Friday, February 28, 2014

Bama Territory



 

End of February 2014

As for the 1500+ miles that I just drove from New Mexico, I am not going to remember this in the exact order. First, I believe I had about 20 hours of podcasts loaded on my iPod that I ran out of within the second day. The first night was spent in Arkansas? In some field??? The next day I finished my podcast memory and wound up somewhere in Canada or Tennessee or in the Mississippi River. Driving is tough. What I do remember is getting to Alabama where I decided to settle down for two nights at a beautiful forested area. I guess I was in Bama territory. Look it up people. Alabama. Football I'm guessing. They're good. #1 as far as I'm concerned. Great hiking and all the pictures are from that hike. I met some pig hunters that confirmed that this state has been overrun by pigs.  PIGZILLA is on the loose!!! 500+ LB pigs out here. No joke. From there I went to a campground in Georgia/Alabama and had about 5 acres to myself with a river and picnic tables galore and even the two local dogs to keep Bella company. Alabama dogs have no fences, leashes, or limits on who or where they can play, so they followed my car the quarter mile drive to my spot and made a friend with Bella as soon as she got out. Now I'm in north Atlanta finalizing my AT stuff and making sure I'm all set to start walking for 4 months. Very excited!!!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Tom's Bar-B-Q in Memphis, Tennessee

Great pork sandwich!

Tom's Bar-BBQ & Deli 
4087 New Getwell Road.
Memphis, TN 38118
(901) 365-6990
 
 
Southern style diner, downhome, 'where friends meat...' The orders were called out in creole and I barely understood what they said I ordered. I say the pork sammich was a messy meat and sauce filled tasty treat. The staff were very nice and speaking loudly in their conversation about daily life.
Great place!
 
 
Hours: Mon-Sat 8 am - 6 pm
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Parking: Private Lot
Attire: Casual
Price Range: $     
WiFi: No
                                            

         

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Art by Calvin Thomas 2014, Canyon de Chelly, and misc artifacts

 
Art by Calvin Thomas 2014, Canyon de Chelly

Left to right for petroglyphs of what the guy told me.
-Night and day.
-The the 3 rings around the dot means it was painted in the third (some would say fourth) world
Elk, antelope???, and deer with body's as baskets because that's what they made them out of, and the deer tracks.
-The paddle looking thing is the Kiva (sacred hut).
-The four directions.
-The male and female.
-God, and/or the first world.
-I forget the rectangular line meaning
-The scorpion: They didn't have a defense in the previous worlds against scorpion.
-The medicine man with his feathers (and how many people he has healed).
-The necklace of the medicine man, and he is holding a crying baby (complicated story and there and probably differing opinions on it).
-When there are multiple paintings very close to each other it's not suppose to be just random scribble scrabble. It is their writing, or at least it tells a story. I'm not sure if this rock tells a story.
 
 

Left to right.
Top row: Petrified wood bark, next 4 are petrified wood
Middle: Cool rocks!!! Big black one might be petrified wood
Bottom: Native pottery, Next 3 native or settler pottery

All rocks were legally scrounged on private property and returned.

           


The pottery has meaning and tells a story, too, but it was a little more complicated and disappeared from my memory seconds after hearing about it, then reading about it.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas

 
 
