Silver City / Gila Cliffs

Silver City / Gila Cliffs, a set on Flickr.

From Tuscon, we hopped just over the border to a funky town in New Mexico called Silver City. We came into the city (loose terminology) figuring that it would be cheap and that motels would be plentiful and vacant- which was not true. We couldn't Priceline anything and the cheapest option was a nasty motel on a highway for around $100. In disbelief, I decided to search on Google for 'hotel silver city' and the Palace Hotel popped up- which was not featured on any of the sites we'd been searching. I called, they had a room for $50 and the guy on the phone was super friendly. Sold.

The hotel was only a few blocks from where we were parked, frantically searching, but the drive there took us into a different world-- out of dilapidated-rural-america-truck-stop-land and into hippie-historical-downtown Silver City. We ate at Isaac's Bar which had an amazing beer selection and turned in pretty early. In the morning we woke up to smell of coffee wafting into the room. The hotel reminded me of places I stayed in Germany years ago. Small rooms with a community breakfast area and self-serve breakfast with toast, juice, hardboiled eggs, coffee and whole fruit. We ate and explored the city that morning, stocking up at the local food coop and grabbing a 1/2 lb of tortillas and some green salsa from a little tortillera on the corner of W Texas and N 7th.

The town is a cute one, filled with art and people who look you in the eye to say good morning. I would go back.

That afternoon we headed up the road to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. It's only a few miles from Silver City, but you average 20mph on the winding roads, so it takes awhile to get there. On the way you pass a private hot springs area and a visitor's center where you can find information on the different hot springs in the park. Unfortunately for us, few of them had positive reviews around this time of year, and the ones that did required several hours of hiking and many river crossings. So, we opted to do a short hike to the dwellings and take off.

The 5 dwellings include many small, interconnected rooms where they think 10-15 families lived in the late 1200s. You can still see the remains of some of the original wood used as roofs and there are also a few petroglyphs and hand prints that remain on the walls. The hand prints really got me.

xoxo
H

Tucson and Saguaro

Saguaro, a set on Flickr.

If it weren't for the number of days per year that the temperature is over 100 degrees F, I think I could live in Tucson, AZ. It's beautiful and the people seemed very down to earth. Our original plan was to spend the night at a state park just outside of Tucson, but upon checking the place out, we found it to have a few too many prairie dogs and flies for our liking. I'm sure it's lovely in January and February, but camping in 100 degree weather kind of sucks. Instead we got a Marriott near the University of Arizona campus for $50 +tax. Thank you priceline negotiator. We also had our first relatively normal salad of the trip and some delicious pizza at the Brooklyn Pizza Company. I know that this wasn't authentic southwest fare, but it hit the spot. Apparently the whole establishment runs on solar power- awesome. We had planned on doing a hike in Saguaro National park the following day, but 102 without a cloud in the sky is no place for people with our level of skin pigmentation. Instead we grabbed some bean burritos and headed to the laundromat. We did manage to complete an 8-mile drive through the park and stepped out of the car long enough to get some good pictures of cacti. My favorite part was the following bit of dialogue:

Ranger: "If you are thinking about going for a hike, just know that the creepy crawlies are out and that there are (Africanized or "killer") bees on the loma verde loop.

Heather: "Um, ok, what do you mean when you say creepy crawlies?"

Ranger: "Well, snakes mostly. Yeah, snakes." (Arizona diamond back rattle snakes could be inferred by her tone of voice and unwillingness to make direct eye contact)

Still, the cacti were super cool and we got some good pictures. Check out Heather's bright red HDR flower shot.

-sjk

Sedona- kind of.

Saturday, May 12th, had us on the road from Bryce to Sedona, AZ. Highway 89A from Flagstaff to Sedona along the Oak Creek Canyon is beautiful- winding with lots of greenery and red rocks. The previous day in Bryce, we arranged for a cheap hotel in Sedona- the Days Inn Kokopelli. I think it was 2 stars, but it looked cute. Without devoting too much space to negative thoughts and feelings, let me just tell you that it wasn't actually in Sedona proper (30 minutes away by car) and we later renamed it the Days Inn Caca-poopie. At least it had a pool. After close to a week in Utah with no organic vegetables to speak of, we set out in search of a dinner venue with good salads. We found an Italian restaurant with a salad that the midwesterner in me will simply call interesting. Organic field greens, beets, goat cheese, and candied pecans with a soy-ginger vinagrete. I was with them until they decided to add some Asian flare. Still, greens are greens and they went in our bellies.

Sunday morning we sat down in a coffee shop with our precious atlas and started to plan out our next few days. Within 5 minutes of opening it up, some middle-aged guy with a ponytail and cutoffs (the Not Sedona uniform) came over to offer us some travel advice. Thanks to him we hit up Jerome, AZ and Prescott, AZ before heading back to the interstate en route to Tucson. Jerome is a funky little ex-mining town turned artist enclave. Prescott has a rich, Old West, history and is home to the former red-light district called Whiskey Row. We ate lunch on Whiskey Row at the Palace Hotel- famous in part because its patrons carried the bar out of the building and continued to drink in the town square while Whiskey Row burned in 1900. Lunch involved another "interesting" salad and the first Shiner Bock of the trip.

hugs and kisses,
S

Panguitch, UT and Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce, a set on Flickr.

The road between Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park does not exactly bring one in close proximity with any large, or even mid-sized cities. This led us to Panguitch, UT. We managed to stock up on the essentials- progresso soup, coffee, milk, box mac and cheese, baby carrots, celery, Johnsonville brats and tootsie rolls at the local grocery. We even found some cards to send for Mother's Day. The selection didn't actually include Mother's Day cards, but H found a nice one with a picture of bison and I found a glittery one with butterflies. Perfect. If you haven't ever been to Utah, you should be aware that beer sold in grocery stores is 4% ABV, regardless of brand or variety. It's near beer. Don't buy it. Go to a state sponsored liquor store and spend your money on actual beer. We did. On our way out of the liquor store, newly supplied with tasty Utah microbrews, we ran into an adorable little blond girl with a box of rocks. She asked us if we would like to see them, and obviously we did. Her favorite was a a big pinkish piece of quartz. I'm guessing there isn't a lot to do in Panguitch but she was adorable. She reminded me of the stories of my brother Matt selling rocks and bouquets of Queen Anne's lace to the sweet old couple that lived across the street from us when I was little.

We rolled into Bryce just after sunset and set up camp. Bryce sits at over 8000 feet above sea level- that means when the sun goes down in May, it gets cold. We slept in down bags, wearing down jackets, with a down comforter on top of our thermarests and our hats on all night. Brrr. The next day we took a very cool 3 mile loop hike into the canyon- Sunrise Point down to Queen's Garden up the Navajo Loop and out via Sunset point. Bryce is probably best known for it's hoodoos. Hoodoos are these crazy, eroded, rock formations that look like giant sandcastles that got rained on. Check out the photos. After our little hike, it was time to boil some brats in beer on the jet boil (kind of a foamy disaster) and finish them off over the fire. Delicious.

-SJK