The Breadbox

Part One
[Written on June 29th]

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we still have half our summer vacation in the Colorado Rockies left. The bad news is that we only have half of our summer vacation in the Colorado Rockies left. Every day, every hour, is precious and we’re doing our utmost to make the most of our time here. Hiking for hours, planting trees and clearing snags, watching the birds, spending time on our swing at the highest point on the property watching a storm roll by -- all are equally essential. We’ve had great evenings with local friends, two sets of overnight weekend guests (good friends we haven’t seen in a while and loved sharing our mountain getaway with), and we’re excited about the family visit this coming 4th of July weekend, complete with grandkids.



My experience is less than a tenth of my husband’s on this five acre plot of land. As a teenager he helped his dad build an A-frame cabin here,



and for decades it was a frequent destination for wilderness weekends or the odd week until it burned in the Hayman fire in 2002, within a couple months of our getting together. For a few years he couldn’t bear to visit, but when we did five years ago it was clear how much it meant to him (he’d always maintained it was the most important place on earth to him) and we set about figuring out a way to be able to visit for a few weeks each year from our home in Tucson, a 14 hour drive away. The answer, at least for now, has been a 33 foot Airstream Argosy travel trailer parked permanently on the bluff where the cabin stood. Strangely, the outhouse did not burn, so life in the Breadbox (“cabin” just doesn’t seem to work) is similar to life in the old A-frame -- electricity, but no running water -- though a bit more cramped and more significantly, without a fireplace. We’ve built a deck alongside almost twice the size of the trailer so we have a good deal of living space, provided the weather allows. For now it works for us, though with our eventual intent of spending four to five months a year here once Bob has retired in a few years, we are tossing around the idea of a small cabin -- with a wood-burning stove and indoor plumbing (as code requires). Time will tell.

But for now we are enjoying the greenest year in recent memory. Growth has been rampant, obvious to us not only due to our nine month absence, but also just in the week+ we’ve been here. The wildflowers are glorious. Low purple blue penstemons cloak whole hillsides, mountain laurel emit clouds of anise scented perfume, wild roses bloom in a perfusion of simple single pink blossoms. Indian paintbrushes and scarlet gilia provide sharp hot orange contrast to the soft blue and ivory of the Colorado columbines which look too perfect to be real. The round leafed alum still hangs from the shaded rock face cliff we pass as we enter the meadow following Little Turkey Creek, its creamy flower spires reaching for light.







Having to watch where you put your feet, on the trail or rambling cross-country through the forest, reaps the rewards of spotting the smaller, more insignificant though fascinating, wildflowers like shooting stars or meadowrue. We hiked the old jeep road to Turkey Rock and found it was carpeted with wildflowers, so thick that at times you couldn’t walk without treading on them with every footfall. Parts of the trail were smothered with wild strawberries, tiny pea-sized explosions of intensely sweet berry essence, more like jam than fresh fruit. Kneeling down, my husband showed me the greedy two handed picking technique, moving the fruit with twice the speed from the ground-hugging plants to the mouth. Ladybugs were everywhere, often flying in clouds disrupted from our passing.



Wildlife viewing has also been abundant. A huge elk with a sizable rack greeted us on the 16 mile dirt road between Highway 24 and our land. A few miles on, four elk does, two standing in a lake up to their chests, moved into the hills as we passed by. Deer are sporting their velvet antlers. And a bald eagle was perched on a tall snag (and me without a camera!), watching a small lake where we’d earlier seen a family of Canadian geese with two goslings, now nowhere in evidence. As we walked slowly towards the eagle he took off like an overloaded jetliner, so huge and incongruous with his surroundings, eventually landing on a tree on the far side of the lake, no doubt irritated about having had to squander energy to avoid a couple of star-struck birders.

My husband worries that the outhouse will become an obstacle to enjoying our time at the Breadbox, especially those middle of the night trips, but for those there is almost always a reward. On clear nights the milky way hangs like a cloud overhead, and some stars and most planets shine with the intensity of beacons. In the quiet darkness you might hear the call of a distant coyote, or a conversation between two great horned owls across the valley. After a few nights you quit worrying much about bear (though that is a possibility), using the flashlight only to find your way down the fifty foot path, often wearing nothing more than your sneakers (it’s amazing how you don’t notice the chill 40’s nighttime temp during the journey). It’s a sweet relief to return to your warm nest under the comforter, knowing you’re good until morning.


