Sedona, Antelope Canyon, & Horseshoe Bend

...August!? July really flew by with just one posting?

Last week, S. & I took a few days to get out of Tucson--up north to slightly cooler temperatures in Red Rock Country: Sedona, about 4 1/2 hours north...

      ...truly, one of the most beautifully-set towns anywhere...full of art galleries, restaurants, trails for hiking, running, biking, a creek for canoeing and swimming, and eateries ranging from greasy-spoon diners to 5-star resort restaurants...

And you can't mention Sedona without talking about the 'energy.' Hmm...'vortices?' Seriously--fans of crystal-swinging neo-feng-shui aura-reading new-agey things flock to the area. People looking for something...The landscape is inspiring, but...'Is this the way to the female vortex?' --I was asked that on a trail. I bit my tongue, although I felt like replying "well, if the vortex is so strong, shouldn't you just be able to feel your way there?" Let me hike in peace. That's the energy I'm seeking...

...AND they even had a good vegetarian Korean restaurant with a view, right on the main street...

Oak Creek runs through the town, flowing south from the plateau around Flagstaff through a dramatic forested canyon...

...had fun with the color-accent feature on my camera:

The red is not exaggerated...

Sedona is striking.

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About three hours north of Sedona, just south of the Utah border in high Navajo country,

 is Antelope Canyon, one of the slot canyons in the four corners area:

You can see why it's called a 'slot canyon.'

About a quarter-mile long, it's a surreal landscape of light and erosion...

You can only get there by means of a guided-tour, mostly run by the Navajo;

you ride out of town in the back of a pick-up or a jeep, and then down a three-mile long sandy wash;

feels like the Outback of Australia...and then you end up in this ethereal curving chasm, constantly craning your neck to look up:

It isn't always a place for solitude--but the tour-groups pass through relatively quickly, and then you're left to yourself...The Navajo guide we had was a bit gruff--but mainly from his frustration at not being able to communicate effectively with his group; he asked 'who here speaks English?' Only Sara and I raised our hands. ALL the rest were European tourists, mostly French! (Will admit--had fun eavesdropping on summer family-vacation-conversations...) Seriously--there were way more foreign tourists than there were Americans...strong Euro-Dollar exchange rate, perhaps...

The narrow winding passage, even when crowded, stays quiet; people are so busy gawking and taking pictures that there aren't many conversations--some quiet under-breath 'wow's and 'cool's and 'amazing's...

...all from the elegant simplicity of water flowing through sandstone...

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A few miles away, just south of the town of Page, AZ,

in the gorge where the Colorado River flows south from Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam, is Horseshoe Bend.

Here's my wife's point-of-view:

It's one of the most-photographed spots on the Colorado River, and I'd always assumed it was very remote--probably accessible only after a long hike...a scene to be captured by overnight-backpackers.

Surprisingly, the hiking trail is only three-quarters of a mile long--you park right off the highway and then trudge over tumbleweed-and-sand for a few minutes...From the road you have no idea what awaits you, as the gorge lies behind a slight rise...and then you walk to the edge, and there it is:

The scene is so vast that, unless you have special lenses, you can't take the whole scene in one photo. It took me five shots to fit it all in--I then stitched it together above, and then 'fixed' the distortions below:

No guard-rail, no interpretive center--just you and the view. (A few weeks prior, a man got too close to a crumbly part of the cliffside and fell hundreds of feet to his death...)

As was in the case in Antelope Canyon, there weren't many 'fellow Americans' around--most of the onlookers were French--including a couple vanfuls of French teenagers with their chaperones on a summer-vacation high-school-group trip. Predictably, one of the guys had to stand close to the edge, raise his hands up, and yell--like in "Titanic:" "Je suis le maître du monde!" ("I'm king of the world!")

Très original, mon ami...

Here--proof that we were there...

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...and, I bit the bullet--after doing a few 5-k's, I have committed myself to something longer: the annual Saguaro National Park Labor Day Run. I am by no means trying to be a 'competitive' runner--but the goal of a specific-date-and-distance helps keep me focused...My goal is to feel good and be a solid middle-of-the-pack runner this time...maybe a half-marathon will be a goal for next year? (and then...a marathon before 40?) The route is super-scenic--it's an 8-mile loop, up and down, up and down, on the eastern edge of the Tucson basin, at the foot of the Rincon Mountains. Click on the site below for more info...

( photo below from the official website: http://www.azroadrunners.org/races/detail/saguaro )

(this was the 2008 race t-shirt logo,

showing the topography of the 8-mile loop: 2860 to 3220 ft.)

