ARIZONA - DESERT, PINES, CANYONS AND STARS

 

We entered Arizona on Wednesday, October 19, around 3:30.  It was warm and sunny.  We stopped at the Welcome Center at the border to walk the dogs and look around.  Two of the pictures on the Nevada post, the wall painting of the horse and the one of the statues on the cliff, were taken just before the Arizona border.

Buddy & Scrounge Join Me at the Welcome Sign

We are nearing the end of our trip.  One more night on the road and then one long day tomorrow and we will be at our destination, Modesto.  At the rest stop, they had a natural area with a sign to stay out of the area as there were poisonous snakes and critters.  You didn’t have to tell me twice to stay away.  I am not a snake fan, let alone the fan of a poisonous snake!

Back in the car we continued our journey west.  The Eastern Arizona landscape is much like New Mexico – brown, rocky, sandy, dry, gullies, canyons and mountains.   The further west you travel, you actually see trees, greenery, and it looks much like North Carolina especially around Williams, Arizona where we spent the night.  Our family visited Arizona in 1994 while traveling from California to Maryland.  At that time, we stayed at the Williams KOA Campground.  This time we stayed at the Days Inn. 

United States at Night - Artificial Light

Ever take a minute to look up at the sky at night and see the stars.  They look small and sometimes you have to look real close to see them.  Most of them look like little tiny lights.  Well in the Southwest, when you look up the sky at night, the stars are big and bright and they look like they are right in your face.  Do you know what the difference is between the two locations?  Artificial light (not sun light).  The east coast is far more populated than the Southwest.  There are more people, larger cities, and cities are closer together.  Where we live, the artificial light obscures or hides the stars.  As you move west, the population thins out and the cities become more spread apart, thus reducing the amount of artificial light.  Take a look at the sky one night!  What do you see?   If you look at the picture of the United States, you will see there is more light on the east coast where we live, than in the Southwest where Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are located.

Williams is a small, scenic town.  Its claim to fame is its proximity to the Grand Canyon and the historic Grand Canyon Railway.  This train is made of renovated Pullman cars from the early 1920s.  The train ride to the canyon takes a little over two hours and you are provided entertainment to and from the canyon.  When we rode the train in 1994, we were entertained by musicians dressed as if from the1900s.  On the return trip, we were treated to a train robbery.  Actors, dressed as 1800’s robbers with handkerchiefs over their nose and mouths, road up on horses, boarded the train and demanded the train stop.  They pretended to rob the passengers of their possessions (anything they took, they returned before they got off the train).   Everyone thought it was great and very entertaining!  No one was hurt and nothing was ever taken.  Train robberies were very common in the early days of the railroad.  

We departed Williams at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, October 20.  The temperature was in the 60s as we headed out.  By mid-day, it 89. 

The scenery in Arizona is again spectacular – flat to mountainous, barren to green.  One of the things that jumped out as me as we drove along the barren highway was a yellow tree.  I do not know want kind of tree this was, but it was bright yellow and stood out against the brown landscape.  It reminded me of a maple tree turning colors in the fall.    Around Williams, AZ it is very green and there are lots of pine trees.  According to the Arizona State Parks website, “The City of Williams is located in the largest stand of Ponderosa pine trees in the world, at an elevation of 6700 feet above sea level.”  Middleburg’s sea level elevation is 470 feet.

Golf Ball House

In the southwest you travel for miles and do not see houses or towns or people.  It is very desolate!  With no one around, it is strange to see such large manufacturing or processing plants and power plants or even odd shaped houses.  How would you like to live in a golf ball?

Cholla Coal-fired Power Plant

The Cholla Power Plant in Joseph City, Arizona is the perfect example of a huge plant in what I call the “middle of nowhere.”   The Cholla plant is a major coal-fired power plant.  The coal that is used in this plant comes from the McKinley Mine in the neighbor state of New Mexico.

Griffith Energy Center

Another power plant seemingly in the middle of nowhere is the Griffith Energy Center near Kingman, Arizona.  According to information found on the Summit Power Equipment LLC website, this facility “is a natural gas-fired combined cycle site.”  Now having said that, what does that mean?  I had to go do some more research.  Wikipedia tells us “that the exhaust of one heat engine is used as the heat source for another, thus extracting more useful energy from the heat, increasing the system's overall efficiency.”  In the case of the Griffith Energy Center they are using gas and steam.  The cooling towers at the plant remind you of the towers at a nuclear power plant.  How many cooling towers are located at this plant?

