the island trail at walnut canyon national monument

October 28, 2018

Before going to Flagstaff for the night, we managed to make it just in time to do the Island Trail at Walnut Canyon National Monument.  The Island Trail, a 0.9 mile loop, passes 25 cliff-dwelling rooms built by the Sinagua people and traverses different plant-life zones.  The trail has sheer drops along the outer edge and a 185-foot climb (240 steps) back to the canyon rim.

The trail closes at 4:00 and we made it just under the wire, beginning our walk around 3:30.

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The Island Trail goes around the edges of the “island” in the photo

Twenty miles long, 400 feet deep and ¼-mile wide, Walnut Canyon was carved by Walnut Creek over a period of 60 million years. Artifacts show that Archaic people, who traveled through the Southwest thousands of years ago, probably occupied the canyon seasonally. These nomads were long gone by the time the only permanent inhabitants, today known as Sinagua (Spanish for “without water”), appeared and built their cliff dwellings between 1125 and 1250.

Archeologists believe women built the homes.  The dwellings were made from shallow caves eroded out of the limestone cliffs by water and wind. To form walls, builders gathered limestone rocks, shaped them roughly, then cemented them together with a gold-colored clay found in deposits elsewhere in the canyon.  Wooden beams reinforced the doorways.  Finally, the walls were plastered with clay inside and out.

Most rooms in this community did not house people. Archeologists think many rooms were used to store food, tools and water. Residents could have stored a 100-day water supply without much difficulty, given large pottery vessels and the abundant storage rooms found in the canyon.

The larger rooms are typical of living spaces, where people slept and sought shelter from inclement weather. Family size is unknown, but several people lived together in one room. Most work took place outside, weather permitting.

Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon
cliff dwellings on the canyon walls opposite
cliff dwellings on the canyon walls opposite
Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon
Mike under a cliff overhand
Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon
Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon
Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon
Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon

Walnut Canyon homes were generally situated on cliff sides facing south and east to take advantage of warmth and sunshine.  A few sites faced north and west, probably occupied during the warmer months. Overhanging ledges protected rooms from snow and rain, and shaded them during summer months. Thick walls of stone and mud insulated them from harsh winds and retained essential heat in winter. Small doors were covered with animal skins, mats, cotton cloth, or sticks woven together.  Air entered at the bottom, circled past a small fire, and carried most of the smoke out a hole above the door.

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the Island Trail with steep drops to the right

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cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon

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Cliff-dwelling at Walnut Canyon

Inside the canyon and throughout the pine forests on its rims, the Sinagua made their living by farming, hunting deer and small game, trading, and gathering an assortment of useful plants: prickly pear cactus, banana yucca, mahonia and rockmat, as well as others.

Prickly pear cactus plants have edible pads – spines removed – and sweet juicy fruit.

Rope, twine, needle and thread, floor mats, dyes, paintbrushes, baskets, belts, backpacks, sandals, soap, shampoo, and hairbrushes all came from the banana yucca.  When the yucca bloomed, people feasted on the tender flower petals and dried its thick sweet fruit for lean days of winter.

The tart berries of Femont’s mahonia or barberry were a minor food source, but people still seek the roots and bark to make a vibrant yellow dye for baskets and leather. The roots have antimicrobial qualities, as well as the chemical berberine (a strong alkaloid), which made them a cure-all.  Better known alkaloids include caffeine, morphine and quinine.

Navajo collect rockmat for ceremonies, the only documented use today.  Other uses for rockmat may now be lost to us.

prickly pear cactus
yucca
Mahonia
prickly pear cactus
Rockmat

We walked around the south end of the Island Trail, sunny and bright today.

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the Island Trail

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the Island Trail

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cliff dwellings opposite

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north side dwellings

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north side dwellings

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dwellings on cliff opposite

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dwellings on cliff opposite

During the years when the Sinagua lived here, settlements ranged from the eastern slopes of the San Francisco Peaks northeast to the Little Colorado River and south to the Verde River Valley.  Trade items found in dwellings include turquoise from the Santa Fe area, seashell ornaments from the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California, and macaw feathers from Mexico.

The cliff dwellings were occupied for little more than 100 years.  By 1250, the residents had moved to new villages a few miles southeast along Anderson Mesa, and, it is believed eventually assimilated into Hopi culture.  The Hopi today call their ancestors the Hisatsinom (“people of long ago”).  Their tradition suggests that these early migrations were part of a religious quest to have all clans come together.

I added yet another sticker and stamp to my National Parks passport. 🙂

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Walnut Canyon National Monument sticker and stamp

*Sunday, May 13, 2018*

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On Sundays, I plan to post various walks that I took on our Four Corners trip as well as hikes I take locally while training for the Camino de Santiago; I may also post on other unrelated subjects. I will use these posts to participate in Jo’s Monday Walks or any other challenges that catch my fancy.

This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walk.

anticipation & preparation: japan

October 26, 2018

In late February of 2017, I was offered a job teaching EFL to Japanese university students in Japan for the spring term (April 7 — August 1).  I opted to extend my stay for one week, until August 8, so I could travel around Japan for a week.

I would be living in Sagamihara City in Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.  The capital of Kanagawa is Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan by population (3.7 million); it lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu, and is today one of Japan’s major ports.

I was to leave on Monday morning, March 27, and would arrive at Narita Airport in Tokyo on Tuesday, March 28 at 3:55 p.m.

cherry blossoms at Shinjuku Gyoen Garden
cherry blossoms at Shinjuku Gyoen Garden
Ferris Wheel at Yokohama Cosmo World Amusement Park
sake barrels at Meiji Shrine
couple at Sankeien Garden
Sankeien

I read a number of practical books to get ready for my time in Japan:

These were the books I took along on my trip:

I always love to read novels and travelogues set in a country to which I’m traveling.  Over the years, and in the months prior to my upcoming trip, I read the following novels and memoirs.  If I wrote a review on Goodreads, I’ve included it here.