This morning while on the loop, (I've been doing it once a week), I had to ford some modest seasonal streams; the monsoon has done its job and the foothills of the Rincon mountains are wet with the remnants of the past week's rain. In one of the streams, flowing strong, I saw tons of tadpoles!

Hurry up little guys! Will you make it to frog-hood? Will you sprout legs of maturity and hop away before the streams revert to mud and then to terra cotta?

Ah--the last days of 'summer vacation' in Tucson...

School looms.

resurfacing from move(s)

The monsoon has arrived--clouds overhead, rain and lightning finally in the forecast...

AND, at last, we're settled in. Immediately upon arranging our furniture and breaking down boxes, however, we helped some friends prepare for their own move--a trailer-pulling transcontinental move. Glad to help, but--ENOUGH ALREADY! Hoo-boy.

For you friends and family out there who've been curious what the new place looks like, here's a little 30-second videoclip--a 360-degree 'pan' that gives you a piano's-eye-view of the living/dining room:

Looking forward to visitors...

Alas, Sabino Canyon is no longer our 'backyard,' but it's just a ten-minute drive away. And the local neighborhood is good for running--quiet streets, plenty of desert vegetation, plenty of cottontail rabits and reptile life...Javelinas will no longer be scrounging for munchies right outside the living room window, and that means that we'll actually be able to plant herbs and vegetables...if we can keep the squirrels away.

links! hawks! must pack!

As I type this, our neighborhood hawk is perched outside the window, peering in at me...or maybe peering in because he hears the tweeting of our little parrotlelt--potential prey...

Yesterday and today's New York Times have had a series of intriguing articles about our thought-habits, lifestyles and how newer technologies (twitter! google! texting!) are affecting them. I LOVED these articles and so just have to provide links to them:

--today, a column dealing with multitasking myths by Steven Pinker the MIT/Harvard prof/guru/writer:
Mind over Mass Media
(I confess that S. and I are partial to his writings; he is incidentally very important to the fact that yesterday was our tenth anniversary. One of our first truly 'deep relationship' conversations occured one autumn evening after attending a 'sold-out' lecture by Steven Pinker on the campus of the Univ. of WA--nerdy, eh? Seriously--a fascinating lecture...and then on the walk home, S. and I. had a late dinner in a little German restaurant in the U-district just off campus...)

--in yesterday's New York Times, this article:
Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price, part of the 'Your Brain on Computers' series...

An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness
This article resonates with me because I see this so much in my students--this upcoming fall's high-school freshmen were mostly born in 1996! They've never known
an 'un-plugged-in world!'

More Americans Sense a Downside to an Always Plugged-In Existence

Here's an interactive test from the same series of articles; how 'focused' or 'multitaskable' are you?
Actually, in that link, there are two different tests...I took them and was surprised by how 'good' I was at one task, and how seemingly mediocre I was at the other...

And now, The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In
...because busy-yet-trying-to-be-conscientious parents need more reasons to feel guilt....

Obviously, because I am blogging--I am 'plugged-in' while I should be packing; THE MOVE approaches, and there's much painting to do...and the cardboard boxes multiply...GET OFF THE INTERNET!

"elliptical bicycle"--saw my first one this morning...

The cicadas are buzzing; it's 102 degrees outside as I type this. Yesterday, S. and I spent a good part of the day up in Phoenix--it was 112 degrees...104 in the shade (!) in a covered parking garage in Scottsdale...
(or "Snotsdale," as some of the locals refer to the upscale area, we learned...)

But mornings, right before sunrise--still blessedly cool. So after spending hours sitting in the car yesterday,  back and forth from Phoenix, I wanted to go for a run this morning...so, out the door at dawn...and as I was running back down Sabino Canyon, I saw a guy biking dutifully uphill, and just behind, his wife, on one of these:

(photo courtesy of http://www.elliptigo.com)

Fascinating, eh? Got a spare couple of thousand dollars, you can have one--they were just 'released' from production this month. When I got home, I had to look it up: Elliptigo. Coming to a city near you, perhaps soon...Invented in California, where else? What a cool idea for runners recovering from impact injuries, or people who want to 'stairstep' but not on an indoor machine! Forget 'segways'--with our nation in its obesity epidemic, we need more calorie-burning options...

...not that I'm a skinny guru intent on ridding the world of motor-vehicles...
But our dependence on automobiles just can't be what this planet is meant for...how many petrol-volcanoes on sea-floors do we need anyway? One is enough. Adieu to the Cajun riviera, alas...