Another research assignment --- as we approach the borders of Arizona and California, another major river divides the two states.  Look at a map and find the name of the river.  Also, research the river to find out how long it is and identify the states through which it flows.

We are now at the California border and still have about 9-10 hours of driving time; however, I will stop here for now and prepare a new post about California.  I will meet you on the bridge of that river (the one you need to identify) that divides Arizona and California.  California is a big state and there is lots to tell you‼ 

See you later.

FIRST WEEKEND IN "THE GOLDEN STATE"

We have been in California for a day and a half.  We came to California to help my niece, Jamie, who is going to have her first baby.  So we are on baby watch hoping that the baby will come soon! 

Yesterday was our first full day.  I didn’t do much of anything except read all of your notes and attempt to answer them.  My responses to your many questions can be found under the comments section of “Backtracking to Texas” and “Sleep is Calling My Name”.

Junior

We met the pets, Junior (the cat) and Oscar (the fish).  Junior is a calico cat and got her name become her mom’s name was Nascar and Junior was named for Dale Earnhart, Jr.  Junior and the dogs, Buddy and Scrounge, haven’t really met yet.  Junior took off when they entered the house.  The dogs have tried to find her, but she has spent most of her time hiding in the bedroom.  She did come out for a little while yesterday and she and Scrounge got into a stare-down contest.  Scrounge didn’t seem too happy as he started to growl, so he was put outdoors. 

Oscar, the fish, lives by himself in his tank.  Apparently Oscar doesn’t make friends well.  Any fish that has been put in the tank with him has been attacked.  Oscar tries to bite them!  His tail is a little crooked and sometimes he swims upside down because he has swim bladder disease. The swim bladder regulates a fish’s buoyancy or his ability to float without sinking.  Medicine is put in the tank to help him.

My nephew and his wife, TJ and Wendy, have several pets.  Two German Shepherds named Shiloh and Bella, two cats named Butter and Binky, and the horse Dhrama.  You will meet all of them next week.

Wil, the Expert Pumpkin Carver

Last night, we spent some fun time carving pumpkins for Halloween.  I haven’t carved a pumpkin in years.  How about you, have you carved a pumpkin for your porch?  My niece and her husband, Jamie and Wil, love decorating for the different holidays.  Will is an expert pumpkin carver!  When I get the picture posted, look at the picture and guess which one is Wil’s pumpkin?

Pumpkin Carvers Busy at Work

I don’t know that we have anything exciting planned for today.  We are staying pretty close to the house in case we have to head to the hospital.  I will be working on the Arizona and California posts trying my best to catch-up! 

Hope you had a great weekend.  Look forward to hearing from you!

NEW MEXICO – WE’RE KNOCKING AT YOUR BORDER

I last left you at the Texas/New Mexico border.  Still traveling on I-40, we entered New Mexico at 10:25 a.m. on Wednesday morning, October 19.  The temperature was 75 degrees and the sky was clear and bright, a sunny day.



Dry River Bed

New Mexico is the 5^th largest state.  The land is a mix of mesas, mountain ranges, canyons and valleys.  The land is also very dry, at least this time of year.  Common throughout the Southwest you will see signs along the highway for areas called a wash.   Each wash usually has a name, like Namba Wash.  According to the Geography4Kids.com site, “a wash is an area or channel that is created when flooding occurs on a desert plain. The ground does not easily absorb water so there is a large amount of runoff. That runoff collects in the area called the wash.”  This happens especially when there are heavy rains called “gully washers.”   What is a gully washer and what can it cause?  This time of year, most of these washes are dry sand with scrubby bushes lining them or in them.  In addition to the wash areas, many of the river beds and creeks are also dry.

The landscape in New Mexico is similar to that of west Texas, dry, brown, sagebrush, cactus and mountains.  One of the notable things about the mountains as you move west is their color – red, unlike those in Texas that were brown to me.   The contrast of the red mountain against the dry, brown landscape was very distinct.  Some of the mountains are striated meaning they have narrow bands of color or stripes. 

