Simply Belle

This morning, my husband and I went for a drive to Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona to catch some awesome fall colors. The drive took about 1 1/2 hours from home. This is the time of the year when fall foliage has reached its peak so we didn’t want to miss it. We took the scenic drive through Oak Creek Canyon. The contrast of the oak turning colors and the awesome red rocks against the evergreen pine trees was extraordinary. Too bad, we were in a hurry as we had to meet Lexi at the university at 3:30 PM. But, we plan on going back there again around Thanksgiving to finish what we missed.

Sharing with you these pictures:

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We planned to leave early for this trip but for some reason, we didn’t get out until 9 AM. Then, after we drove for about a mile or so, my husband realized that we didn’t have the blankets, quilt, and pillows so we looked for a place to safely turn around on the freeway and headed back home. I was so busy packing food and other stuff, I totally forgot the beddings, too. He suggested that we buy them in Wal-Mart, instead of driving back home, but I didn’t fall for his idea as it could add up. It was a good thing because not only did we forget the beddings, he forgot his wallet, too. Could you imagine going on a camping trip without your wallet and your driver’s license? That meant I would have to drive the car the whole trip or he would have to drive carefully to avoid getting pulled over by a cop. Anyway, glad we came back although we wasted quite a bit of time.

After a series of bathroom, shopping, meal, and photography stops, we arrived at the camping site at 4 PM. It was a little too late to take pictures as the sun was going down already. It gets dark there quickly because of the mountains. But we took some pictures of the view on the way in. My husband immediately got situated by looking for the best camping site before it turned dark.

Here are some pictures of the camping site:

I didn’t waste time either fixing our dinner. I cooked salmon, and heated up chicken adobo and pansit that we brought from home. Mango had to come, too, because we didn’t think it was safe for him to be home alone for 3 days.

See how quickly he found a spot inside the car to perch on? He didn’t want to stay in the cage when we were traveling. Here, we were heading to a Mexican border called Agua Prieta to do some shopping–and at the same time, a chance at improving my spanish skills. We parked on the US side, which is Douglas, AZ., and crossed the border. We didn’t want to get tangled in the traffic there which we found out later was at least an hour wait for the cars to get through the border. Didn’t we do the smartest thing? We looked for the pharmacy, and there were several of them. We chose the one that this english speaking woman recommended in exchange for a dollar. She said she needed help for her medication so my husband unhesitantly gave her a dollar.

Conversation inside the pharmacy:

Me: Hola!

Lady: Hola!

Me: Tienes medicina como esta? (Do you have medicine like this)

Lady: Si!

Me: Cuanto cuesta cada pedazo? (how much does it cost per item?)

Lady: 5 american dolares!

Me: muy caro! (expensive), si compro 10 pedazos , no marka?(if i buy 10 pieces, no discount?)

Lady: No!

Me: Hay otros lugares que venden esta misma medicina? (are there any places selling this same medicine?)

Lady: Si, pero los precious son el mismo. (the prices are the same.)

Me: si, compro 20 pedasos, me darias un descuento? (if i buy 20 pieces, would you give me a discount?)

Lady: No! pero cada Lunes, tenemos 25% descuento. (no! but every monday, we have 25% discount.) We were there Saturday.

Me: okay, dame 20 pedasos y tienes el bano? (okay, give me 20 pieces and do you have a bathroom? )

Lady: No bano!

Me: sabes un bano que podemos usar? (do you know of any bathroom that we can use?)

Lady: Si!

She directed us somewhere inside a certain restaurant which required some left and right turns on a busy street so we bagged it and decided to cross back to the border– to the US . My husband, who has absolutely no knowledge of spanish, by the way, was impressed with my spanish. “How do you know I was saying the right thing,” I asked him. He said, he was looking at the girl and she didn’t look confused at all and understood at what I was trying to say.

On our second day of our camping trip, we stayed under the spread of the sycamore trees. We owned the place to ourselves for the night. I quickly started the fire because the fire pit and woods were already available — leftover from old campers, possibly. We had enough woods to last us through bedtime. Don’t you just love the sight of the camping fire? I do!

