clears his throat, checks the time.

I check the departure board. I check the time, too.

Valentine’s Day at the airport.

6th Annual Photo Alphabet – Elephants to Highways

E is for Elephants.

Magic Kingdom

Flying Elephants © 2013 Bo Mackison

Realizing a dream can be as unlikely as seeing a flying elephant.

Once upon a time, I used to ignore the elephant in the living room. Eventually I accepted the elephant, figured out what needed to be done about its occupancy, and I did the work.

Now I go in search of flying elephants.

And, once in a while, I find one!

~~~

F is for Freedom.

Pelicans in Flight, Kure Beach North Carolina

Free Flight © 2013 Bo Mackison

“. . . as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.” ~ C. Joybell C.

There is a certain freedom that comes with spreading your wings and taking flight.

Whether that flight is to a new country, a new home, or a new idea, embarking on a new beginning has a freeing quality. One can never leave the past entirely, but dragging it all along makes for slow travel. Leaving the baggage behind makes it easier to let “the winds carry you.”

~~~

G is for Gifts and Grandmothers.

IMG_5100

Grandmother © 2013 Bo Mackison

I grew up in a house filled with grandmothers.

Or so it seemed to me. There were two grandmothers – a grandmother and a great-grandmother.

I do not remember playing with either of my grandmothers.

But I do remember being unconditionally accepted, appreciated, and deeply loved by them.

I remember learning to be of help. If my grandmother was sewing – she was a seamstress, a business woman, a solopreneur  in the middle of the last century – I was given the job of sorting thread by color or winding yarn or finding a dropped needle. If my great-grandmother was making noodles, I cracked eggs and kneaded dough. My grandmothers usually included me as they went about their work.

One of my earlier memories was after dinner, when the family gathered to relax and read the daily newspaper. I always impatiently waited as they slowly read each page, every column, every want ad.  Then they discussed the news in detail. But once my grandparents finished with the paper, they would call me.

“Dear, I circled a letter for you in this headline. Do you know the name of the letter?”

“Yes,” I’d eagerly reply. ” A ‘P'”.

Then I was given a colored pencil and told to circle as many ‘P’s’ as I could find in five minutes. When the timer buzzed, we’d count the circles together, and I would proudly write the number on the kitchen wall calendar. No pressure, no goals, just a loving, learning practice.

Routines, rituals, traditions. Another way to express love.

This October, I became a grandmother. What an amazing experience. As I look into the eyes of this three-month old baby, my heart swells with love.

It is my hope that I offer my granddaughter a fraction of the gifts my grandmothers gave me.

~~~

H is for Highways.

IMG_1640

Desert Highway © 2013 Bo Mackison

Nothing heightens my anticipation and excitement more than a road trip.

I love following highways, especially the kind that zig around mountains, pass through open spaces – desert, prairie, grasslands. This year I discovered that I love driving the open road, solo. Stop wherever I want, photograph whatever and whenever for as long as the subject holds my attention, take a detour just to see what is beyond that next rise in the road.

Traveling cross-country from the Southwest to the Midwest this past spring was ten days of delight.

Only once did I question my sanity — when driving on a 12,000 foot peak in Colorado, negotiating hairpin turns with no reassuring guard rails. It was  the first spring snow melt which scattered mini-avalanches of snow and tumbled rock on the road. But even that turned into quite the adventure. Once I descended the celestial roads, I knew I’d negotiated those roads with care and good sense, and conquered my fear of mountain driving on the outside lane.

I took my time, pulled off at the designated places for plenty of calming and rest, took a few photographs, had a snack and a drink. I gave plenty of space to the passing timber trucks, whose drivers had much more experience on these roads than I did (or so I hoped), and I planned my route so I was settled in a town by evening.

I acknowledged my limitations, and appreciated the skills I possessed.