(Incidentally, speaking of Louisiana--here's an interesting article in a recent Wall Street Journal: African Teachers Come to the Rescue of Cajun Country;  Imported Francophones Help Revive a Culture; Savoring 'Le Gumbó')

This morning's run: 8 miles! Not a marathon--but for me, my longest continuous-run yet. A personal victory. I am really really going to miss having Sabino Canyon as 'my backyard'--yeah, yeah, we're only moving ten minutes away, but still...

Moving. Haven't even begun to pack yet. But the painting will begin later this week...probably on the day of our tenth anniversary--Happy Anniversary, honey--now grab a brush while I situate this ladder...

In today's mail, the new issue of Runner's World (don't laugh, now, yes I actually subscribe to a, gasp, athletic kind of magazine) came--and a recurring column that I enjoy reading therein is entitled "The Newbie Chronicles" by writer Marc Parent. At the end of this month's essay, he writes:
      "When I began running, a friend who has run his whole life congratulated me for starting. I told him I wasn't sure if it was for me. He tried to assure me it was. "Everyone is a runner," he said. "But most don't run slow enough or long enough to find out how true that really is." I wrote him off as just another lovable lunatic at the time--everyone is a runner, and I just shook hands with Bigfoot. Now...I can't really say if he was telling the truth or if it's just me who's finally joined the band."

And that's the latest, as week-number-two of 'summer' begins.

Pacaya!

This morning I saw in our local paper a little article about a Central American volcanic eruption--Pacaya, near Guatemala City. A dear family friend lives near there (!) so of course alarm bells went off in our heads...went on line to find out a bit more...sent e-mails and still waiting to hear back...

The ash and sand have covered the capital city; like an echo of Iceland's recent eruption, Pacaya's activity has closed the airport, one of Central America's busiest:

(above cartoon from today's Prensa Libre,

one of Guatemala City's major newspapers...

rough translation: the little Guatemalan volcano saying

to its Icelandic 'big brother' :

"did you see that?--I can do it too...)

As if the volcanic activity isn't enough, the first Pacific tropical storm of the season has slammed into Guatemala and El Salvador, adding to the damage...The government of Guatemala has declared a two-week national state of emergency...

A hard bargain, living in volcanically-abundant Central America--the mountains are home to some of the most fertile farmland in the Americas, and population pressures push people ever further up the slopes...

Pacaya was dormant for most of a century until the mid-1960's; since then it's been periodically active...

When my wife and I were last in Guatemala in 2006, we stayed with a dear family friend who lives not too far from Pacaya. Below, a view of the steaming volcano from the highway near her town:

...and this view, from her neighborhood; abundant evening steam from the summit:

Several years before, on our first trip to Guatemala in 2003, S. and I ended up hiking up Pacaya...in sandals--a long story, involving miscommunication and a last minute change-in-plans on the part of our local 'guides'.


We were miffed at first, thinking of our comfy protective hiking-boots, sitting lonely and unused back in town as we trudged up the pumice-strewn trail...But the views from the summit, (2552 m., 8373 ft), even on a cloudy day--the roof of the world! Totally worth the scraped toes...

(The volcano in the distant background is the Volcán de Agua, on the other side of which is the city of Antigua; that peak--3,760 m (12,336 ft)--has been blessedly inactive since the mid-16th century.)

S. jokes that in the photo below, her Pacific-NW-complexion glows like neon against the black sand below the crater's summit...

Below--the view from Pacaya down towards the farmland of the Departamento de Escuintla:

...such a beautiful country, blessed and cursed by its volcanoes...

...hoping to hear back from our friends soon...

(So far, in addition to the airport closure, about 1800 people have been evacuated from villages on the slopes of Pacaya, and three people (including a journalist) have been killed directly from the eruption...And then from the subsequent tropical storm, 13 confirmed deaths, but 74 thousand evacuees...)

Cha-yu--libertad, liberté: summer!

...another school-year has come to its end here in Tucson. Today was my last day 'with kids;' tomorrow there's the turning in of grades, classroom-tidying-up, etc...There will be some committee-work this summer, but without students. So: freedom!

One of my summer-goals is to dive back into my study of Korean, which got put on the backburner this past school-year, since I had other teacher-certification courses to work on while teaching full-time. My linguistic frustration in Korean is that for years now I've been on a 'plateau'--the ability to have 'real conversations' remains elusive, whereas random vocabulary words will pop into my head unbidden. Thus, 'cha-yu.'