 
                     Greg wants to clean Doug's tires...
End of February 2014
After a solid rest at Brendan's, I made it to the Superstitious area of the Superstition Mountains. The rangers were super excited to talk to someone who wanted to hike and had all sorts of good day hikes and longer hikes with great info on where water was and good rest spots along the way, and practically a binder full of notes on the local trails. But... It was pretty hot and I discovered a nice sandy beach on a lake and did some solid procrastinating and sun bathing, along with throwing Bella in time after time until she picked up that being wet is actually pretty fun. I didn't end up doing much hiking, just during the cooler morning and evening hours. There, I went up to another NF just north of Superstition and hung out and did some creek walks. I had a pamphlet on the edibles and wound up with a good amount of stuff. None of it (2 different types of cactus) had much flavor to it, but it went well in my soup and didn't kill me, so that's a plus. There were a lot of weekenders, so I used Bella, my valentine, to go up and be cute as a conversation starter. She basically got kidnapped for a day by a family with two kids that had a good time playing with her while I dove into my book.
From there I began my Hwy 40/Route 66 journey starting in Winslow, AZ, then finishing the day in Petrified Forest NP. The petrified stumps were so colorful yet my my favorite part was the petrified wood chips scattered all over the place. It looked our neighbors house with wood chips scattered all over. I dunno why but it gave me a good laugh.
That night I camped on some ranch not too far away. There were all different colors of rocks and I'm assuming petrified wood scattered all over the place.
Canyon de Chelly was the next day, It looked like a mini Grand Canyon with native ruins all over the place. It was some Monday holiday so people and the local Hopi and Navajo vendors were out with their artwork. One of the guys chatted me up and got me hooked with the meanings of the petroglyphs, their creation story, and all sorts of other stuff. Although most families have different stories of the meanings, they are all pretty similar and it was nice to actually get an explanation of the meanings. I'm kinda bummed that the visitor center explained very little, and have very uninteresting, in my opinion, displays. They mostly have lots of stories of the explorers who discovered these sites, give a very brief explanation, and tell stories and dates that don't seem to match up with what the Hopi and Navajo say. What they do have on the natives of the past seem to be a guess of what the past of the area was like. For example, there was a large migration around 1300ish AD plus or minus a hundred years or so. The NP's just say there's no clear reason why they left because there was no significant weather or environmental problems... Maybe invaders. When I brought that up with the guy and family I talked with about their culture and beliefs, they said it was the end of that world and they migrated by following the petroglyphs into the new world. I understand that stories differ within the community but it just seems like the NP's could do a little better in terms of representing the locals and their opinions on the past however different they are from the western opinion of the world.
Going on, from there I got a speeding ticket, my first ticket ever!!! I was guilty as charged of going 65 in a 55. Only like 70 bucks, and my car has been doing great in terms of no problemos (knock on wood)m and great mileage so I can't complain too much. Then I went to El Malpais National Monument which is on the Continental Divide. There was lots of lava so I detoured and did some barefoot walking in a sand wash. Lava is cool and all, and they had lots of caves, but I was just in Hawaii and I know Bella doesn't want to be walking on lava.
The highlight of what I was looking forward too for quite some time, Chaco Canyon, was next. There was a great dog friendly trail system but the high was 42 degrees that day and the wind had to have been 30mph at times. I made the most of it and powered through as much as I could but wind sucks the energy right out of you. I still got in a good amount of hiking. And anyways, I should have taken a picture of the visitor center information to prove my point. They had a section of the geology of the area, a timeline of the events of the exploration, and discovery of the area. That's it. I dunno, maybe I missed the door that goes into the room that explains all the other interesting native stories and modern speculations that have this area being a pretty important part of the ancient world. I guess they had some books for sale that would fall into that category. For my last rambling about this issue, I would just like to say there are other ways of explaining to the world what a lot of other people and cultures are interested in or fully believe. If you open you mind to these ideas it can be interesting and fun, you don't have to believe, just try to understand a different point of view other than the western mindset of first we weren't very smart and we lived in caves, then, cities, religion, wars, Jesus, the Greeks, discovering America... and now we have cars. Cars that can go about 200-300 miles a day without a certain driver going crazy, the dog needing to run around, and both of them needing to pee on some tree.
Next, I am going to take a solid two day rest in a Mississippi NF. Then I'll need a little bit of running around collecting my gear for a March 1st Appalachian Trail thru hike attempt!!!

Sent somewhere in Arkansas, maybe...

http://www.arizona-leisure.com/superstition-mountain.html


                  Canyon de Chelly        http://www.nps.gov/cach/index.htm
                                                       A Friend
Chaco Canyon

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Tucson, Bone Yard, Biosphere 2, and AZT