Part 2

We’re back in Tucson now. The shock of leaving green and coming back to desert was tough. We’d aborted our day in Denver before flying back in favor of one last day alone in the mountains. While we missed seeing people we care about, it was a good call. We hiked to the bluff a half mile into Pike National Forest behind our place, a destination we’d never visited before. It looked so imposing from the front with its sheer rock face, but scouting around it the approach from behind was a shallow ramp of easy walking through dense wildflowers and between fascinating rock formations peppered with wild currants. The 360 degree view was spectacular – Turkey Rock, Pike’s Peak, Cedar Mountain with the Tarryall range behind. A good way to take it all in one last time this summer.



It was our fourth consecutive summer vacation at the trailer, and a benchmark trip for us. We realized that this was a place we’d like to spend a LOT of time as soon as we are free from work (probably within three years). A wonderful visit from Bob’s kids and grandkids and their dogs and their dog’s dog friend convinced us that we wanted more time like that, but that our beloved Breadbox probably wouldn’t fit the bill forever. We are dreaming of replacing the family cabin, lost seven years ago in the Hayman fire. Something small that sits on the footprint of the old place and reminiscent of it, though not a replica. One bedroom, one bath, a wood burning stove and a half loft with space for the many, many sleeping bags of family and friends. Oh, and running water and an indoor loo, though we’ll keep the outhouse just in case. It’s a dream now, but we hope it becomes a reality before too many more Breadbox summers pass.

We’re thinking that the best way to keep our love affair with the desert safe is to leave it in the cruelest months, from sometime in May to sometime in September. We’ll retreat to the Rockies where our days are filled with hiking in the cool thin air and our nights are spent under a comforter and a fire takes the chill away while we watch the first rays of sun hit Hackett Mountain every morning. Beats the heck out of holing up in the A/C for four months, restricted to being outside during the VERY early hours each day. Aside from a short attempt at getting snowed in each winter, we’ll spend the balance of the year in the perfection of the Tucson falls, winters, and springs.

The Annual Great Escape

After a hot May we've had a rare cool June to date. Cool being a relative term as it has been well into the 90's just about every day -- still a great relief from the triple digits that are our June normal. We are forcast to be approaching 110 this time next week, as excessively hot as we've been deliciously moderate through mid-June. It appears we are escaping just in time.

There is a strategy to desert life for most of us. Some folks just plain LOVE the heat and stay here, uncomplainingly, year round. Then you have your snow birds, arriving in the fall from somewhere up north about the time they'd need to turn on their furnace, reveling in sending Christmas cards with photos of them in shorts and t-shirts on the golf course to their pals stuck in the deep freeze, packing up and heading home the first time it approaches 85 degrees. And then there are those of us who simply do our best to get a serious break from the heat come late June, that interminable period after the serious heat sets in with months since the last rain and before the relief of the monsoon arrives.

We head to Colorado where we have a place up at 8600 feet in the Rockies. It's family land on my husband's side, and up until seven years ago there was a cabin he'd helped his Dad build as a teenager forty years before. The Hayman fire took the cabin the first year we were together. I never got to see it, but it was clear how much the place meant to him. A few years later he took me on a Colorado road trip, the last stop being his five acres adjacent to Pike National Forest. The fire spared most of his trees -- ponderosas, spruce, Douglas firs, quaking aspens -- and the views were still spectacular. I could see he needed to be able to keep this, his favorite place on earth, active in his life. We bought a 33 foot Airstream and parked it permanently where the cabin had stood up against a wall of red decomposing granite. A 12x24 foot deck along side gives us wonderful outdoor living space. We have several choice spots to hang our hammock and read. Or nap. Thank goodness the fire didn't take the outhouse.



My husband's old Peace Corps pal comes every year from Cleveland to house and dog sit for us while we eek out the better part of three weeks in that cooler mountain pine-scented air. We bird watch different birds, keep our eyes peeled for deer and elk, do a little fishing in the stocked lake down the hill, try to identify the rampant wildflowers, and hike the surrounding wilderness. The stars are so bright and seem so low that you almost feel you need to duck your head on those middle of the night runs to the outhouse. It's a glorious time and a cool respite from the cruelest heat of the desert.