  • Crawling at Night.  Though this novel takes place in New York City, it tells the story of a Japanese sushi chef. It was written by a friend of mine, Nani Power.
  • When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka.
  • A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki:
    • I enjoyed this book about Ruth, a “stuck” author, who cannot seem to finish the memoir of her mother’s death. Instead, she happens upon a diary that has washed up on the shore of the island where she lives with her husband. The diary is written by 16-year-old Nao, a Japanese girl who grew up in Sunnyvale, CA but had to move back to Tokyo when her father lost his job after the dot.com bubble burst. In Tokyo, she is subjected to harassment by her classmates; in addition, she has to deal with her father’s multiple failed suicide attempts. Nao is writing the diary to tell her great-grandmother Jiko’s story, but she ends up not really completing that mission, as the diary is mostly focused on her own life. Jiko, a Buddhist nun, has lived to the ripe age of 104 and has a strong influence on Nao’s life. Ruth, the author who finds the diary, gets caught up in Nao’s story and worries she might have been killed in the 2011 tsunami. There are interesting twists with time and quantum physics and multiple & parallel worlds toward the end, which makes the story even more fascinating. I learned a little something about quantum physics, which seems way out of my league, but the author made the subject accessible. I enjoyed the book immensely.
  • The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd:
    • I enjoyed this book which is written as journal entries and letters. A young Scotswoman, Mary Mackenzie, sails to China in 1903 to marry a military attache in Peking; her marriage is unsatisfying, and when she has a love affair with a Japanese nobleman, her daughter is taken from her and she becomes an outcast from the European expat community. Two years after arriving in China, she ends up in Japan, where she lives for 37 years, only sporadically seeing her married Japanese lover, yet having a son by him. She is open about her struggles and her status as a “fallen woman,” yet she still can never resist her lover, despite his taking her Japanese-looking son from her. If the child had looked white and European, the child would have been able to stay with his mother. Since he looks Japanese, he is sent off to be raised by a Japanese family, as the lover is already married with his own family. This is a story about a woman’s survival, resilience, and enduring love, both for a man and for a country.  I found this line, written in 1942, to be particularly resonant: “There is nothing like living in a country as an enemy alien to really thin down the roster of your friends.”
  • Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto:
    • I enjoyed this quiet book about Yocchan, a young woman trying to create a life for herself after her much-loved musician father is found dead in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. She moves into a small apartment across the street from a bistro where she works in Shimokitazawa, in an attempt to establish some independence for herself, when her bereaved mother asks to move in with her. Though living with her mother is not exactly what Yocchan has in mind, she can’t turn her mother down. Yocchan’s daily life is like a meditation: she revels in her repetitive tasks in the bistro, walks in the neighborhood, and engagement with the local shopkeepers. She comes to fully appreciate her mom and her now-deceased father. She derives pleasure from watching people and how they eat; she believes a person’s relationship with food reveals nuances of character. The title of the book, Moshi Moshi, is “hello” in Japanese when talking on the phone; it reflects Yocchan’s obsession with her father’s phone, which he inadvertently left behind on the day he died. She has recurring dreams that her father is trying to reach her by phone, as if he has some unfinished business with Yocchan and her mother, some last message he wants to impart. The book is like a Buddhist meditation on life – quiet yet revealing and, ultimately, satisfying.
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Izuna Gongen-do Hall on Mt. Takao, or Takaosan

Here are books I’ve read about the shameful period in U.S. history when we put the Japanese into internment camps during WWII.

  • Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford:
    • How ironic that I was reading this book as the Donald Trump campaign was raging here in America. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is first and foremost a story about love and family, but it is set in 1942 Seattle during the unsettling time after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese-American families were rounded up and put into internment camps because Americans feared there were spies among them. Though told they were being imprisoned “for their own safety,” they were in fact treated just as Trump today would have all minorities treated: walled-off, separated and denied rights. Although the Japanese were not methodically murdered or used in horrific scientific experiments as the Jews were under Hitler, their homes and belongings were taken from them and they were forced to live in camps under armed guard for the duration of the war.
    • The protagonist, Henry, is a Chinese-American whose father is consumed by the Japanese atrocities in China. His father’s obsession with the Japanese as enemies, and the fear that Henry might be misidentified as Japanese, leads his father to insist on Henry wearing an “I am Chinese” button. Henry attends an all-white school on scholarship and is continually bullied by the white students for being different. When Keiko, a Japanese-American girl, appears at school, Henry and Keiko strike up a friendship that is strained not only by Henry’s family’s fears, but by the unsettling historic events around them. I found the book disturbing but also redeeming. While living through our unsettling political times, I could only hope that we wouldn’t repeat this dishonorable period in U.S. history.
  • The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende:
    • This book seemed so promising, but in the end, I felt it just didn’t deliver. I’d say my star rating is more of a 3.5 than a 3. This story of a love affair between a Japanese man, Ichimei, who spent much of WWII in a Japanese internment camp in the USA, and a Jewish woman, Alma, whose parents perished in WWII, just skimmed the surface. For such a love affair, one that Alma supposedly counted as the love of her life, she couldn’t make the leap to give up her wealth and her station in life to marry a Japanese man. The parallel story of Irina, a care worker at Lark House nursing home, and Seth, Alma’s grandson, isn’t all that intriguing either. I agree with another reviewer who said the story seemed to be hurriedly written. There was more telling than showing, and not much dialogue, and it just seemed generally without structure or deep feeling. I expected more from Isabel Allende; overall I found it disappointing.
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Mountain Streams in Summer and Autumn by Suzuki Kiitsu at the Nezu Museum (photo from a postcard)

Finally, I read a number of books about Zen Buddhism.