Vive les vacances!
I've been teaching high-school for the better part of a decade, now, and I've never 'needed' summer more than this year. I'll like my job (kids) again, come August...

Earlier this month, my mother came for a visit--a 'business-trip,' this time, since she ended up buying a house. With it being a buyer's market right now, and since she plans to retire here in a couple of years, this plan seemed to make sense: Mother buys house, then son and daughter-in-law paint and 'take care' of it (aka rent) until Mom finally moves Out West. (Also, this means--gasp--we're putting down ROOTS here in Tucson...)

So--another summer of moving. June will be populated by paintbrushes, dropcloths, and cardboard boxes in a U-haul. Logistically logical, this moving-plan...but bittersweet: adios to having Sabino Canyon as 'our backyard.' Alas...

The new place does have many perks--more space, a neighborhood salt-water pool, and a walled backyard where we'll be able to grow vegetables! (Here, where we've spent the past year, squirrels and javelinas have eaten everything on our patio--except for geraniums and rosemary.) And for morning runs, there is a dry-riverbed nearby--really, it's prettier than it sounds...And Sabino Canyon will only be a ten-minute drive away... 

So, before we move, I'm trying to enjoy our mountain backyard daily. Yesterday afternoon, after work, I biked into the canyon with my camera...
Plenty of water, still, in the canyon--some evening reflections:

...evening light--fun to 'see in color' and 'in b&w.' 
 No more papers to grade tonight, so time to play in the digital darkroom...

...and while doing this,
I remembered a photo from when we were in Antigua, Guatemala, four (already!) years ago:

(Original color, sepia, b&w, negative: Hokusai's numerous views of Mt. Fuji inspire me...

The Volcán de Agua and the colorful architecture

of Antigua loom ever-present in my mind...)

...and now, as the 100-degree reality of Tucson's summer edges closer,

 a bit of Washington-dreaming,

with a volcano of the glaciated sort: 

 

...now: must be "accent-less" in AZ if you're going to teach...

As if AZ's public image in the rest of the country weren't bad enough already,
here's something else:

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Arizona Goes After Teachers With Accents: If not 'fluent,' they can't teach English learners 
    (from this article on newser.com)
 
       Arizona is already under fire for its controversial new immigration law, and now this: Schools in the state are being forced to fire or reassign some teachers who speak English with an accent. Teachers who aren’t deemed fluent can’t be in classrooms where students are still learning English, meaning many veteran teachers are taking classes to improve their English—and if that doesn’t work, facing a move to a higher grade where English learners are fewer; about 12.5% of the state's public-school students are considered "English Language Learners."

       Some of the pronunciation problems the Department of Education notes: violet is “biolet” and think is “tink.” While one principal agrees “teachers should speak grammatically correct English,” she doesn’t see why accents should be punished. “This is just one more indication of the incredible anti-immigrant sentiment in the state,” one professor tells the Wall Street Journal. Ironically, Arizona hired hundreds of Spanish-speaking teachers, many of them recruited from Latin America, in the 1990s to teach bilingual education.

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Hmm.....
So, who gets to decide how much accent, and what type of accent, is 'too much'?

When I moved to GA during my elementary school years, it took me several months to finally be able to systematically and effortlessly decipher my teachers' southern accents.
So--would they not be able to teach in AZ today?

On my drive home from work today, this commentary on NPR about AZ's new accent-targeting policy caught my ear...Listen to it and see what you think.

Intuitively, as a language-teacher myself, I know that good pronunciation is imperative on the part of a teacher...but with such a wide variety of naturally occuring and comprehensible accents, it's a slippery slope, once an agency takes it upon itself to be a 'speech-judge'--a slippery slope leading to institutionalized approval of racism and prejudice...


For more information, here's a recent Wall Street Journal article about this topic.

Watch what you say and how you say it, evidently...

Is the AZ Dept. of Education going to have to start a state-wide "My Fair Lady"-style crackdown? Good-intentions, perhaps, but TERRIBLE p.r....(Mississippi, Alabama--relax a bit, while AZ takes over as 'national-butt-of-joke'-state.)

And again--the slippery slope...
We need to add 'accentism' to our vocabulary of possible ways to discriminate, no?


Ah, Arizona: I love the landscape, climate, food...
...but alas--the human, political element; ay, there's the rub....


The saguaros are blooming now.
Enjoy. Just be careful how you pronounce...