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scrub jay at my feeder

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Back to where I been

 

I hadn't been on the road through Salome and Aguila for about forty years and now I remembered why.

I was in a very remote section of the desert and there was simply no there there.

I found myself wondering about those brave and hearty folks who ventured on this particular terrain and said:

"This is it dearest, we shall go no farther, we have found our little paradise. This is where we shall plow our field and fruitfully multiply as the good lord hath ordained."

Can't quite see it myself, that is unless maybe I was either under a federal witness protection program or nursing a big speed, heroin and/or alcohol habit. Of course, it might just be the particular spot where the wagon broke down...

Clean dry air and 110 degree heat notwithstanding, the general area is not anyplace I would ever consider putting up my shingle.

But some do, god bless them and truth be told, a good friend actually grew up on a cattle ranch in Aguila and I am sure that he could furnish me with all sorts of highlights and fond memories. 

And who knows, stick me in a dilapidated single wide with a broken axle and enough gin to float my passage and I could probably even finally finish that novel I never really started.

You need that sort of solitude to write properly.

This particular stretch of nowhere would probably be a fertile environment to start your own cult or religion, if you ever had the need for followers and creed. Not situated all that far from hellfire and damnation, if fact I think that it is the next town over.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Why was I even here? Certainly not to pontificate, Edward Abbey had mined this stretch of literary terra firma so brilliantly that there was no reason to try to one up him, not that it was even possible. 

Besides at my age in my late sixties, most of the really big thoughts have since flown out the window. Now it is about intake and outflow and complaining about the new locations for arthritis and similar ailments. Base shit.

What was I doing again? Oh, that's right I was driving to Prescott to hang out with some old friends and hit a Navajo rug auction. I had got up and got out of the door at five on Friday morning, the GPS took me up Winchester Rd. and finally I took the 10 to the Wickenburg turnoff and the lovely old gas station that I was forced to capture, entropy and spray paint being the hallmarks of the new apocalypse we were promised by our savior as payback for all those ungodly thoughts and actions we thought we could dodge.

Can't cloudsit with the big guy and the harps before you indulge in a little fiery introspection and look at life's book with a bit of honest clinical objectivity and soul searching.

At least my car was running, reasonably full of gas and still had four wheels, still fully capable of delivering me from my sandy purgatory if not hellhole barring any unforeseen intervention from Yahweh or his minions.

But the Anza Borrego couldn't take me last week and I will be damned if I let Ms. Mojave have her way with me today. Begone desert!

I continued up the hill towards Yarnell and passed the charming little burg of Skull Valley. 


Where are we going on vacation honey?

 Skull Valley.

 Uh, I remember now,
 I have that bowling thing, shoot...

I saw a general store, decided not to stop, for some reason. 

Nothing personal but no one needs water that bad and I still had a little that I had brought with me. I would wait until Prescott. 

Case they are looking for another skull.

Bob and Sandy live in a wonderful spot, within eyesight of Thumb Rock or Butte or whatever it is called.

Their place is gorgeous and idyllic, inside and out and we had a great time hanging out.

They are both funny and Sandi is a talented potter.

I think I am more comfortable at this stage of my life in pine and juniper forest and high desert than the lizard and scorpion type of sandier habitat.

Broken beer bottle desert.

We went and previewed the auction, which benefited the Smoki Museum or wait, that was struck as not woke enough, the Museum for Indigenous Peoples, really rolls off the tongue.

They call it MIPS, it is shorter and a hell of a lot easier.


They had a couple hundred rugs and baskets waiting to be previewed.

Saw more than a few that I liked but didn't know how the game would be played and the nature of the reserve prices and those details can prove quite challenging.

I liked a big valero star rug and some two gray hills and this rug, never having really seen anything like it.

It was festooned with multiple kokopellis, lizards, lightning, rain, antelope and even llamas.

Very rich and unusual iconography.

We left and had a tour of the courthouse.


A Trump hat wearing senior citizen was squaring off in the town square with the Prescott Grandmother's for Peace. Fending them off with her flag.

Town just ain't been the same since all the Californians moved in.

We had a great meal at a Spanish place, Gato Azul. They didn't serve cat mind you, we weren't in Ohio, it was merely the restaurants cute moniker. I had a lamb chop tapa, perfectly cooked and a papas y queso appetizer.

The guests seemed to be of a similar hue and chroma, I asked Bob when I might see some brothers? He laughed.

On the way home they regaled me with tales of Big Nosed Kate, Doc Holiday's squeeze, born exactly one hundred seven years and one day before me and she who had found employment in a "sporting house" in Dodge City at the age of twenty four.

Prescott was the birthplace of the Roughriders, Teddy Roosevelt believing that hard bitten ranchers would be tough foes on the battlefield.

Damn right.

Buckey with the star

He told me about friend of Roosevelt, gambler and one time Prescott mayor Buckey O'Neill, who had the unfortunate timing of emerging from a foxhole exclaiming that "Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me" only to be promptly hit in the forehead with the next volley and a quick departure from this mortal coil. Timing is everything.

We went to the auction the next day, separate cars in case somebody needed to bug out early.

I ended up buying a small germantown valero star square and the Esther Etcitty kokopelli rug.

Who is she?

Read about her. She has a chapter in Mark Winter's master weaver book. 80 years old, just took a left turn off the traditional path and forged her own way, design wise.

She incorporates ancient Hohokam wall art and cave paintings as well as some fanciful figures. There is a llama in this one. I have now seen quite a bit of her work and this is the slickest yebichai border I have ever seen her do.

From Toh-atin Gallery:

Esther Etcitty was born in 1944 in a traditional Navajo Hogan near Sanostee, New Mexico, about thirty miles southwest of Shiprock. The major trading posts for Navajo weaving in that area are Two Grey Hills and Toadlena. She attended boarding school in Sanostee and in Albuquerque but did not finish because she was needed at home to help with the family.

Esther is one of the featured weavers in Mark Winter's book,  The Master Weavers, Celebrating One Hundred Years of Navajo Textile Artists from the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills Weaving Region.

Her weavings are different than most of the work featured in the book. As a young weaver, she made traditional Two Grey Hills styles and some geometric weavings, but about 25 years ago she found her own pattern. She started weaving natural wool colored pictorials with Kokopelli (the hump back flute player) as the predominate design. This mythological figure is commonly found in the rock art of the area.It also includes horned toad, sheep, rock art figures and Yei’s woven into the background.

Etcitty is one of the few weavers acknowledged by Winter as a Master Weaver who does not make geometric patterned rugs. She has laid her claim to having created one of the most unique individual artist designs in Navajo weaving.

I like this weaving, very hip and different, not sure anybody else will but I get that sometimes. I got it for a good price should make a little money and enjoy it while it is mine.

I left the auction and drove to Gallup, once again, twice in a month stopping at Don Diego's for a very rough dinner. Only one of two non dineh in the place. 

They put so much red chili in the food that it is almost too much for me to bear. Gut buster. We ain't in Californee no more.

Place has been going downhill for about fifty years but I still come back.

I left early the next morning for Santa Fe. I was completing the purchase of a wonderful collection that I was working on in August.

I stopped off at John Fillmore's, who was kind enough to perfectly clean an 1853 Hirishige print for me, no charge. 

Thank you buddy!

He now has over 480k miles on the bronco, original engine.

Was snowed in in his driveway, has to be near twenty, twenty five years ago for several days.

Epic snowstorm, the neighbors made cardboard galoshes and snowshoed up to the general store.

Took days, not to mention a mountain of kitty litter, to escape that snowfall.

I met with my buddy and spent a day purchasing some really neat Plains Indians material, something I rarely encounter, like this beaded Crow rifle scabbard.

Or this porcupine and turkey beard roach, complete with ivory spreader.

I can't wait to put it on a metal stand, so lovely, in both color and architecture.

My friend treated me exceedingly well, as did his wife, and we had dinner at Harry's.

We finished our transaction the next morning and I decided to hit the road.

It was actually cold and rainy, a wet Monday, everything was closed and I got the sudden impulse to skedaddle.

But nor before stopping off in Albuquerque to see my friend John, a very bright man who is also an ex lawyer and long time musician.

We can talk for days but I needed to make tracks.


John gifted me a pair of really stylish and minty Rod Patrick smooth ostrich cowboy boots which set you back quite the kronar.



John's place is a western swing  museum.

I asked John about this box, Coyote Springs. Where was that?

"Ah, funny you should ask me that," he says. John's grandfather lived here and his roots are deep.

He explained that Coyote Springs Mineral Water was the favored choice to chase liquor with way back when.

I asked him if he had any glassware from the place and he said that it has disappeared from history.

Apparently the U.S Air Force put an asphalt air base right on the top of it and erased it from memory.

I found this.



Taking leave of John I headed to Flagstaff.

I pulled off at Seligman and took the 66 back to Kingman.

I had seen eagles before on this stretch but not yesterday. 

Horses yes, and a prairie falcon.

Hualapai is a trip and some of the neighboring scenery is pretty funky cool.

If you saw the building where Bert and his pals country danced, you would get shpilkis.

Leslie found me a great hotel n Flag, the Hyatt, swankier lodging than I am used to.

Decided to go out on the town and treat myself to an expensive dinner. 

What the hell. Duck in a citrus base and pinot grigio.

Very disinterested bartender who finally softened up.

Guy next to me asked her how long she had poured drinks?

Too long.

Finally got her to crack a smile.

I continued on yesterday morning. Santa Fe and back in five days.

Was colder in the desert this run than at my house, by a long shot, having left in 100° days .

Hit Tommy's Burger in Barstow, a must stop for my double chili and then hit massive traffic at the 215 split before I sailed on home.

Got home yesterday afternoon, little worse for wear.

Very good short trip.

Left early in the morning today to unpack the car. 

Saw this cooper's hawk in the dawn.

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