Moving goods throughout the United States is done by various forms of transportation – tractor trailer trucks, trains, airplanes, barges and boats.  A prominent mode of transportation in the Southwest is the train.  I’ve seen more trains in the four days we were on the road than I’ve seen in 10-15 years.  While we have trains in Middleburg, they are much smaller than those seen across the Southwest.  In New Mexico, as well as Arizona and southern California, the trains had an average of 100 cars.  Often there were engines both in the front and engines at the rear of the train where we are not accustomed to seeing them.  The trains we saw had no less than three engines in the front, sometimes four, and often in the rear there were at least two engines.   All these engines were necessary to pull the cars through the mountains.

The influence of the American Indians, primarily Pueblo and Apache, is very prevalent or widespread in New Mexico.  The bright colors can be found in clothing, blankets, their pottery, and even on the highway bridges.  Many of these are adorned with Indian symbols or designs and are decoratively constructed.  Regrettably, I didn’t get any pictures of these we were driving so fast down the interstate.  I’ll do my best to take some pictures on the return trip. 

While driving across New Mexico, mid-day, which remember was a bright sunny day, I saw the moon hanging out with a couple of clouds.  You don’t often see the moon and the sun out at the same time.  I managed to get a picture of the moon, while small, you could still see it.   Look close.  It is the tiny white spot, half sphere, to the left of the clouds.



While the scenery in New Mexico can be spectacular, it is still dry and barren.  I am amazed at the number of people who seem to live isolated, all alone, in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town and the nearest neighbor.  I live in the country, 18 miles from town, but I have lots of neighbors around me.  Could you live out in the country all by yourself with no neighbors and no town close by for shopping?  Something to think about.

 

As we approached the Arizona border, we got a close up look at the mountains.  You could really see the striations in these rocks.  Also, there was a little surprise.  Someone had placed statues of elk, deer, eagles, bear, and mountain lions on a ridge.  Also there was a painting, that over time had begun to fade.  You can still see the horse and rider very well. 

 

Painting on Mountain

More to come, but for now, we will stop at the Arizona border.   Will work over the weekend to play catch-up. 

Hope you have a great weekend and talk with you next week.

  



FROM THE LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS

Dear Class

It is now 7:35 in CA and I have just read through all of your posts.  You have been busy and you raise lots of questions.  I am trying to decide how to respond to all of you.  Time might prevent me from replying to each of you individually; however, when possible I will do my best to try and reply to your questions.  Many of you asked similar questions so I might post replies to a group.  Bottom line, I will use a variety of response methods to answer your inquiries. 

I'm still in my pajamas so need to go and get dressed for the day.  Will be back shortly.   FYI, I just changed the time on my computer so my post times will be accurate.  So from this point forward, my times will reflect the time in California.

BACKTRACKING TO TEXAS

It is now Thursday night in California and I am playing catch-up.  Wednesday afternoon I was I was able to solve my technical difficulties (after 45 minutes on the phone with Verizon) with the computer; however, I still didn’t have access because I was traveling through the desert and I only have a mobile stick.  So I decided to begin typing in Word do I could post later when I had access to the Internet.  So for now, I'm playing catch-up.

Wednesday, October 19 has come and gone.  I started these notes yesterday and am just now getting back to them, so my verb tenses will be past and present.  Sorry Mr. P.   We left the hotel at 6:50.  It was 42 degrees with a wind chill of 37.  The day is supposed to be sunny and eventually make its way to 70 degrees.  For now it’s a little windy and cold.

After a quick stop for gas and breakfast, we crossed into Texas at 6:58 (7:58 your time, just as classes were scheduled to start).  The Texas landscape is very different than that of North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.  It is brown, very brown, rocky, flat, canyons, dirt, and sunken river beds.  The eastern landscape is blotched with shrubs and grassland.  There isn’t really green grass as we know it.  The further west we go, it becomes hillier, rockier, and you begin to see the Mesa.  These land masses protrude out of the landscape - rising up and flattening out. 

The Mesa

Sometimes these are covered with communications towers in order to again, send the signal across the land.   The landscape is scattered with old windmills, and with modern wind turbine farms.  For miles you see huge hay fields, large cotton fields, and cattle grazing. 

Texas Always Does it Big - Texas-sized haystack!

