Moving On: Another Stop in the Journey We Didn't Imagine 38 Years Ago

With this latest move we have now lived in the South (Louisiana and Texas), the Midwest (Minnesota), the Southeast (Georgia), and the West (Arizona). At the age of fifty-seven, I had imagined that our next move would be into retirement, and with that in mind, I had been receiving automatic notices from Trulia.com about houses for sale near Duluth and Grand Marais, Minnesota. I had been entertaining the thought that we would return to the area we had enjoyed so much as a young family, the one state to which we had not returned to live a second time. But life is always delivering surprises, and here we are in Apache County, Arizona, in an area that gets an average of 12 inches of rain a year and near two towns with a combined population of less than 5,000. Gardening here will be vastly different from gardening in southeast Louisiana, with its 60 inches of rain a year. Already I am receiving advice from our real estate agent --be prepared to transplant seedlings rather than sowing seeds directly, as it's not unusual to get a freeze in May. I think there is a small greenhouse in my future.

Every move brings with it frustrations and delights. The nearest town with big box stores or an adequately stocked natural foods store is an hour's drive away. The largest cities are a four-hour's drive away. The little towns in which we are house-hunting have nothing to offer like our little cottage on its acre of land in Abita Springs, Louisiana, tucked away privately as it is on a dead-end road yet within walking distance of the Abita Brew Pub, the Abita Cafe, the Tammany Trace, my doctor's office and my dentist, yet within a fifteen-minutes' drive to a Target, World Market or Home Depot. And I will surely miss the English Tea Room.

The economic crisis of 2008 did not hit southeast Louisiana as badly as it did other parts of the country. As our real estate agent drove me around these Arizona towns, she pointed out the "failed golf course" and the many empty lots around the fairway. Lots that had once gone for $80,000 were now being offered for $20,000 or so, she said, and one man had recently purchased the golf course and remaining lots, perhaps hoping for another boom in the area's economy when the lots could then be sold for a good profit. 

One of the two towns in the area seems to have most of the commercial base and the other most of the population. The second town is spreading out into the juniper-covered foothills of the White Mountains. People retire here or buy a second home or cabin to escape the extremely hot weather of Phoenix (reaching the 90s already in March!) for the cooler air of the White Mountains. But there are signs that the towns have seen better days. Many businesses are empty, for sale, or falling into disrepair. We were excited to see a nice coffee shop with great online reviews, only to discover that the shop has recently closed. One man at the RV park where we are temporarily living  told us that he could recommend only one restaurant in town. (Fortunately, we discovered that his recommendation was short-sighted. There is at least one other good restaurant, but it seems that the food is too spicy for a lot of people; Tom and I have really enjoyed eating there, however.) 

street view

The area has other offerings, though, to offset the lack of commercial enterprises and the disappointing (for us) housing market. The nearby White Mountains have lots of hiking trails (though the Wallow Fire of 2011--the largest forest fire in Arizona's history--burned hundreds of acres of Ponderosa pine), small lakes suggest opportunities for future kayaking, ancient Indian ruins provide a peek into the archeological history of the area, and the landscape is a textbook for anyone interested in geology. Also, there are many recreational areas within a one-to-six hour drive, with Utah and New Mexico within that driving range.

This past weekend we took a tour of the Casa Malpais ruins near Springerville, Arizona, which can only be accessed by driving along private ranch roads and thus are open to the public primarily through these tours offered by the Springerville Heritage Center. The city of Springerville purchased the site in the 1990s, and the Heritage Center has a nice room-sized museum that displays the artifacts that were discovered during archeological digs. The Zuni and Hopi tribes seem to have some say in how the site is administered, as our tour guide told us that the tribes allow digging only in previously disturbed areas. Both tribes claim the ancient inhabitants--mid-1100s to mid-1200s--as their ancestors. The Spanish stamped their presence on the area with the name by which the ruins continue to be known: "Casa Malpais," or "House of the Badlands," the badlands referring to the jumble of volcanic rocks in which the ancient homes were built.

Casa Malpais ruins from the top of the ancient volcanic flow that rims the Little Colorado River plain

ruins of a great kiva

Then, yesterday late morning, we drove to the trailhead of the South Fork Trail at the end of County Road 4124 and hiked three miles along the South Fork of the Little Colorado River before turning around at a dirt road that crosses the river. Four more miles would have taken us to trail's end at Mexican Hay Lake. The day was cool and our jackets unnecessary, though we carried them tied to our hips. The trail begins at a picnic area where camping is no longer allowed, we assumed, because of the danger of burned and falling trees left by the Wallow Fire of 2011. While the trail begins in an area green with Ponderosa pine, it soon enters great burned areas of dead trees, with a tree here and there having miraculously escaped the conflagration.  Pre-fire descriptions of the trail describe the hike as shady and cool in the summer, but not much shade is left now. Pussy willow and wild rose line the banks of the river while charred Ponderosa pine and Douglas fire loom darkly on the slopes.

South Fork of the Little Colorado River, with remains of the Wallow Fire of 2011

We took our binoculars and did a little bird-watching, identifying western bluebird, American kestrel, dark-eyed juncos, American robins, and the ever-present ravens. I also learned a couple of very important lessons: 

• Don't just look up and down the trail before dropping your pants in an area with little cover; look across the river, too!

• Don't grab wild rose for support on a steep trail slippery with mud.

On the first lesson, nature had been calling for quite a while, and I finally answered the call, asking Tom to act as lookout as I peed behind the trunk of dead Ponderosa pine. What we didn't see were two older gents crossing the river from the other side....and even more embar-assing, they were folks we had met on the Casa Malpais tour the day before!

What are our chances we will run across these guys again in this area of about 5,000 souls!

Thus we end our first two weeks in the Round Valley of the White Mountains. 

Tom leans against a Ponderosa pine on the South Fork of the Little Colorado River

pollinating bee-like fly on a pussy willow bloom