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Chureito Pagoda

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Chureito Pagoda & Mt. Fuji

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garden at Hokokuji Temple (The Bamboo Temple)

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Hokokuji Temple (The Bamboo Temple) in Kamakura

I put quite a few books on my Kindle and I also brought along the following novels to read while I was in Japan:

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carvings at Toshogu Shrine in Nikko

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the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima

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the floating torii at Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima

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bridge over lotus pond at Danjo Garan at Mt. Koya

I was excited about meeting my Japanese university students.  I looked forward to exploring the Tokyo area (using my 29 Walks book), eating a lot of Japanese food, and hopefully finding time to visit Hiroshima at some point.  I felt certain other expats in Japan would be able to advise me on other good places to visit.  As I would be working 9-hour days during the weeks, I wasn’t sure how much time I’d have to wander, but I looked forward to exploring as much as I could over the four month period. 🙂

~ catbird in japan | the land of temples and what-nots ~

*March 23, 2017*

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“ANTICIPATION & PREPARATION” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about anticipation & preparation for a particular destination (not journeys in general). If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments. Include the link in the comments below by Thursday, November 22 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this challenge on Friday, November 23, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the 4th Friday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂  If you’d like to read more about the topic, see: journeys: anticipation & preparation.

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! As I’m still in Spain/Portugal, see below in the comments for any links.

Thanks to all of you who wrote posts about anticipation and preparation. 🙂

the call to place: japan

October 25, 2018

My strange and unexpected fascination with Kyoto, Japan started, quite simply, with a visit to What the Book? in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul, South Korea.  Browsing through the travel section in December, 2010 when my son Alex was visiting, I come across a book by Pico Iyer called The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto.  The picture on the front was enticing enough, the photograph divided diagonally into two parts.  On the top triangle was a Japanese lady in a mustard colored kimono, holding an umbrella by her side.  On the bottom was a city street with neon signs and fast-moving headlight beams, like red and yellow silk threads, speeding down the length of the streets.

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Inspiration

The blurb on the back cover said Pico Iyer decided to go to Kyoto and live in a monastery, to learn about Zen Buddhism from the inside, to get to know one of the loveliest cities in the world, and to experience Japanese culture.  To be honest, this was what hooked me and caused me to open the book.  On the first page he described an accidental encounter with Japan, which occured only because of an overnight layover on a flight to somewhere else.  In the morning, he walked outside: “As I began to walk along the narrow lanes, I felt, in fact, as if I were walking through a gallery of still lifes.  Everything looked exactly the way it was supposed to look, polished to a sheen, and motionless.”

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the curving staircase at Eikan-do

There were multiple things that appealed to me about the whole premise of this book.  I was enthralled.  First, the idea of Japan as a “still life” was intriguing.  I didn’t have any interest in going to Japan as I feared it would be a repeat of Korea.  Many Koreans told me Japan was just like Korea.  Of course, many of those Koreans had never left their own country, so I didn’t know why I should have believed them.  Then several fellow English teachers I knew in Korea also said it was about the same.  These comments steered me away from Japan because I’d explored many corners of Korea during the year and I really didn’t want to spend my time and money flying to Japan to see more of the same.  Nothing in Korea could honestly be compared to a “still life.”  But those two simple words shifted my perspective.  They felt like an invitation into a painting, a piece of art awash with color and beauty, with elegant gardens and exquisite taste.

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pretty little what-nots

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still life in Kyoto

The other thing that piqued my interest was Pico Iyer’s desire to learn about Zen Buddhism.  In Korea, I had put off time and again doing a temple stay.  I finally ended up doing one, but only toward the end of my stay in late February of 2011, after I’d been to Japan (temple stay at golgulsa sunmudo ~ a surprise encounter with monk-type martial arts).  This interest in Zen was one of the things that fascinated me about this book, and about Japan.

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Heian-jingu Shrine

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the golden pavilion at Kinkaku-ji

I enjoyed Japanese food, especially sushi that I’d eaten in the U.S.  I loved to see ornamental gardens and the cultivation of beauty all around.  After all, I used to take classes in interior design and had a small interior design business of my own for a while.  I decorated my own house in Virginia from top to bottom.  I’ve always been drawn to exuberant colors.  I loved the idea of ritual.  I loved the idea of tea ceremonies and flower arranging, although I’d never participated in either.

garden in Kyoto
temple in Kyoto
Tempura in Kyoto
colorful change purses
typical shop in Japan

Years ago, I read Memoirs of a Geisha.  I found the geisha culture fascinating, though disturbing on many levels.  I also read the book Hiroshima, by John Hersey, a moving and highly disturbing personal story of that city’s residents who survived the nuclear attack in 1945.  I used to think if I ever visited Japan, I would have to go to Hiroshima where it is said you can see outlines of people who were vaporized by the bomb on concrete walls.  I didn’t know if this was simply a legend.  Anyway, I’d talked to people who visited Hiroshima and they said it is extremely depressing, much like visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, I assume.  An educational and moving and disturbing voyage, something everyone should do.  It wouldn’t be something I would do on my first visit.

girls in kimono at Heian-jingu Shrine
girls in kimono drinking from a well of good fortune at kiyomizu-dera temple

I wasn’t knowledgeable overall about Japanese culture. So I looked forward to spending five days in Kyoto over the lunar new year in February, 2011.  I looked forward to painting myself, a mere fleeting brushstroke, into the “still life” of Kyoto conjured up by Pico Iyer.

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the famous rock garden at Ryoan-ji, or Temple of the Peaceful Dragon

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the cute little Randen Railway

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the Bamboo Path at Arashiyama

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ema at Nonomiya

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celebration of Lunar New Year at Tenryuji Temple

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me going bicycling in Kyoto

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the infinite torii gates at Fushimi-Inari-Taisha

All photos are from my first visit to Kyoto in February, 2011.