Cozy place, huh? Mango was inside the car as he was complaining about the fire smoke. We went to bed at 9 PM because we ran out of things to do, besides it was getting chilly. My husband extinguished the fire before bedtime– a smart thing to do. I was a little bit scared not of the invisible things but of the wayward people that might harm us. I had the flashlight next to me, just in case. I constantly peeked through the window making sure that there was no one lurking around. At around midnight, I heard soft knocks and so did my husband. I sit up promptly trying to decipher where it was coming from. The noise quit. Then I would lie down and it would start again. I would sit up and the noise would disappear. Weird! I looked through the window watching for animals or anything. Nothing! My husband was not bothered at all and was sleeping soundly. He told me earlier that the noise could be from the car cooling off the engine or from the air mattress. Whatever!

I got tired of sitting up that I finally went to bed. I slept through until early in the morning when my husband couldn’t sleep anymore because he felt he had enough sleep already. He got up, turned on the lantern, and heated up some water for tea. While sipping a hot cup of tea, we put away our camping stuff to get an early start. We left the camping site at 5:30 AM heading to Tucson.

Our next destination was Sierra Vista where we used to live. My daughter Lexi asked me to stop by at our old house and take pictures. Evidently, she misses the house and its surroundings.

My husband built that shed behind the tree.

Our next destination was Phoenix to do some oriental grocery shopping and to eat at our favorite restaurant and then we drove home.

Stand by for our next camping trip to Puerta Penasca.

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About a year and a half ago, we made a trip to Washington to attend the family reunion. On our way over to the reunion, we stopped by at my friend’s house to say hello. I also wanted to drive to where I used to work as I haven’t seen them for quite a while, about 8 years. I asked my kids if they wanted to come along and they said yes and so were my friend’s kids.  They all wanted to ride with me to my old place of work. On the way over, I talked to the kids inside the car to help me set up a little mischief just for fun.  I would pretend that all four of them were mine, and that they were to call me mommy when I talked to my friends.  They all went along with the plan. Silly kids, too, mana sa mommy.

What was the point of my joke, you might ask. I just wanted to find out how well they remembered me. I worked there for six years– long enough to know me well.

When I went inside, I saw a couple good friends of mine J and W. I introduced my children–four of them.  Neither of them suspected that the two young ones were not mine.  I was hoping that they would see through the joke.  But, they believed me!  The kids put up a good act, too.  Ha ha! Silly me!

What do you think? Could these younger ones be my children? Are there any resemblances/similarities?

I took these pictures with my point and shoot camera before my blogging days.  Not bad, eh?

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Apache trail is a road leading from Phoenix to Tonto Basin back in the 1930′s to build the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River. It is a long, narrow, windy road but extremely picturesque.

Three weeks ago, when my husband, daughter, and I went to Phoenix for dining and shopping, we ended up on this road because the main highway going back to our place was closed both ways due to truck roll-over. We already drove 20 miles into the freeway when suddenly, we were stopped by some flaggers prompting us to use an alternate route. The Globe route is twice as long and my daughter was leaving that day to her school, which is a good 2-hour drive from home. I was hoping we would get home at 4 PM, so she could leave at 5 PM giving her plenty of time to gather her personal stuff. If we had chosen the Globe route, it would take us home at 7 PM, too late for Lexi to drive to her dorm. Besides, it is extremely treacherous driving at night because of the chances of hitting elks on the road. Once headlights hit the elks, they get rattled and freeze on the freeway, thus, accident happens.

Anyway, the first thing that came to my husband’s mind was to take the Apache route, which he thought would take us home quicker than Globe route. Bad decision, of course! After we had driven 1/3 into the route, another flagger stopped us and asked us to go back and take the Globe route. The reason was that the motorhomes and trailers (who had the same idea we had) jammed up the narrow part of the road, and it may take forever to get through. He gave us an option to wait or take a sure long route. My husband was so agitated. They could have put signs at the entrance of the roads to direct the motorists to take alternate route instead of letting us drive a considerable distance only to be turned around. So much gas and time had been wasted. And Lexi still had to drive long distance.

I was getting worried, and Lexi was feeling carsick. I switched seats with her so she sit in the front and I sit in the back. I didn’t want her to get sicker considering that she had a long drive ahead of her. We didn’t get home until 7 PM. I was suggesting to Lexi to leave early in the morning of Monday but she insisted that she drive that same night. She didn’t make it on the road until 7:30 PM. She called me on the cell two hours later that she arrived safely. She said that the headlights from opposite cars bothered her considerably, reason why we were so opposed letting her drive at night.

