Verde Valley and off to Lake Powell

It is now Thursday, May 16th and I have lots to catch you all up on! First a birding update by my resident bird watcher and wonderful hubby, Gary:


The Verde Valley was a great place for birding. Many of you may not know that Gary has always been a big bird aficionado, an appreciation that he learned from his grandparents, Penrose and Viola Schwenk, who always had bird feeders in the Sycamore tree which Gary grew up watching with great interest. So far we have seen Road Runners, Gambel’s Quail, Belted Kingfishers, more than six varieties of hummingbirds (they were in migration through the Valley while we were visiting), Summer and Western Tanagers, Lesser Goldfinch, Phainopepla, Bullock’s Oriole, Black Pheobe, Ash-throated Flycatcher, more Doves than you can imagine (and they make quite a racket at 5 AM if I do say so), Brown-headed Cowbirds,Cardinals, Robins, Gold Finches, Curve-billed Thrashers, Cactus Wren, Bald Eagles, Several Hawks and Falcons, and a Carcara. That about covers the bird watching, I think!

Back to what we have seen and done….Over the weekend we visited several historic sites including the town of Cottonwood, Montezuma’s Castle National Monument (a Sinaguan Indian cave dwelling from the early 1100’s), Montezuma’s well (a limestone sink filled with water, providing another place for Sinaguan dwellings), Tuzigoot National Historic Monument (Apache for “crooked water” and a remnant of a Southern Sinaguan village from between 1125 and 1400), the towns of Camp Verde, Clarkdale, and Jerome (a former wild west copper mining town). We checked out several wineries including the Alcantara Vineyards which was next door to our camp ground – though the walk to it included two very large hills which we figured would not be good to stumble back home across, so we had to drive. At Alcantara we sampled their Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, Confluence IV Meritage, NV Grand Rouge Meritage, Nebbiola, and Cabernet Sauvignon. All but the last two were based on Arizona grown grapes and most were quite nice. We purchased the Grand Rouge and the Zinfandel. We also tasted at Burning Tree Vineyards, but Alcantara was our favorite. We purchased a bottle of their red wine blend, The Impressionist, made from grapes grown in California. Burning Tree had many wines that were made from purchased grapes and while good, we were looking for local tastes. We also tried to imbibe as many local beers as we could find when eating out. We sampled from Oak Creek Brewery and since we enjoyed it so much we decided to visit that brewery on Mother’s day for lunch.

On Sunday we arose early and headed to the Sonoma area to Red Rock State Park for some hiking. When we arrived we noticed that they scheduled a 10AM nature hike, so we hiked on our own for 90 minutes before joining the guided hike. I would like to say that the hikes were uneventful, but that was not the case. As Gary and I made our way across the creek and up the House of Apache Fire Trail, Gary was in the lead, but at one point the trail narrowed and he allowed me to take the lead (silly silly girl). As Gary was watching the skies for new and interesting birds, I was trudging along the trail as one of the first humans in that part of the park on that day. Where the trail turned a corner and I was looking at the dry creek bed ahead of me I heard a “TSHUUSHH” sound, looked down at my left leg and noticed, not too calmly , the coiled head of a Western Black-tailed rattlesnake just 6 inches from my left calf. I uddered a startled “AHHH” and ran down to the creek bed. Thankfully my husband’s reaction was spot on and he jumped back without knowing why. Now the park has a rule that all humans must stay on the trail as there are rattlesnakes in the park. No one must have alerted the poor 3 foot long Western Black-tail that park hours had commenced 45 minutes prior as he was hanging out in the sun on the trail and not in the wooded desert. So we broke the rules and had Gary meet me by way of the wooded desert and skipped the trail where said Rattler was working to calm himself down. I took a few photos from a safe distance once my own heartbeat returned to normal. As you can imagine, there was no more sky watching for us, only trail watching as I had no idea how many other snakes I would encounter before making our way back to the visitor center. We reported said black-tail to the ranger at the visitor station only to discover that only 1 snake had been seen in the past month in the part – and wouldn’t you know I would find it. The nature tour was interesting and uneventful and we were grateful, but hungry by the time noon rolled around.

So we headed off to Sonoma and the Oak Creek Brewery and Grill for a peaceful mother’s day lunch. Since we could not decide which brew sounded best, we purchased the sampler of 7 of their finest – shown here – and shared a cheese plate and a burger. A finer lunch could not be found on that day.

As the work week rolled around, Gary took off to do some fishing while I tended to the needs of earning a living to pay for this trip. All was going well until Tuesday when the internet and cell reception seemed to drop off considerably. We cut our stay in the Verde Valley short and headed to Flagstaff on Wednesday (a short 100 mile jaunt). I wish I could say something about Flagstaff, but the wind was blowing so much that I could taste the dust so we just stayed for one night. I took a few calls on Thursday and we headed out for Lake Powell near Page AZ. The road between Flagstaff and Page AZ, route 89, happened to be closed. The story is that the road collapsed into the canyon and they do not know how long it will take to blast out a new path in the mountainside that will be stable enough for the heavy traffic that flows between these two points. The detour was arduous and added 90 miles to our 90 mile trip. We were quite glad to get off the smaller road detour as there were several steep grades and turns to traverse. We are staying in the Lake Powell National Recreation Area (so glad we purchased the National Parks pass – good for a year of admission at any federally managed property). The campground is a bit pricy, but I have to say that the views from the Rig are absolutely gorgeous so I texted my office view to my colleague Aidan (so that he can live vicariously through our trip this summer) and we have settled in here for the weekend.

Hope all of you are doing well and want you to know that you are missed!

A slide show of pictures will be posted next week.  Take care and be careful on the road,

Gary and Traci