**

Fast forward to late February of 2017, six years after my first visit to Japan. I was offered a job teaching EFL to Japanese university students in Japan beginning on March 28, 2017 (the term actually began April 7 and ended August 1).  I opted to extend my stay for one week, until August 8, so I could travel around Japan for a week. As I’d always wanted to visit Hiroshima, I’d have to incorporate a visit into that journey.

My short trip to Kyoto in February 2011 had been delightful.  I loved the Buddhist temples, the ubiquitous vending machines, Japanese food, the cleanliness and efficiency of everything. I looked forward to exploring as much of Japan as I could in the four months I’d be there.

I would live in Sagamihara City in Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.  The capital of Kanagawa is Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan by population (3.7 million); it lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu, and is today one of Japan’s major ports.

~ catbird in japan | the land of temples and what-nots ~

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“THE CALL TO PLACE” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about what enticed you to choose a particular destination. If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments.  If your destination is a place you love and keep returning to, feel free to write about that.  If you want to see the original post about the subject, you can check it out here: imaginings: the call to place.

Please include the link in the comments below by Wednesday, November 21 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this challenge on Thursday, November 22, I’ll include your links in that post. If you’d like, you can use the hashtag #wanderessence.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the fourth Thursday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community.  I promise, you’ll be inspired! As I’m still in Spain/Portugal, see below in the comments for any links.

Thanks to all of you who wrote posts about “the call to place.” 🙂

things i learned in niagara falls, ontario

October 23, 2018

I learned that a bed and breakfast in Niagara Falls can be way over the top, an extravaganza of color, turrets, kitsch and knick-knacks.

I learned that the view of Horseshoe Falls is all-encompassing and stunning from the Canadian side.

I learned that Hornblower Cruises is the Canadian boat ride into the tumult of the horseshoe, and that passengers wear red ponchos.

I learned that when it’s a gloomy day, I feel gloomy, and when it’s sunny, I feel sunny. 🙂

I learned that there is a Ten Thousand Buddha Temple north of Niagara Falls where monks are dedicated to spreading peace and understanding of dharma philosophy.

I learned that Niagara-on-the-Lake is charming little town but there isn’t much to do there.

I learned that the waitress at Fouros Greek Restaurant seemed a bit terrified when preparing the flaming saganaki for many customers.

I relearned that I despise eggs with runny whites. (Not that I ever forget!)

I  learned that at the brink of Niagara Falls a speed of 109km/hour has been recorded, while downriver where the Niagara River expands, it reaches 40km/hour.  At the White Water Walk, they reach 48km/hour, making them Class 6 rapids.

I learned that Class 6 rapids, the highest level, are extremely difficult to maneuver due to steep vertical drops and boulders; Class 6 is usually considered unrunnable.

I learned that the Whirlpool Rapids run for 4km through Niagara Gorge and have standing waves of 3-5 meters, caused not by rock obstructions but by the sheer force of water being channeled through the narrowing gorge.

I learned that tightrope walkers are known as funambulists.

I learned that the first person to cross the Gorge on a rope was Jean Francois Gravelet “Blondin.” In 1860, he carried a 56-lb. stove on his back. Dressed in a chef’s uniform, he carried 3 tin plates, a small hand bellows, a spirit lamp, wooden matches and some flammable tar pitch. After putting down the stove on one part of the rope, he cooked up a two-egg omelet and ate it.

I learned that Barrel Rider Maude Williams got caught the swirling vortex of the whirlpool for six hours in 1901 and died of suffocation because her pet dog, who accompanied her, put his nose into the only hole in the barrel, cutting off her air supply.

I learned that daredevil performances began in 1859 to meet the demands of spectators. Because of fatalities, they were made illegal in 1911.  Violators are now fined $10,000.

I learned that Harriet Tubman and other slaves made their way into Canada on the suspension bridge over the Niagara River in 1856.

I learned that you can take your kids down a garish street with haunted houses, wax museums, a Ferris wheel, a bowling alley, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, fast food joints, and tacky souvenir shops.

I learned that even though I hate loud, kitschy arcades like the ones on Centre Street, I love taking photos of them.

I learned it’s fun to spend time with an old friend who you haven’t seen in five years.

I learned that I’m not patient enough to capture butterflies on camera.

I learned it’s fun to walk around drinking Tempranillo in silver espresso cups with a good friend.

I learned that in Canada they use the term “open carry” to refer to walking around with an open alcoholic beverage while in America we use it to refer to openly carrying a firearm in public.

I learned that seeing waterfalls and rainbows under blue skies, while chatting with an old friend, make my day.

I learned that I’m lucky to have friends in life, like Mona Lisa, who never fail to make an effort with me.  She lugged a bottle of wine and silver cups in her backpack all the way from Waterloo on the bus, and she treated me to the Butterfly Conservatory.

I learned that the power of water never fails to amaze.

I learned that after sundown, Horseshoe Falls is lit in candy-colors of green, turquoise and pink.

I learned I always enjoy meeting European travelers in the U.S.

A Moment in Time B&B
My room in A Moment in Time B&B
The breakfast room at A Moment in Time
Hornblower Cruises & Horseshoe Falls
Ten Thousand Buddha Temple
Ten Thousand Buddha Temple
Niagara-on-the-Lake
Niagara-on-the-Lake
White Water Walk
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
Centre Street
Ferris wheel and bowling on Centre Street
Fudge on Centre Street
Butterfly Conservatory
Butterfly in the Conservatory
Rainbow over Horseshoe Falls
Double rainbow and Hornblower Cruises
Mona Lisa at Horseshoe Falls
me at Horseshoe Falls
Brink of the Falls
Brink of the Falls lit up at night

*June 27-28, 2018*

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“PROSE” INVITATION: I invite you to write up to a post on your own blog about a recently visited particular destination (not journeys in general). Concentrate on any intention you set for your prose.  In this case, one of my intentions for my trip to Niagara Falls, Ontario was to write a “things I learned” list in each place.

