The -- Mostly -- Desert Scene

While in the White Mountains, we visited Fort Apache on the White Mountains Apache reservation. Our cabin was in Greer, about 75 miles from the fort. We weren't sure what to expect at Ft. Apache, but what we saw wasn't it! To start with, it was a rainy day. We had a moderately decent map, but the fort wasn't on it. So we went where we thought it was -- but once we were on the reservation, there were no longer the expected "dumb tourist turn here!" signs. So we drove well past Fort Apache before realizing it. Finally, we turned around, and -- miracle of miracles -- there was a sign when heading north. So when we finally found it, we renamed the fort -- it is now "Fort Apogee", because it was the furthest point from Earth (aka Apogee) for us!

Here is a picture down the enlisted men's side of the fort:


It turns out that Fort Apoche -- oops, I mean Fort Apogee -- was the fort that was involved with tracking down Geronimo in the late 1800's. They were also involved in training the Apache scouts, and in maintaining peace on the Apache reservation. There is a pretty good tourist level description, with copies of the historical documents, in the log cabin, shown here:



The log cabin is one of the oldest buildings left on the fort, and was the house of the fort commander in the 1870's.

This house in the officer's row is a bit newer, and I think it was the house of a later commander or his deputy:



You'll notice a tower on the top of the house here. It was an observation tower, used to look out and see approaching weather. It is currently being restored. Here is a close up of the tower:



Fort Apache ceased to be an active fort in the early 1920's. It was converted to a boarding school for Native Americans -- mostly Apache -- and continues in that role today. You can find out more about it -- including more accurate information than what I'm remembering from a few weeks ago -- at their homepage.

We confirmed Fort Agogee's new name on the drive back to the cabin. We went looking for the Mogollon Rim. One of the tour guides I read described the rim, and talked about a road that drives along it for about 50 miles. The rim is an escarpment, where the Colorado plateau drops off, separating northern Arizona from southern Arizona. The drop off is 3000 feet or more in places, and sounds quite interesting. Alas, we never found the road, so I can't report on most of the rim from this trip. But it did take us about 4 hours to return to the cabin from the fort, confirming the designation "Fort Apogee"!

Here are some pinecones along a road we hiked down:


These red flowers were everywhere -- in the meadow, along the side of the road, everywhere!


Here's a blue flower in the meadow:


Here's another picture of the purple flowers:

The meadow shown in yesterday's post was full of flowers of all sorts. Today and tomorrow, I'll show you some ot these flora. This is one of the more colorful flowers that I saw.





This purple flower occasionally showed up, but was not nearly as prevalent as I would have liked.







Finally, this dandelion was one of the largest ones I've ever seen -- nearly 2.5 inches in diameter!

Arizona is a desert state, right? Right?? When I think of the Grand Canyon State, I think of saguaro cactus forests, little rainfall, soaring mesas, tumbleweed -- you know, all of the things I saw in the southwest desert scenes in the Bugs Bunny cartoons growing up. ("I shoulda' turned left at Albequerque!") Well, after we left the petrified forest (yes, that DOES look like my image of Arizona -- the north part of the state), we went to stay in the White Mountains. Here's a picture off the back porch of the cabin we rented:


The water flowing through the meadow (a Meadow!) is the Little Colorado River. Well, in Tucson, rivers are DRY. (Expect more on THAT subject in a few days.) It rained every day while we were there. (Water? Falling from the sky?? In Arizona??? For 4 straight days????) My son and I started calling the White Mountains "Canada" -- Pine tree forests, well north of Tucson, lots of rain; this must be Canada!

Seriously, though, the White Mountains are a very nice region. Nice enough that local celebrities have property there. Here is a picture of Senator Kyl's cabin on the Little Colorado -- or so the locals told us:


Pretty nice, and a GREAT location. More from the White Mountain meadows next time!

Here's one more image from the Petrified Forest. This crow was just sitting on a petrified log, watching -- and talking to -- the visitors. It certainly added to the ambiance of the setting. And reminded me of native American legends -- not that I really know any, of course!

When you head to Petrified Forest NP from Tucson, the most direct route that we've found takes you through the Salt River Canyon, shown here. You come to the edge of the canyon, wind down several thousand feet to a small bridge over the river, and then climb back up on the other side. These three pictures were taken from the north side of the canyon:

All of the pictures here so far are from in the Petrified Forest National Park. But if that's so, you may be asking, where are the petrified trees? That, dear friend, is a sad story. Most of the petrified forest was removed before it became a national park. There are still a lot of petrified logs lying around. Here are a few in the Crystal Forest:


I like the juxtaposition shown here, though I don't like the picture as much -- a wooden fence, guarding a petrified log: