I met Nancy, Avery, and Megan in Flagstaff after they had exited the Grand Canyon. When I
arrived at the hotel, I learned that they had gone out for dinner. I needed something to eat too
so went out looking for a likely spot. I chose a Mexican restaurant. It seemed kind of empty
except for these three people who started to wave at me. We had accidentally chosen the same
restaurant out of about a dozen around the hotel. The real bonus was that I didn't even have to
order as both Nancy and Avery couldn't finish their dinners. I ate their leftovers. Mexican
restaurants tend to have large portions.
The next day, we drove south from Flagstaff through Oak Canyon to Sedona, the vortex/new-age
capital of the world. The tourist map even has several vortices marked on it.
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At the top of Oak Creek Canyon, there is a look-off. The look-off has stalls selling
handicrafts. They are highly desirable spots that are assigned by a lottery. I purchased a
simple necklace for Lisa that is made from hematite and jade, both local stones. Megan had
purchased one earlier. I accidentally picked one that is almost identical to
Megan's. Is similar taste in necklaces genetic? Megan is wearing hers in the photographic to
the right.
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 Megan at look out over Oak Canyon Ref: 2003-1001 |
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Along the road through Oak Creek Canyon, we stopped to do a hike in West
Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. The hike up West Fork Canyon was my last dry day. Hard to
believe in a desert, but it is true. The canyon was beautiful in fall colours, orange-backed
tarantulas out for a stroll, and cool (cold) water.
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 Light and Canyon Walls Ref: 2003-1014 |
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We stayed overnight in Sedona. Sedona is somewhat like a Banff/Canmore conjunction,
surrounded by a park and national forest and inhabited by artists, hikers, and new-agers.
We walked up the street and hill from our lodgings for a view over Sedona.
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 Sedona Ref: 2003-1044 |
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The next day we drove to Tuscon through the lowering clouds and finally a light drizzle. We
found the house in which Nancy, Avery, and Megan lived during their time in Tuscon.
Aside from the activities that you see in the pictures, we/I also
- listened to Nancy and Avery reminisce about the old Tuscon and those halcyon days,
- ran with Megan through some nice suburbs with quail and rabbits,
- kept Megan company as we left the too-mushy parents behind,
- ate lots of Mexican food, some good, some so-so,
- drank marguartias and beer (someone had to keep Megan company, or maybe it was the other
way around),
- DID NOT see a (wild) road runner despite promises by Avery,
- did see my first Acorn Woodpecker,
- stopped at Jerome to look at old mines and a resurrecting town,
- went out in the morning to do a bit of birding - my first Tufted Titmouse (in Sedona), and
- walked with Nancy to an arroyo that was a rushing torrent.
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The following day we went to one of Nancy's and Avery's favourite places, the east part of
Saguaro National Park. It has many hiking trails. I
think that we followed the Tanque Verde Ridge trail.
It gained enough elevation that we left the saguaro cacti below. They
cannot tolerate frost. The frost line is easily discernable from the saguaro cactus
line.
The rain and relative cool was a good thing for us northerners. We probably
could not have gone as far on this hike had it not been raining.
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 Avery, Nancy, Saguaro Ref: 2003-1076 |
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We ate lunch under an overhang in a dry stream bed. As we ate, water started to drip off the
overhang. The effects of the water on the plants were evident as we hiked back. More flowers
were open and the cacti's pleats were stretched to the limits.
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 Desert Flower Ref: 2003-1067 |
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The next day we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert
Museum. Great place, especially when it is raining really hard, which it was. It stopped
occasionally so we saw the Harris's Hawks fly.
The Harris's Hawks that inhabit the desert are the only hawks that hunt
cooperatively. Biologists think that this is an adaptation to the thorny environment. One
doesn't want to go crashing into vegetation that may spear one or take out an eye. The hawks
flush prey into the open where one of their family can kill it without (with less)
danger.
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 Harris's Hawk Ref: 2003-1085 |
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The hawk's social structure is a matriachy. The alpha female sits on the tallest perch and gets
to eat before the others. When they let their hawks out to fly, the males were let out first and
then the female. She immediately flew to the male on the tallest perch and displaced him. He was
expecting it and flew down to a lower perch.
I also sat in on a lecture on rattlesnakes of the area. They had two individuals of two
different species.
One was a small snake about 1m in length. They live in the hills. The desert
acts as an ocean does to island life - keeps the snakes on one hill from breeding with the snakes
on a different hill. This leads to at least sub-speciation of these snakes. Also, the population
of snakes on a hill is quite sensitive to disturbance because they cannot move off the hill.
The other snake was the desert rattler, which lives on the desert and is one of the more
venomous ones. There has been some interesting studies done on the types of venom produced by
these snakes. It turns out that there are two types: hematoxin and neurotoxin. The antivenoms are
different. One cannot tell by looking at the snake what type of venom it produces. There are also
some snakes that produce both types of venom, which I guess rules out two species. This is similar
to the Northern Flicker, which encompasses the yellow shafted, red shafted, and perhaps the gilded
races. In Calgary, the ranges of the red and yellow shafted races overlap and we get birds that
have phenotypic characteristics of both. This year we have a flicker coming to our feeder that has
yellow shafted feathers and red moustachial stripes.
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One nice aspect of the desert museum is that most of it is outside (some inside for those
particularly hard rain showers). Many wild animals make their homes there. Many of the birds
are used to humans walking by so go on about their business ignoring us. The cactus wren
shown to the right is a good example of that. He was busy making a nest a few feet from the
trail, which allowed me to get a few good shots of him. Wrens move so quickly and often that
many of my shots have lots of motion blur.
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 Cactus Wren and Nest Ref: 2003-1082 |
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