It doesn’t matter whether you write fiction or non-fiction for this invitation.  You can either set your own writing intentions, or use one of the prompts I’ve listed on this page: writing prompts: prose & poetry.  (This page is a work in process.) You can also include photos, of course.

Include the link in the comments below by Monday, November 12 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this invitation on Tuesday, November 13, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community.  I promise, you’ll be inspired. See below in the comments for any links. 🙂

Thanks to all of you who wrote prosaic posts following intentions you set for yourself. 🙂

 

the lava flow trail at sunset crater national monument

October 21, 2018

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument lies south of Wupatki National Monument, just north of Flagstaff, Arizona.  Erupting sometime between 1064 and 1100, Sunset Crater is the most recent in a six-million-year history of volcanic activity in the Flagstaff area.  It reminds us of violent forces that have shaped the earth, creating 600 hills and mountains in the San Francisco volcanic field.  These mountains have affected the climate and habitat of all living things in the region.

With the first eruption, a thin layer of ash absorbed precious moisture and helped prevent evaporation.  Climate change provided more rainfall during the growing season, helping agriculture flourish.  By 1180, thousands of people were farming on the Wupatki landscape.  By 1250, when the volcano had quieted, their pueblos stood empty.

Sunset Crater is a cinder cone, formed during early explosive stages of an eruption. Magma rises up from the underground.  As the magma ascends, the pressure drops and gases are released. The high levels of gas in the magma cause an explosion out of the central vent, creating a mound or cone of solidified rock pieces around the vent. Lava flows produced by lower-gas magma may escape from the side or base of the cone.

We stop for a look at the Cinder Hills Overlook, treading carefully among the skunkbrush sumac, the berries of which, when mixed with sugar and water, make a popular “lemonade” for indigenous people.

Here we see a series of cinder-covered vents, marking a fissure along which the most recent volcanic activity occurred.

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Cinder Hills Overlook

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Cinder Hills Overlook

We drive further into the park, where we take a 1.23-mile walk around the Lava Flow Trail to the base of Sunset Crater Volcano.

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Lava Flow Trail

Lichen, in a myriad of forms and colors, paint the lava flow’s basalt.

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lichen on the Lava Flow Trail

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Lava Flow Trail

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Lava Flow Trail

Many of the pines show twisting and spiraling wood under the bark.  Spiral growth increases flexibility, helping the tree survive wind and snow damage.

gnarled pines
tree swirls

Most of the Ponderosa Pines along the trail don’t look like their majestic counterparts growing in nearby forests. The drier, hotter environment and nutrient-poor soils of this volcanic landscape stunt growth.

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Ponderosa pines

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pine bark

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Ponderosa Pines

Cinder cones like Sunset Crater Volcano erode easily and scars are slow to heal. In 1973, Sunset Crater was closed to climbing when 2-foot-wide trails eroded to 60-foot-wide swaths.  Tons of cinder were shoveled back up the cone to fill hip-deep trenches.  The scars are still visible today.  Plants will eventually return to areas where cinders are left undisturbed.  Walking in barren areas dislodges soil particles forming between the cinders.

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Sunset Crater Volcano

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Sunset Crater Volcano

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the wasteland

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Sunset Crater Volcano

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Sunset Crater Volcano

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the wasteland

As a living ancestral homeland to the Hopi, Zuni, Yavapai, Havasupai, Hualapai, Navajo, Western Apache, and Southern Paiute, Sunset Crater is revered and cared for.  People return often, bringing prayers and engaging in timeless traditions.

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the lava field

Hopi people believe their ancestors’ spirits, the Katsinas, travel from the San Francisco Peaks to the Hopi villages and back each year via Sunset Crater and Bonito Park.  Some deities reside in the immediate area.

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Lava Flow Trail

The Pueblo of Zuni considers Sunset Crater part of a much larger sacred landscape which continues to be important for plant and mineral collection.  Pilgrimages have taken place in historic times.

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Lava Flow Trail

The Navajo people believe the cinder cones surrounding San Francisco Peaks, including Sunset Crater, are the guardians of the peaks.  Within these sacred mountains reside Navajo deities honored with everyday offerings.

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Sunset Crater Volcano from the Lava Flow Trail

As we leave the park, we pass through a pretty sparse pine forest.

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sparse pine forest

“The Peaks” dominate the horizon at the Bonito Park Overlook, rising 12,636 feet to Arizona’s highest point.  Visible for miles from all directions, they are revered by Native people.

Spanish friars christened these peaks as San Francisco Mountain in 1629 to honor St. Francis of Assisi.  The first wave of Spanish explorers, surprised that such large mountains didn’t spawn lakes or streams, charted them the Sierra Sin Agua — mountains without water.  On the other hand, most Native names for the peaks are a reference to a mountain with life-giving moisture.

This immense stratovolcano captures large amounts of rain and snowfall, yet surface water is scarce.  Moisture drains down rapidly through fractured bedrock and much is sponged up by porous volcanic rock.  The closest river, the Little Colorado, is connected to the peaks by drainages but rarely receives water directly.

The mountain is sculpted into four peaks from left to right: Agassiz, Humphreys, Fremont, and Doyle.

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San Francisco Peaks

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Bonito Park Overlook

Of course, I had to get my sticker and stamp for my National Parks Passport!

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Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument sticker and stamp 🙂

There were several other hikes we could have done here, but the ranger told us if we wanted to walk around the Island Trail at Walnut Canyon National Monument, we had to begin the trail by 4:00.  We left Sunset Crater at 2:47 and made a mad rush to get to Walnut Canyon.  Mike would be leaving Monday morning to fly back home via Phoenix, so he wanted to squeeze in the last National Monument around Flagstaff before heading home.