Ranches are big in this state and fence lines stretch for miles.  You see cattle grazing, some horses, but primarily cattle (at least in the east).  Houses are very far apart and are easily picked out on the landscape because you only have to look for the clumps of green.  The house and surrounding out buildings (garage, barns, grain silos, are usually nestled among some trees.  Yards are often fenced (to keep the roaming cows out) and these are often small areas. 

There are thousands of miles of fencing in the west, starting in Oklahoma and continuing through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.  You see fencing across the mountains, through the desert, and the towns.   We have asked ourselves on this trip, “Who owns it all?  Where does one property begin and one end?”

At the Texas Welcome Center, we learned about the BIGGEST ranch in Texas history.  It was the XIT Ranch.  The ranch was 3,000,000 acres and spread over ten counties.  It had 150,000 head of longhorn cattle, over 150 cowboys worked the ranch, and road 1,000 horses.  This ranch was the first to build the windmill for pumping water from the ground.  Visit the XIT Ranch to discover how many MILES of fencing there was on the property, how many windmills and dams were erected, how many calves were branded each year, and how many cows were driven annually to the northern pastures for grazing in preparation for the Chicago meat markets.  Also, find out, what is the largest ranch in Texas today and how many acres does the ranch cover?

Texas Welcome Center - Picnic Area

The Welcome Center in Texas was very interesting.  In addition to bathrooms, a critical need, they had picnic areas constructed to remind you of T-Pees.  There was as great display inside the center of historical information.  One interesting thing about this rest stop was that it was built into a hill, thus making this structure a Tornado shelter.  Something that is common to Texas and the West.  What is the name given to this area of the country where tornadoes often occur?

Dust Cloud Lubbock, Texas

As I said, Texas is brown and barren (dirt, no grass as you and I know grass).  On Monday night (while we were staying in Jackson, TN), we learned on the news that Lubbock, TX had a major dust storm.  On our drive through Texas on I-40, we passed 125 miles north of Lubbock as we went through Amarillo.   Dust storms were very common in the mid-1930s.  Ask Mr. P about the Dust Bowl Days.   According to people living in the area, this was the worst dust storm in decades.  A brownish, red wall of dust 8,000 feet high with winds of 70 mph swept through Lubbock at 5:30.   It made it look like night.  Would we have anything like that in Middleburg?  While this event is not something we experienced, it was close to the area through which we traveled and it is a phenomenon or happening that is different and unique to Texas and the west. 

We passed through Texas and entered New Mexico at 1025.  The temperature at that time was 75 degrees, a nice increase from the early morning temps.  I will leave you at the New Mexico border and pick you up tomorrow to continue our journey. 

SLEEP IS CALLING MY NAME

Our time is now 3 hours behind yours, making it 9:49 in Arizona as I write.  We have been up since 7:00 your time and our bodies still think we are on East Coast time.   So I'm typing with one eye open and one eye closed.  I have taken quite a few pictures today and will get them organized and loaded on the site.  I was most intrigued by the scenery in New Mexico.  I will post the pictures on a new page. 

I answered your questions today, actually twice, but lost the first reply.  These are posted in response to your comment below.  Look forward to hearing from you and answering more of your questions.  Hopefully, you will be challenged to research the questions and do the math.  Will have to see what I can do as a surprise for the first person to answer the geography questions correctly and get them to me.  Post them as a comment.  Let's see who is willing to do a little extra work, AFTER HOMEWORK and CLASSWORK.

Tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to excel!!  Do your best.  Hope you have had a great week at school.  Miss seeing all of you. 

DAY TWO - ON THE ROAD AGAIN

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

After some difficulties accessing the Internet, I'm up and running again, I hope.

Tuesday, Oct 18, 07:28:  After an early rise and a quick breakfast at the hotel, we set out for the day.  Unlike yesterday, the weather today is cloudy, overcast and cool.  While the temperature started at 68, within an hour it has dropped to 49. Found it necessary to stop and change into warmer clothes. Quite a drop from yesterday’s high 70’s and low 80’s.  Tonight it will be about 33 degrees with a high tomorrow of 61.  Hopefully it will get a little warmer as we move through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Buddy and Scrounge survived their first night in a hotel.  Buddy did not like the elevator ride.  We literally had to pull him or push him into the elevator.   Both were glad to be back in the car this morning.  This is a new venture for them.  While they love to ride in the car, 13 hours a day is a very loooooooooooooog time.