If I can "borrow" some WiFi somewhere (no Internet connection, no TV, no phone, cell or otherwise) I'll next post from the middle of nowhere, but somewhere wonderful, during our Colorado summer sojourn.

Banded Gneiss, Hoodoos, & Stoner Mummies

The landscape surrounding Tucson, those brackets of rugged mountains rearing out of this valley of stone and sand, is key to the essence of this part of the Sonoran Desert. We orient ourselves by them, learning early on their shapes and proximities -- the Catalinas to the north, the Tucsons to the west, the Santa Ritas to the south, and the Rincons to the east. We bid them a fond adios when we leave town, and they are the first to welcome us upon our return. We watch the light play over them, changing with the time of day and day of the year. We drive up into and over them, and test our legs and lungs by hiking them.

In the triple digit heat of the summer we retreat to the loftiest ones where the temperatures are guaranteed to be 20 degrees cooler, maybe more. Mt. Lemmon, soaring to over 9,000 feet in the Catalina Mountains, 6,500 feet above the Tucson Valley floor, is known as a "sky island", an ecosystem isolated by surrounding terrain, in this case a searing desert. You start your journey in classic Sonoran desert vegetation -- the iconic saguaro cactus, ocotillos, and palo verde trees -- and in less than thirty miles you you arrive in an Alpine landscape similar to that found in southern Canada. About half way up the mountain the windows in the car go down and the A/C gets switched off, and the car fills with cool air bearing the scent of pine.

Yesterday we joined a Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation outing, a trip up Mt. Lemmon with geologist Bob Scarborough. I've loved physical geography and earth science since junior high, and evenually earned a degree in geography and almost (all but paper) a masters in earth science. I was lucky enough to have taken classes with Bob Scarborough before during my two attendances at the Audubon Society's excellent Institute for Desert Ecology held annually at Catalina State Park. I knew we were in for a treat.

Fifteen of us caravanned up the mountain, making five stops along the way. Bob started out orienting us to geologic time with his "time stick", a fancifully painted representation of a big chunk of Planet Earth's existence. A consummate story teller, Bob spun the tale of the creation of our mountains in a way that had us making connections across topics ranging from geology to archeology to spirituality, with heavy doses of mystery and wonder.

Some favorite factoids:

The Tucson Mountains are the remnants of a huge volcano, one which spewed out about 800 times as much debris as the Mount Saint Helen's eruption.

Mt. Lemmon is capped with sedimentary shale that is a million years older than the granite it now sits on, and was formed when the continents nested together and a shallow sea covered the area that is now Tucson.

The U-shape of Ski Valley on Mt. Lemmon (yes, you can drive from Tucson to a ski area in less than an hour) is evidence that there was probably a glacier on Mt. Lemmon at one point.

Our trip included a picnic stop at the San Pedro Vista














and a hike on the Oracle Ridge Trail.



















And it was about more than rocks. The discussions ranged, quite logically mind you, from types of rocks, such as the banded gneiss so representative of the start up Mt. Lemmon, to the eroded granite hoodoos, to the Clovis people and the stomach contents (refined cocaine) of 8,000 year old mummies on two continents. It made sense. Trust me. And do yourself a favor -- if you get a chance to attend a class or participate in a field trip with Bob Scarborough (he leads trips for the Desert Museum among many others), take it.

Desert Diversions -- Daughter Trip

Note: During my visit with my savvy daughter and her high-tech husband I was "coached" on the art of blogging -- more posts and don't try so hard. I'm giving it a go.


There is something a little bit strange and lot wonderful about going to visit your daughter, a grown daughter with a husband, career, and home of her own. The enthusiastic welcome, the obvious preparations, the plans. I'm tempted to say it's come full circle, but she was never a guest growing up in our home as I am now in hers. And that's as it should be. Our visit was extra lovely since she lives in San Carlos, a charming town on the peninsula in the San Francisco Bay area. I'd happily visit her in Gary, Indiana, but the central California coast is better.