*Sunday, May 13, 2018*

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On Sundays, I plan to post various walks that I took on our Four Corners trip as well as hikes I take locally while training for the Camino de Santiago; I may also post on other unrelated subjects. I will use these posts to participate in Jo’s Monday Walks or any other challenges that catch my fancy.

This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walk.

petroglyphs in the four corners

October 18, 2018

Rock art and petroglyphs are widespread throughout the Four Corners area. They are like whispers of history from indigenous people, revealing something about their long-ago cultures.

Petroglyphs are images, symbols or designs scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on the surface of rock.  Archeologists can guess at the meaning of the rock art, or they can ask contemporary indigenous communities about the meaning of these images.

In Utah, near Wolfe Ranch at Arches National Park, we found a stylized horse and rider surrounded by bighorn sheep and dog-like animals.  Typical of Ute rock art, these figures were carved sometime between 1650 and 1850.  Today this rock art panel is important to Native Americans in the region because it was created by their ancestors.

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Ute Rock Art at Arches National Park

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Ute Rock Art at Arches National Park

On Utah Highway Route 279 outside of Moab, prehistoric Native American rock art is found along the Colorado River and its tributary rivers, streams and side canyons. The rock art is depicted in either pictograph (painted) or petroglyph (pecked, incised, chiseled) images.  Anthropomorphic (human characteristic) and Zoomorphic (animal characteristic) images are found here.

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Cliffs along the Colorado River near Moab

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Cliffs along the Colorado River near Moab

Archeologists believe most of the rock art was created during Archaic (6,000-1000 B.C.) and Fremont (450-1300 A.D.) cultural periods.

Archaic rock art consists of pictographs and petroglyphs depicting anthropomorphs and zoomorphs, curvilinear lines, zigzags, wavy lines, concentric circles, and abstract symbols.

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Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

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Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Fremont Indian rock art often depicts trapezoidal anthropomorphs with horns, bighorn sheep, dogs, hunting scenes with weapons, and abstract objects.

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Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

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Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Archaic and Fremont Indian petroglyphs can sometimes be found on the same rock art panel.

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Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Native American groups ascribe religious functions to some of the rock art panels and consider them to be sacred sites. Rock art has also been interpreted as depicting concepts of migration routes, fertility, hunting magic, ceremonies, and cosmic events.

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Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

At Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, the images below depict circular faces on a dark rock surface.  Modern groups identify these as Kachinas, or spirit beings, in Pueblo religion and cosmology.  Research suggests that the “Kachina culture” arrived in this region around 1300 A.D.  Similar symbols, found on modern Puebloan pottery and weavings, remind us of the continuity between prehistoric sites and the present.

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Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

Contemporary tribes have identified the step symbol on the rock below as a migration symbol, an important theme in Puebloan oral history.

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Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

The dark coating on the boulder below is desert varnish – a concentration of mineral, clay, and organic material that accumulates over time  Prehistoric artists created rock art by exposing the lighter material underneath.

Members of the Zuni tribe believe that this rock art depicts clan ties of the artist – perhaps a mother from the Crane Clan and father from the Frog Clan.  An alternative Hopi interpretation recalls stories of a giant bird that came to villages to eat bad children.

The image below is similar to the white-faces ibis, a water bird, native to Petrified Forest, that eats frogs and other small animals. A close looks reveals what might represent water drops below the frog.  This petroglyph likely represents aquatic resources and fertility.

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Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

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Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

*May, 2018*

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“PHOTOGRAPHY” INVITATION:  I invite you to create a photography intention and then create a blog post for a place you have visited. Alternately, you can post a thematic post about a place, photos of whatever you discovered that set your heart afire. You can also do a thematic post of something you have found throughout all your travels: churches, doors, people reading, people hiking, mountains, patterns, all black & white, whatever!

You probably have your own ideas about this, but in case you’d like some ideas, you can visit my page: photography inspiration.

I challenge you to post no more than 20 photos (fewer is better) and to write less than 500-700 words about any travel-related photography intention you set for yourself.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you have a photography post you’d like to share, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts. 

My next scheduled photography post will be on November 1, 2018.

This will be an ongoing invitation, every first and third Thursday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community.  I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any links.

Thanks to all of you who shared posts on the “photography” invitation. 🙂

on journey: digging deep ~ edgy korean bus culture, tea bushes & wetlands, & the surrendered

October 17, 2018

One early Saturday morning in October, I ventured out on the first leg of a quest to discover the hidden Korea, that of the former war zone. Destination: the southwest of the country, Jeollanam-do province. I wanted to see the tea plantations of Boseong and the eco-park of Suncheon Bay.  I was lugging a hardback copy of the 2010 book, The Surrendered, by Korean author Chang-Rae Lee, who teaches creative writing at Princeton University.

Since I had a 3-month stretch ahead with virtually no holidays, I decided I would explore as much of Korea as I could on the yellow- and scarlet-hued autumn weekends. Granted, my destination this time was not a war zone. Maybe this destination never even figured prominently in the Korean War.  Maybe. But as I read this book, I thought that there was probably not a place in Korea left unscathed by that war. I was trying to dig in deep, to see Korea in a light shadowed to this day by a war that ravaged this country fewer than 60 years before.

I left my apartment at 6 a.m. to catch the 7:05 bus to Suncheon from the Seobu bus terminal in Daegu. The bus ride, which I was told would be 3 to 3 1/2 hours, was uneventful, except for the delightful surprise that it was only 2 1/2 hours! During the ride, I was caught up in the story of June, an 11-year-old Korean girl, who in 1950 witnessed the death of her mother and sister, and the arrest of her father and older brother. On her own, she was caring for her 7-year-old twin brother and sister. June took on the responsibility for transporting her siblings safely toward Busan, along with thousands of other refugees fleeing the war. What might have otherwise been a pretty journey through “hills just turning the colors of pumpkin and hay and pomegranate” was in fact a harrowing journey; this 11-year-old girl suffered horribly and ultimately lost both of her siblings in a gruesome train accident along the way.

