But the people at Google, who have supported this blog for the past 9 years or so have lit a fire under me with the recent announcement that as of April 2, 2019, they will be closing down the Blogger platform, which has been a great service to me and others, and it appears that both the content and the blog itself will disappear. At least that's what it seems. So Jackie and I have been furiously printing out all of the postings that at least, partially, document our meanderings since 2011. The last piece of business for me is to overcome my inhibitions, and in one form or other, finish this posting, which in some way ties a ribbon around our adventure. This time mandate doesn't make it easier, but it makes it necessary. So while the pictures speak for themselves, not as a comprehensive travelogue, but rather a repository of my impressions of things along the way, I will finish this last posting, but it will most likely lack the cohesion I would have wished for. So here we go...
Our first stop out of Tucson on the way to Bisbee was Tombstone which we had passed through maybe 15 years ago and my memories of it were of a kind of honky tonk reconstructed roadside attraction which it kind of is, but it was better than I remembered, maybe because there were no people there or maybe because this photo catches it just right.
From there, it's boots on the ground in the magically reimagined one time mining town of Bisbee Arizona, once the largest city between Chicago and San Francisco, as we begin our first road trip of the year, a year in which the extingincies of life have weighed heavily on us slowing us down with preoccupations in many ways both good and not so good, but we begin at last to retrace our steps from journeys past and tinged with a sense of the need for closure of opportunities missed to the opening of new doors to and America yet to be discovered. As always my photos are not meant to be encyclopedic, although they sometimes are, but rather just impressions and discoveries gathered along the way that may or may not elucidate, but are random data of the American experience collected from a time and place in the minds eye of the observer for what they are worth. The reason for this particular itinerary is based on the sense of a lack of closure, our having been to many of these destinations before, but not knowing we were there, and left with the feeling we didn't see enough. Bisbee...
On the other side of the mine is the smaller town of Lowell which is struggling to stay relevant although not to the extent of Bisbee, but I have the feeling there will be a carry over effect. There are a number of old gas stations and automotive repair shops there.
As I said, the rehabilitation of Lowell is a work in progress, but I am an optimist, and the laws of supply and demand may exert an overflow effect on Lowell.
On the road from Bisbee to Lowell which passes along the rims of the vast mines is an old trailer park, the Shady Dell, which has been repurposed into a newer trailer park/motel, with the rooms being old trailers refurbished and scattered around the grounds. Unfortunately they were closed for the season when we were there, but we've seen it before, and it was worth while.
From Bisbee it was on to Phoenix for the night and dinner with my long lost cousin Emily, family historian and genealogist at the "best" kosher restaurant in town which was just kind ok at best. Then onto a regular stop on almost all of our southwest excursions, Winslow Arizona, home of the famous "corner," one line in a 1974 Eagles song that has immortalized a town that would otherwise be on no ones radar screen, unless of course you knew about the hotel La Posada, a 1920's Harvey Hotel designed by Mary Elizabeth Colter for the Santa Fe Railroad which stops there.
The famous "corner in Winslow Arizona" which appears to attract intermittently moderate sized crowds of people, often antiquated baby boomers on Harleys who stop for a while, maybe buy a tee shirt or refrigerator magnet or belt buckle and then keep going, because there's not much else there but an oversized idea that's been spinning around in people's heads since the 70's, unless of course they also had La Posada on their minds.
Love this picture because it is the color of the southwest. Three blocks east of the "corner" it has been there unoccupied for at least the past 10 or most years, and has always looked exactly like this. I always take this picture when we are in Winslow, but I think this one is the best.
This is a post card image of La Posada, a railroad hotel designed to replicate life in a Southwestern Hasienda. It is a large, rambling, spectacularly evocative building the makes you feel fortunate to be there. It is a magical place that almost wasn't here anymore, dodging the wrecking ball more than once and surviving malevolent efforts to degrade and destroy the beautiful interior. Fortunately it has been saved and restored. If you make it to Winslow for the "corner", go there as well, and while you are there, have a meal in their dining room, The Turquoise Room, also restored to it's former 1920's splendor, and while you are at it, have a bowl of their signature black bean and corn puree soup pictured below in a photo by Jackie.
While there are gaps in this last travelogue blog, we are trying to hit the high points. On the way from Winslow to Monument Valley another spectacular stop we always try to hit while we are down there. Jackie took this picture of me in the middle of nowhere, which pretty well describes most of the landscape between destinations, and that's just the way we like it.
The next three photos are in Monument Valley. Just some highlights. If you want to get a real feel for the place, watch a John Ford western. Interestingly, most of Utah looks like this.