~~~

Want to read Part I? Here it is — Arizona to Desert

Coming tomorrow, Part III : Invitation to Labyrinth

Limitless Vision

Orange Bumper

Orange Bumper © 2013 Bo Mackison

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” ~ Albert Einstein

It is a foggy day in Wisconsin, and when I peer out the windows I see only thick clouds hugging the earth. The streetlights are specks, the world is at a hush. As I paused at my window, taking a break from the last bits of my new website that still need writing, my mind wandered. I reflected on the many places I have traveled in 2013, and truly paused with awe as I recalled the wondrous sights held lovingly in my memory.

My most memorable visits were ones were I stood on the edge of two of the coasts – in early July I stood on the very edge of gritty shoreline, where the tip of Long Island extended far into the Atlantic. I was mesmerized with the waves, infinite. Six weeks later I stood on the shore near the Redwoods, coastal northern California, and watched, again, as the waves pummeled the black sands. This time I stared into the vast forever of the Pacific. And a month ago, I once again trekked to the Atlantic Coast, this time landing in North Carolina. I walked the beaches there, the sand cushioning every step. And again I stared into the vast waters, the seemingly never-ending ocean.

I have such fond memories of those hours looking into the spaciousness of the sea. Staring out into the ocean requires great imagination on my part. There is nothing but the relentless pounding surf, and yet an entire world exists in its depths. And as long as my feet are solidly upon the sandy earth, I feel a deep connection with that which I can only imagine.

In a couple of days – December 5th – I’ll be moving from Seeded Earth to my new website. It’s been in the making for nearly half the year as I gathered together my passions — my photography, book making, and writing, my love of nature and of travel — and gently wrapped them together into new offerings.

Every day is an opportunity for learning and exploring.
The new and mysterious are just beyond.
(click to tweet)

Desert Heat

Dixie's Final Resting Place

Dixie’s Final Resting Place ©2013 Bo Mackison

a·ban·don

1 [uh-ban-duhn]

verb

1. to leave completely and finally; forsake utterly; desert.

2. to cast away, leave, or desert, as property or a child.

 

Abandoned in the Desert

Abandoned in the Desert ©2013 Bo Mackison

de·sert

 [dih-zurt]

verb

1. to leave (a person, place, etc.) without intending to return, especially in violation of a duty or promise. Synonyms: abandon, leave, quit; forsake.

 

Desert Heat

Desert Heat ©2013 Bo Mackison

des·ert

1 [dez-ert]

noun

1. a region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all.

2. any area in which few forms of life can exist because of lack of water, permanent frost, or absence of soil.

 

 

Abandoned Stove in the Desert

Abandoned Range in the Desert ©2013 Bo Mackison

range

[rnj]
noun

1. The act of wandering or roaming over a large area.

2. A stove with spaces for cooking a number of things at the same time.
Hot Stove in the Desert

Hot Stove in the Desert ©2013 Bo Mackison

 

heat

[heet]

noun

1. the state of a body perceived as having or generating a relatively high degree of warmth.

2. the condition or quality of being hot: the heat of an oven.

3. the degree of hotness; temperature

verb
4. to become hot or warm

 

I first photographed these abandoned ranges/ovens/stoves scattered about the grounds of the Post Picket House, a historical but unmaintained property that’s part of the Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Globe, Arizona. Ovens abandoned in the desert. Really, who needs an oven in the desert?

The good folks in the Southwest describe their temperature highs with the disclaimer that it’s a dry heat, as if that negates the fact that is it nearly as hot as Hades. In my mind, when heat is described as “dry as an oven” it is still hot. Really, no matter what words you use, lingering temps over 100˚F deserve the descriptor HOT. If you’re not convinced, you could always poke  your head in a hot oven for a second or two — not advised though.

So…is the interior temperature of an oven abandoned in a desert as accurate as an oven abandoned elsewhere? I would presume so, considering age and condition of said abandoned ovens.

Disclaimer: Obviously, the prolonged high humidity and temperatures in the Midwest — though NOT dry like an oven — is responsible for the lucidity of this post. A week with temps over 90˚ and brains begin to soften around the edges…

~~~~~~~~

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.   She is awaiting a break in the weather. Or not.