Not happy reading, granted. But I wanted to see what makes Koreans tick, what in their history makes them the way they are. So I read along, totally engrossed, until I got to Suncheon.

At the Suncheon bus terminal, I boarded a bus to Boseong. Walking down the aisle, I passed a Korean man dressed in black yelling into his cell phone in the front seat. This was not so abnormal in Korea; many Koreans yell into their cell phones as a matter of course. But it became quickly evident that this man was furious.

I didn’t witness what happened next, but possibly the bus driver came on board and told the man to quiet down. By this time, I was seated about a third of the way back from the front of the bus. Suddenly the yelling man began to punch the bus driver, forcing him toward the back; he pushed the driver into a seat maybe four rows behind me. The yelling man was pummeling the poor bus driver who was cowering against the window. This violent man then pulled off his shirt, revealing tattoos on his arm and back, and grabbed the bus driver around the throat and was knocking him upside the head, so that his head was bouncing like a rubber ball against the window.

All the passengers sat in their seats, stupefied by this spectacle. I stood up along with a Korean girl. I thought briefly about stepping into the middle but realized this would be idiotic. This man wouldn’t hesitate to hit a woman. I was terrified he would kill the poor bus driver. The Korean girl and I looked at each other and we quickly ducked off the bus to find help. She spoke to some guys standing in the bus terminal (they looked like employees at the terminal) and I was yelling and making fighting gestures and beckoning them to follow, which they did.

Back on the bus, the man was still beating on the bus driver. Both of them were yelling angrily, but the bus driver was taking the brunt of the blows. The bus terminal men entered the fray and pulled the two apart and forcibly removed the crazy guy from the bus. The bus driver, clearly shaken, went to the front and started to collect tickets, front to back. Surprisingly, he didn’t look bloodied or bruised, but he was an emotional wreck. He said something to me, and a Korean guy sitting nearby told me in English that the bus driver thanked me.

As the bus took off, I caught the eye of a young red-headed guy who I’d seen earlier in the bus terminal. We started commiserating about the fight, trying to figure out what precipitated it. He said, “Did you see that guy’s stomach? It had scars all over it. He’s been in a lot of fights.” We couldn’t figure out exactly what started it. I told him I was thinking of stepping into the middle; I hoped they wouldn’t dare hit a woman. The red-head said he was told that if there were ever any trouble in Korea, a foreigner should NEVER get involved because foreigners are often blamed as instigators.

On our one hour ride to Boseong, we talked a lot: the red-head whose name was Peter, the English-speaking Korean guy who went by the English name of Jacob, and me. The fight excited us such that we became garrulous. Jacob was full of questions about both of us, asking Peter and me what we were doing in Korea. Jacob himself was a Korean who had been living and working in the Philippines for 10 years. He was 50 years old, married, and had three children: a 20-year-old daughter, and 18-year-old twins. He was in “trade” – mainly vitamins and health foods. He asked my age, but I insisted it was a mystery. He was in Korea working and also exploring on weekends parts of the country he hadn’t seen before. He told me he was headed to the tea plantations for the day and I said that’s where I was going too.

Peter, who was 27, was from New Brunswick, Canada, and had been teaching in Korea for one month in a public middle school in Boseong. He told me that in Boseong they have a 5-day market. Every 5 days, everyone gathers their goods together to sell or to barter. Today was the market day.

Once we arrived in Boseong, Peter took off for his home, and Jacob and I waited for the bus to Yulpo Beach, which would drop us at the tea plantations.

inside the seobu bus terminal in daegu
inside the bus
Jacob and Peter

At the bus terminal, Jacob motioned for me to sit on a bench with some ajumas for a picture. I was happy about this as I’ve been trying to surreptitiously take pictures of ajumas but have never actually gotten one full on with their awareness and participation. They were quite happy to smile and pose; afterward I showed them each the picture and the one wearing a pink shirt held on to my camera, telling Jacob she wanted a copy of the picture. They asked Jacob if we were husband and wife. This was the first of such questions thrown our way throughout the day. Each time we laughed and said, no, we had just met on the bus!

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me with the ajumas

On the derelict bus, hardscrabble Korean locals carried bags or boxes of products to take to the 5-day market: dried chili peppers, live chickens (!), rice, roots and various leafy vegetables.  They disembarked well before the tea farms.  The bus driver made one stop to drop off a huge plastic bag full of red chili peppers.  I wondered if the chili peppers had to pay the bus fare.

the local bus to the market
a local Korean man on the way to the Boseong market

Jacob and I got dropped at the entrance to Daehan Dawon, touted as Korea’s one and only “green tea farm” theme park.  We went into a little shop and the lady there served us some green tea.  I was surprised that green tea tasted more like a broth than the tea I’m accustomed to.  The lady asked Jacob’s age; he told her 50 and she told him he looked very young.  She asked him my age, and he explained to her that apparently it was a very sensitive issue!  She then asked us if we were husband and wife, and we both laughed and said that we just met on the bus. We drank our tea and walked through a lovely canopy of trees toward the plantation.  This place was so lushly green, with its millions of tea plants and its cedar, cypress, yew, ginkgo, maple and camellia trees.

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me and Jacob having tea

In 1939, a study concluded that Boseong was an ideal place to cultivate green tea.  Optimal conditions include annual rainfall of more than 60 inches (1500 mm), porous and permeable soil, cool weather with a great daily temperature range, and high humidity.  Soon after the study, tea planting started across the region.  But, during the Korean War, all the fields were ravaged.