Jackie took the next picture and it may by the best one taken on the trip. It is in the middle of our 17 mile automobile loop through the valley.
Our casita at Goulding's Motel. We have always stayed in the original main building, but this time they assigned us to this little pre-fab at the edge of the grounds which had a kitchen and everything and turned out fine. From there to Mexican Hat, a little town at the north end of the Valley where we always stop to look for a hat I lost 8 or 9 years ago and still can't find. Then Provo Utah, and Salt Lake City. If you look at the center of the photo, you can see the capitol building. It was a clean nice city as you might expect, but very dangerous. It seems like electric scooters are big there. They can do about 20 miles an hour, and people, especially teenagers, have no qualms about riding them on the sidewalk and trying to kill you. Wrote a strong letter to the mayors office, but got no response. We went to the Mormon Tabernacle complex, looked around, and spent the better part of an hour talking to a Mormon woman who told us enough about the religion and its restrictions to make me wonder why anyone would want to be a Mormon, unless you were born into it.
Then, onto the Bonneville Salt Flats which has always been on my mind to visit, but has always been a bit out of the way. Not this time. The Salt Flats are just that, flat, and very smooth, and has been the perfect place to set land speed records in increasingly fast rocket cars, and for racing in general. We got to the flats the day before race day when that were setting up and we were able to get out there and look around, which we did, and within a few hours, my curiosity was satisfied, and we felt we had been there and seen it.
Prior to getting to the flats, I didn't know how much time I would need there, so to be on the safe side, we booked a room for the night at the nearest town, Wendover, a town that actually straddles Utah and Nevada, which makes for a very interesting dynamic. On the Utah side, where we had a room at the Best Western, the towns shuts down and people go to bed at 10. If you walk 5 or 6 blocks, you are in Nevada where streets are lined with casinos, liquor stores and strip joints. We ate at the great buffet at a recommended hotel/casino, and later settled in to a seat at a blackjack table where we were doing quite well until three loud, oversized, Texans clutching fists full of hundreds sat down next to me bellowing and blowing enough hot air to make me sweat and realize that my luck had run out. Jackie had been wanting me to stop for a while, and rather than tempt fate which was no longer on my side, I collected up my chips, headed over to the cashier and we left winners, as always!!!
Wendover is also interesting for the basically abandoned WW2 Air Force base there with its old crumbling wooden barracks and hangars and administrative buildings, enough to give you a feeling for the extent and expanse of the place when it was operational. Of interest as well was the fact that the crew of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb in Japan trained there. From there it was off to Park City Utah, an upscale ski resort that happened to have a Chabad house there that was hosting Rosh HaShannah services and dinners which was part of the agenda of our trip. Funny, but when I was writing this up, I completely forgot about this part of the trip and our 3 night stay there. Below is a photo of me at the bar in the High West Brewery, having a shot or three of their very nice bourbon.
We had a good time there. Jackie spent time dodging sneezers and coughers and other unwell people, saving the lives of old ladies almost crushed to death by falling objects, and taking in the sights. I was surprised to find so many New Yorkers there, and spent a few hours talking with a woman who grew up in Far Rockaway, where my father grew up and where I spent a lot of time and it turned out that we knew the same places and the same people, like crazy Eddie and his insulated skin who used to hang out in front of this certain pizza place on Central Ave, and this certain girl named Rita.
With Rosh Ha Shannah over, the next and last stop on Paul and Jackie's adventure is ...Boise, ID.
Well, we did it!!! Bisbee to Boise in three weeks!!! We could have done it quicker but then we would have made the destination but missed the journey. Here we are in downtown Boise, looking down North Capitol Blvd during rush hour in the middle of construction, a familiar senario for us, except that in Boise there is no traffic jam, probably because they have streetcars and lots of people ride bikes. That's the capitol up ahead, and the yellow/gold building to the left is the Egyptian Theater, built in 1927 in the midst of the discovery of King Tut's Tomb. It was constructed to look like an Egyptian temple with all the frills, and it kind of does. Boise is a quiet, reasonably intact little city that missed the wrecking ball and holds many surprises.
I always like to find an interesting marker to note where we have been, and I was losing hope here in Boise where it was our last day before the trip back to NY, when I was walking down art alley around 3 pm and I noticed something I had seen earlier, poorly lit and with a car in front of it. All of a sudden it was there for the taking, and I took it and ended this photographic and personal journey on a high note. We have now tasted and seen Boise!!! It is March 28...There is much to do. As mentioned at the top of the blog, things may be closed down on 4/2, so I'm working fast to get this one in. Our second to last big trip of 2018.
Don't know what will be on 4/3, but we shall see. Maybe this is goodbye!!!
Pablo