February 2014

It's been a bit so I'll try to remember as much as I can from the past week or so. My friend Brendan lives in Tucson on the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, so I stopped in for a bit and got a nice shower and some good company. They have a one year old baby and Brendan is in training at the Air Force base. After a good rest and the blowout Super Bowl, I took off to a little town called Patagonia that's not too far from the border of Mexico. Bella and I did a day hike in, then a full day back out, and met a few amigos along the way. From there I took a night off then headed north of Tucson to the Biosphere 2 (whereas Biosphere 1 would be earth). A while back I heard an interview with one of the ladies that lived in this giant greenhouse for a University of Arizona mega science project. It was a good time and I would definitely suggest it to anyone that is ever in the area. There is a rainforest, ocean, and indoor desert (even though there's a desert right outside that looks exactly the same). I guess it was kind of an experiment for Mars colonization.
After a good time and a good nights rest, Bella and I took off north on the Arizona Trail from the town of Oracle. All in all, the 5 days I was on the trail we met a hiker couple, free and easy, a few cows that she chased, and also a few bunny rabbits. The cacti were everywhere. There were some that I thought were prickly pears but I guess they have some other name, but either way they jump out at you and stick pretty well. Every once in a while Bella would get one on her and get frustrated trying to get it off, so I'd pin her down and pluck it out while she squealed. As the days went on, she got tougher, to the point where on the last day she had one on her lip and just left it for about an hour. She knew not to get close to me or I'd rip it out. Then I whipped out the can of tuna for me. She gets a little too, and she knew it had to come out. My iPod battery was long dead by that point so I couldn't get a picture, but I got a mental photo that's going to my deathbed of her walking around with a pear size cactus hanging from her lip, happy as could be, too. We hiked about 130 miles, in all, with a few 35 mile days, and she was ready for more. So I put her to the test and she came out much better than I did. Man I was sore.
From there I went back to Brendan's for some more rest, and right when we got there Bella knew her spot and was lights out, besides for food time of course. I caught Brendan on his week off for paternity leave, so I stayed an extra day and we went to the base " Bone Yard" and museum. Lots of cool planes and WWII info. And they had some not so conventional planes (look at the Bumblebee picture).
The time to drive out to Georgia and start the AT is coming up fast. 2 weeks around eastern AZ and some New Mexico, then I'm off.
What's so superstitious about the Superstition Mountains? That's next.
And, thanks Thompson's for the R&R&Beer. It was great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i9wQGidG2M Bone Yard



http://b2science.org/


 

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Grand Canyon NP, Sedona, and Tucson for Superbowl Sunday!!!

Grand Canyon
End of January 2014
So... I had heard about a dog that got baited in by some coyotes. The coyotes do the old, "Hey, come hang out with us." Then, when the doggy thinks it has some new friends, the coyotes see a tasty doggy meal. Good thing for the guy that I met, his dog was a hulking 100 lb pit bull, and instead of  one dead dog, there was a pile of dead coyotes. I say this because I was in my tent near the Grand Canyon and I had heard coyotes around. Then, just when it got dark, I heard a whimper, and it definitely was a Hey, come play with us!, and Bella wanted to go meet the friendly coyotes. Not to scare you or anything, she stayed in the tent. So I gave them the old crazy man in a tent yelling, barking, maybe even a few F bombs, then I heard the pack go off hooting and hollering. They're not getting my baby Bella!!!
Anyways, the Grand Canyon was great, of course. And GCNP allow dogs on leash so I got some quality walks along the rim. There was a group of some sort of elk on the path and some people looking at them and throwing them snacks. What idiots. So I plowed through once I saw that and really wanted Bella to start barking at them (the deer and the people). This was like downtown Grand Canyon. Sorry about the negativity, but that really grinds my gears. And I've seen a few people feeding the crows at previous National Parks. Ahhhh!!!
So, on to Sedona. I stayed there for longer than I thought I would. What an amazing town. There was good free camping outside the city with tons of fellow cheap travelers. Also the trails they have are endless. My National Park pass covered the parking fee so I got in plenty of day hikes and had some time to cook up some quality meals. Town food seemed expensive so I went with eating well by cooking. In honor of accidentally backing over my stove and getting a cheap-o two burner Walmart stove, I made some high quality breakfast burritos, burgers, delicious sandwiches, and even grilled up a fairly large and juicy salmon.
Now I'm on my way to Tucson where I'll stay at my friend Brendan's home, along with his growing family, for a night or two (Super Bowl Sunday). On the way there, one night I stayed at some place, somewhere, then the next night was at some other place somewhere else. It was nice though, wherever I was. Very deserty with a picture perfect cacti and a few ruins to eat up the day. One trail was way off in the cuts (way out in the middle of nowhere), so I took a long walk, not on trail, and ended up finding the trail eventually. It wasn't much but there was some cool pottery shards and obsidian flakes. No significant archaeological finds though. Much needed shower and laundry coming tomorrow and it'll be nice to see some friendly faces. It'll be great to watch the Super Bowl, even though I don't care who wins. However, in my opinion, both those teams (states) are winners.

http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm Grand Canyon NP

Celica, Bella, and Long Tall Moi

Watch out for Elk!