It turns out I was right: no place in Korea was left unscathed by the war.   In 1957, the tea industry started again.  Now there are 5.8 million tea plants growing on this green tea farm.  In 2005, the plantation’s tea was certified as organic.

Jacob and I wandered leisurely through the lush green carpets of tea bushes and then climbed up a steep hill to a vantage point.  He said, It smells so good!  I sniffed the air and I couldn’t smell anything. 😦

After walking up and down and taking multitudes of photos, we returned to the bottom. Jacob told me his wife worked as a volunteer teacher for a Christian missionary organization. She taught elementary school. Apparently when their children leave home, his wife would like to return to Korea where, because of her years of teaching, she could make a lot of money. But Jacob told her that he could provide and that God would like it best if she continued her volunteer teaching. Both he and his wife were really concerned that their children didn’t know enough about Korean culture. Jacob told me he went on a trip with a church group to Turkey to follow St. Paul’s travels. He went to many of the same places I did, but he lost his USB with all his photos on it. Jacob also told me that that morning he had prayed to God that he would meet someone today to explore Korea with. He says his prayer was answered because he met me.

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Boseong Tea Plantation

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Boseong Tea Plantation

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me at Boseong Tea Plantation

We returned to the tea shop to retrieve our bags, with the intention of taking the Yulpo Beach bus further south, where there were supposedly even more beautiful tea plantations. The proprietor told us the bus would arrive at 2:50. We waited until 3:30 and then decided we couldn’t wait any longer. Jacob had to go to Gwangju and then to Daejeon this evening to meet some friends and I wanted to go back to Suncheon and find a hotel before it started raining. So we crossed under the bridge to catch the bus back to Boseong. In Boseong, Jacob went on his merry way toward his friends. I was disappointed not to see the next tea farm, but, as it turned out, I finally arrived back in Suncheon just before a downpour. I had to find a hotel and with the help of a patient and kind-hearted lady at the Suncheon terminal tourist information, I was directed to the BMW Motel.

When I walked up to the BMW Motel, smoke was pouring out of the parking lot into the entryway. The proprietor was using a fire extinguisher on the source of the fire; it looked like a trashcan and some bedding from one of the rooms. He sprayed it with the fire extinguisher and came into the hotel to check me in. I told him, using gestures, that I wanted to see the room before paying, but he simply could not understand and kept sticking out his hand for my money. While this failure to communicate was transpiring, the fire flared up again, and I gestured wildly to him that the fire had revived. He was unperturbed by my gestures, so I got wilder and more demented-looking in my miming: Come! Come! Fire!! He was utterly clueless. Finally, he got up from behind his little glass enclosed cage and grabbed the fire extinguisher again.

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the BMW Hotel

Meanwhile, I called a friend to translate for me that I wanted to see the room before paying. Finally. I inspected the room and paid the 30,000 won. I left my bag and stupidly headed out into the rain and the impending darkness to go to Suncheon Bay. I was hoping that by the time I returned to the BMW, the fire would be extinguished. I hoped the whole motel wouldn’t burn down in my absence.

By the time I finally got to the bay, it was dark and pouring down rain! I was obviously not yet ready to accept the shorter days of fall.  I didn’t want to be dropped in the middle of nowhere, but the driver gestured vehemently that I had to get off.  Luckily the bus stop was covered and I waited with a few other stragglers for a good 20 minutes to go back to Suncheon. I caught the same bus with the same driver who forced me to get off in the first place.

In Suncheon, I found a Paris Baguette, ate a shrimp and vegetable bun, bought a beer, and settled into my room, where I planned to relax, read, and watch TV.  However, I was so wound up that I couldn’t sleep.  I dove into The Surrendered, which was so intense that I found it impossible to sleep.  I was up until well after midnight, trudging along with 11-year-old June Han and other desperate war refugees to the south of Korea, hungry, terrified, surrounded by death and utter confusion, and hanging on to survival by a flimsy filament of hope and determination.

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Unable to sleep because of The Surrendered

The story followed three main characters: June, Hector and Sylvie; its locale moved from Korea to New Jersey to Manchuria.  It was a complicated story about the effects of war on people’s psyches.  I came across excellent descriptions of the Korea I had come to know.  At one point, Hector, who had fought in the mountains of Korea, ruminated about the cold: “He knew the cold in Korea, at least in the mountains in the far north, how it seeped into you and then resided with an unrelenting grip…”  My own father, who also served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War told me before I came here that all he could remember about Korea was that it was the coldest place he’d ever been.  I arrived in Korea in February, and it was bitter, unrelentingly cold.

Hector also mused about the mountains of Korea, which are certainly ubiquitous: “The grounds of the orphanage were set on a low and wide plateau amid steeper, higher hills and mountains that ranged across much of the country.  The land was a lesson in hills, one right after the next.”

The book reminded me how tenuous life can be.  There is normalcy, and then, suddenly, there is not.  War does that.  The atrocities people are capable of inflicting on one another during extreme situations like war are beyond belief.

After reading The Surrendered, when I saw old farmers and bent-backed ajumas in Korea, I knew they had seen horrors in their lives that we could never imagine.  I hoped the 50+ year armistice between North and South Korea would hold, or would someday be resolved, so that this resilient country wouldn’t have to suffer such hardships again.

*Saturday, October 2, 2010*

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“ON JOURNEY” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about the journey itself for a recently visited specific destination. If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments.

In this case, my intention was to explore far flung parts of Korea and to learn something about how the Korean War impacted the people and the country, as informed by taking along the book, The Surrendered.  On the journey, I encountered a cast of unusual characters, a cross section of Korean culture.

Include the link in the comments below by Tuesday, November 20 at 1:00 p.m. EST.  When I write my post in response to this challenge on Wednesday, November 21, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation, once on the third Wednesday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community.  I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any links.

Many thanks to all of you who wrote posts about the journey. I’m inspired by all of you! 🙂