Arizona: Globe

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

I began my exploration of State Highway 77, which extends from Tucson (as Oracle Road) up past Holbrook to the edge of Navajo Nation. I made a modest plan for the day with the town of Globe as my destination.

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

Besh-Ba-Gowah

I spent the largest chunk of my Globe time at the ancient Salado community called Besh-Ba-Gowah, which is what the Apache called Globe in the 1800s: "Town of Metal," in recognition of its mining industry.

I'm not all that much into ancient ruins, preferring more modern-day ruins. But the Besh-Ba-Gowah site is accessible to most folks and is very much part of a living town. 

It's so much a part of a living town that it literally butts against an athletic field. At first, I found this slightly unsettling, as in: Hey, you're messing with my head-in-the-past vibe, but after that initial reaction, I did a 180, finding that I very much appreciated how two epochs sat side-by-side. 

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

 Oooh, but watch out for the ants there! The place teemed with them.

Ants at Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

Two barrel cacti hosted a drunken party of ginger arthropods. Birds squeaked overhead, but in the video below, you can imagine the chirruping coming from the ants:

There's a good reason there are so many ants on the barrel cactus. From an article here:

The barrel cactus is an important partner for lots of desert species. Not only does the plant receive pollination from insects and seed dispersal from vertebrates, but it also hires ants to defend it against insect herbivores. It does this by producing sugary nectar that the ants can feed on.


A couple of bees tussled briefly over nectar in this video:

The Besh-Ba-Gowah museum had real pottery shards to smooth one's fingerpads over. It felt special to touch the same surfaces held by our first Americans so many centuries ago. A way to hold the hands of our antecedents.

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

The differences among preservation, conservation, restoration, renovation, and reconstruction interest me. This sign presents a quickie explanation of stabilization and reconstruction:

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

A plethora of lizards, of course. This lithe one tucked himself behind a stone face, but hey little dude, I could still see your curled tail!

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

A garden is adjacent to the ruins and museum; there is also a lower botanical garden, which is a ribbon along a path.

Besh-Ba-Gowah, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

Overall, I received many utils of pleasure in return for the investment of a four-hour round trip drive. There's a tight little museum with artifacts gleaned from the site, a video that's not too long and not too short, pleasant museum staff, an interesting and accessible ruin site itself, and two gardens to stroll.


Holy Angels Catholic Church

Pretty.

My favorite stained glass window: the holy flautist, as she reminded me of a Celtic flautist friend.

Holy Angels Catholic Church, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

One discordant note, however. I get that pews and statuary and windows often have the names of the donors inscribed on same. But it discomfits me for the Christ over the altar to also have the donor's name. It makes me think of a sports stadium that has no sense of place at all, but only the name of a corporation.

Holy Angels Catholic Church, Globe, Arizona. August 2019.

This Mass brought to you by .....



A slide show of Arizona State Highway 77 below (inclusive of Globe):

Where the Hell Am I, Louisiana: The Map App

Part 1: 

A few years ago, I listened to a family member, let's call her Kiki, explain why she had not yet used the Onstar program in her new car. .... "Because it could take me into a dangerous area and I could end up DEAD!"

At the time, I thought two things:

1. Paper maps could do the same thing; and 
2. Hoo boy. 

But I kept my mouth shut.

It wasn't too long after that when Kiki was prevailed upon to try out her Onstar and she loved it!


Part 2:

So here it is March 2015, and I've got a smart phone now. On a fine weekend afternoon, I was fixing to drive from my new digs (oh, I haven't told you where I'm living now, have I?) to the village of Henderson which hugs a levee along the Atchafalaya River. I looked at about three route options on my map application, and selected one.

It was a pleasant day and my map app took me on a wind-y road, which was just fine with me. Then it wanted me to go over a bridge that wasn't there anymore, so I did a few circular maneuvers, asked a gentleman on the side of the road for some guidance, and he directed me to a way around that gone bridge, and then I was taken deeper and deeper into what reminded me of an old Stephen King story of the woman whose mission was to find the fastest way from Point A to Point B in Maine and her quest took her into a parellel universe where time got bend-y.

Until finally my map app carried me to what seemed to be an end of the road, on the other side of a wood-plank bridge with a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign posted, with my map app voice instructing me to go up the levee. Say what??

Near Henderson, Louisiana. March, 2015.

And it was at this moment that I thought of Kiki's dire predictions of murder and mayhem should she surrender herself to her Onstar.

Looking to my left, across the other bank of the bridge, I saw a group of men doing something along the river.

Having now read all of the Dave Robicheaux books (and having read Winter's Bone and watched the movie, based in the hinterlands of my own Missouri ), what might they be doing?  Running drugs for a South American cartel? Dispensing with a troublesome comrade? Or just fishing? Where's the ice chest to tell me all is as it should be?

Winter's Bone trailer:

"Talkin' just causes witnesses."

I crossed the wood-plank bridge with some trepidation and then asked one of the men, "I'm trying to get to Henderson from here ... but I'm confused about what I'm supposed to do now." One of the men said, "Well, you can turn on around here and go back the way you came ..... [insert my mental nervous swallow here] ... or you can go right and it'll take you 10 to 15 minutes to get there."

Because I am genetically programmed to not backtrack, I took a few moments to decide if "turn right" really meant "turn right" or did it mean "go up onto the levee and turn right?" Did the PRIVATE PROPERTY sign refer to the flat road to my right or the levee road up and to the right on the levee?

I chose the flatlander road on the right. When I say road, by the way, I'm talking gravel road.

This met with approval from my map app until a few miles down the road when it really, really wanted me to climb up onto the levee. Finally, I acquiesced and for some more miles drove on the gravel road up top, noticing that the flatland road kept on going on right beside me, down below. Eventually, I overcame the objections of my map app and got back down onto flat land.

All ended well, of course, but I took a different route home.  

I did see this pretty community of beehives on the way to Henderson:

Near Henderson, Louisiana. March, 2015.

Reminded me of Caucasus Georgia, on a visit to an agrarian technical school in Kachreti.