This famous river divides Tennessee and Arkansas. 



The farther west we travel, the more spread out the towns become.  We see a lot more land and less buildings, cars and people.  We came through Memphis this morning.  It is the last, large city in Tennessee on   I-40 and sits on a famous river which divides Tennessee from Arkansas.  The Welcome to Arkansas sign actually hangs on the bridge which crosses the river.  Can you name the famous river? 

Memphis is well known for a number of things in the food, health care and entertainment industries?  What famous rock and roll singer called Memphis home?  What was the name of this famous person’s homestead or mansion?  I actually took a tour of this homestead when I was 10 years old while on a trip to visit friends in Memphis.  In the food category, what is the famous food one can order all over Memphis?  North Carolina has its own version of this food.  We passed a famous children’s hospital this morning.  This hospital is seen in commercials and is well known for helping children of all ages with serious medical conditions of all types.  Can you name the hospital and its founder?  Also, what did the founder do for a living and why did he start the hospital?  By the way, what is the nickname for the city of Memphis?

Leaving Memphis we passed over that famous river into Arkansas.  Once on the other side of the bridge, the rain started.  The weather was cold and windy.  We actually turned the heat on in the car.  It was difficult to see the items of interest and difficult to take pictures today in Arkansas because of the rain.  About 1230, the weather broke, the clouds parted and the sun started to shine and remained with us throughout the day. At that point however, we were close to the Oklahoma border.   The last major city in Arkansas is Ft. Smith and it is nestled on the borders of Arkansas and Oklahoma.  This was the home of the US military cavalry and the confederate army during different periods of our country’s history. 

Good-bye Arkansas and hello Oklahoma.  The eastern part of the state is pretty flat, but rises to hills the further west you go.  These rolling hills play host to some pretty tall communications towers. These towers are so tall and thin that they don’t show up well in a picture.  They are tall so they can send signals to other communications towers.  This is called “line-of-site” communications. The towers need to be able to “see” each other so they can receive the information from the sending tower. 

Oklahoma is home to 33 Indian Nations and Reservations. This is one of several states where Indian tribes were settled following battles with the Army in the early days of our country.  As you travel through, you will see signs saying Entering ---- (a particular tribe) Indian Nation, or Leaving ---- Indian Nation.  Some of the Nations we noticed included:  Seminole, SAC and FOX, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Citizen, and --------.  We even noticed that the SAC and FOX nation had its own license plate.  Instead of saying Oklahoma on it, it read SAC and FOX Nation.

Not far into Oklahoma we passed through Checotah.  This is the home of Carrie Underwood, American Idol winner Season 4.  Carrie attended Checotah High School Home of the Wildcats.  You can see the high school as you drive down I-40.



Carrie Underwood attended Checotah High School



Nuclear Power

Oklahoma is known for its wind.  The further west we traveled, the windier it became with winds gusting from 15-25 miles per hour.  The wind blew so hard today that Mr. Bruce had to work at keeping the car on the road at times and flags flew straight out as if they had been stiffly starched.



Power Plant



We tend to take for granted the electricity that powers our homes.  Most of us, except perhaps during science class and when the power is out, give little thought to where the power comes from for our lights, stoves, refrigerators, TVs, or well pumps (if you have a well).  Traveling today, we saw several different types of energy producers from solar panel fields that were being constructed, to a nuclear power plant, and gas power plants to a variety of windmills.  Have you noticed any of these types of energy producers around Middleburg?



Wind Turbine Farm



Power Plant

The day came to an end for us around 9:00 p.m. (10:00 your time) in a small town called Erick, Oklahoma.  Erick is seven miles from the Texas border.  So today we traveled through three states.  I tried to get on the internet, but no accesses would work tonight.  That means I am posting these sometime Wednesday morning. 

Hope we have worked through some of our technical difficulties and that you will be able to post a comment or question beginning tomorrow.  Good night. You should already be in bed as it’s 11:08 your time. 

Check the Social Studies/Geography and Math pages for new tasks and the Games page for an update on the tags I’ve seen.  See you tomorrow.