First order of business was lunch at Mack's Smoked Barbecue, a favorite from a previous visit. The pulled pork there is unmatched; this from two people with over a decade of eating experiences in North Carolina, and everything else they serve is equally delicious. We sat so long on their cozy and comfortable back patio, chowing on pulled pork sandwiches and ribs and catching up, that we surprised them on the way out.

Early that evening we walked down to San Carlos's Thursday night Farmers' Market where dozens of stalls sold the most gorgeous produce, flowers, bread and pastries, and prepared foods. Every other of the many friendly dogs was a golden retriever, strollers abounded, and there were amusements and activities laid in for the kids. We scored with the best rotisserie chicken EVER, slathered in fresh herbs and grilled right on the street, accompanied by roasted fingerling potatoes baked below the spinning poultry, basted by the drippings of the herby birds. We were provided with limes to squeeze over the succulent hen, a surprisingly perfect spritz, and carried our dinner home in the perfect evening air to eat with the potatoes a salad of the most tender butter lettuce and incredibly sweet tomatoes. Breakfast the next morning was organic strawberries and a dangerously delicious pastry bought from a handsome French baker.


It wasn't all about food. Over the next few days we wandered the classic old-school neighborhoods in San Carlos and Menlo Park where every home is different and each yard a botanical garden. After almost eight years of gardening in the desert, all those big, green, flowering plants, huge twisted oaks, and soaring eucalyptus looked miraculous. All that walking gave us an appetite, and my daughter made Kofta from the Jamie Oliver at Home cookbook I'd given her for her birthday (what a good investment). Okay, maybe it's a bit about the food.

I put the amazing mass transit system to good use, getting myself easily from the San Jose airport to within a mile of my daughter's home without hailing a taxi. We took the train into the city to see the Ansel Adams, Georgia O'Keefe show at MoMA. The show itself was amazing, but I loved the building and sitting on the rooftop garden and people-watching most of all.

The best day was the last day. We headed to Half Moon Bay for a little mother/daughter beach time. A little history here -- my daughter was born on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and most of our play time together was spent in, on, or around the crystalline waters of the Caribbean for the first ten years of her life. Walking along that magical line where the earth, sea, and atmosphere all intersect feels like home to us.


We parked a bit back from the beach on the access road, and were glad we did as the stroll through the seaside neighborhood was enchanting with it's whimsical beach houses, the fields of flowers, and the distant hills cloaked in golden grasses and studded with deep green oaks. Here's one resident who clearly has it made in the shade, living the good life in sunny California.


We walked a large arc of Half Moon Bay, enjoying the perfect bright day with cool onshore breezes, avoiding the jellyfish washed up on the beach, peering into the tangles of beached kelp. We sat for a long while on the high tide berm, watching the battalions of pelicans cruising the waveline. Talking. Not talking. Equally good as the connection was there either way. Precious times.

The Unexpected Gift

A year that has brought us record breaking early heat has also brought an unexpected gift. The best gift you can get in the desert. Rain.

In the land of five seasons, the current one being Foresummer with its primary characteristics of drought and increasing heat, a long slow cool rain is the last thing you’d expect. Desiccated cactus, panting birds, and triple digit temperatures, yes. Water falling from the sky, no.

For most places a rainfall total of a few tenths of an inch would go essentially unnoticed, but here it can be a life changing event. Desert plants and animals are patient during drought and fiercely opportunistic with the smallest measure of rain. Saguaro feeder roots rest an inch or two under our rocky soils and the slightest rainfall is instantly put to use restoring water provisions, swelling the cactus’s girth overnight. Ocotillo take the opportunity to push leaves out of their thorny canes within 48 hours, transforming themselves into huge bunches of green pipe-cleaners. Resurrection fern, a crumbly paper bag brown plant masquerading as dirt most of the time, will unfurl into emerald green carpets in a few hours. Birds, encouraged by the vegetation growth they instinctively know follows rain, will decide to start second or third families for the year while the air is perfumed with the scent of the creosote.

Though the mesquite branches are now bowed, laden with rain, we desert dwellers know that in a day, maybe two, the sun will again feel like an assault and the ground beneath our feet will appear to have never experienced the gift of rain. But we’ll see the subtle effects -- greener trees, plumper prickly pears, new strings of baby quail. It will be enough to see us through to the next season, the summer monsoon and its embarrassment of riches.