Despite the commotion on the road, we couldn’t help noticing the beautiful scenery. Tough luck, I didn’t bring my camera. My husband and I thought that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take this route again to take some pictures and to take some time to savor the magnificent view some other time. So, we did just that last weekend. The 49 miles twisty, narrow gravel road took us 3 hours to navigate, including frequent stops for photography. Imagine that! I thought the road would never end. It will take a long while before we hit this road again, if ever.

Here are some pictures that I took. There were few turn outs so most of the time, we stopped in the middle of the road, with my husband in the driver’s seat while I took the pictures in haste.

Ignore the electrical wires. I couldn’t avoid it. My husband promised to edit it using the adobe photo shop.

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Trips don’t have to cost much. Actually, it is more fun sleeping in a tent or in the back of the truck with a canopy. You don’t need a laptop or television to keep you entertained. Instead, you can just gaze at the sky and enjoy its beauty and fascination. It is so peaceful and relaxing watching the stars twinkle in the night sky like fireflies.

On this recent trip, we brought air mattress, quilts, pillows, water, toiletries, and some snacks. Our bed was quite comfortable and pretty spacious for the two of us. I don’t know about my husband but I slept well. It got so cold early in the morning that I had to get up and shut the back of the truck and the windows partially. We covered ourselves with thick quilt which made it nice and toasty the rest of the morning.

The only problem was we had to walk a little ways to avail of the bathroom. I avoided drinking too much at night so I didn’t have to make an early morning trip to Wal-Mart and it did the trick. What is so nice about Wal-Mart is they don’t mind people camping out in their parking lots as long as they stay over to the side and out of the way. And depending on the season, they open 24 hours a day.

Our truck parked behind Wal-Mart

Visitor center in Lake Powell

The next three pictures down were taken on the way to Flagstaff.

Native American tent known as “teepee.”

Beautiful red rock scenery to Lake Powell.

Aspen tree on the way to Flagstaff from Grand Canyon

Beautiful butterfly in Grand Canyon

Browsing deer in Grand Canyon

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Here is the second batch of pictures of our long weekend trip; Lake Powell. Lake Powell is about 2 hours drive from Grand Canyon. It is the second largest man-made reservoir in the United States behind Lake Mead. Lake Powell is famous for houseboating. Its 185 mile long lake offers blue water, nice beaches, awesome red-rock scenery. Lake Powell is also a great place for boating, water skiing, fishing, or just merely sight seeing.

Lake Powell, formed by Glen Canyon Dam, is located in Page, AZ. The lake lies partly in Arizona and mostly in Utah but best access is from Arizona. There is only a roundabout dirt road access from Utah to Lake Powell which is not easy to find in the map. While most of the Lake Powell’s crystal blue water lies in Utah, Page, AZ has the most important part – the Glen Canyon Dam.

Here are the pictures:

I took this picture while seated in the car. This is the road to Lake Powell.

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I had my first three-day off at work this weekend without my children. They are now both in college staying in the dormitory. I suggested to my husband that we do some overnight trip within driving distance. My husband was thrilled with the idea and did all the preparations a week prior to our trip. We took air mattress, pillows, blankets, clothes, water, food, and some personal stuff. We slept in the truck under the canopy.

On the way to Grand Canyon, we stopped by at the university to see Lexie. We had lunch together, did some quick shopping and important errands.

Then we proceeded to our destinations: Lake Powell and Grand Canyon. We stayed overnight in the parking lot behind Wal-Mart in Page, AZ., where Lake Powell is located. For now though, let me first showcase to you pictures of the Grand Canyon. Photos were taken from 9 AM thru noon. Grand Canyon shows different shades and shadows as the sun moves along the sky. It would have been probably exciting to take photos at sunset but we couldn’t stay that late as we had four hours driving ahead of us to home. Besides, we were getting exhausted hopping in and out of the car to and from the viewpoints. Perhaps, we will catch it on our next overnight trip.

Have fun viewing!

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Recently, I have had the opportunity to see many interesting ruins of the Navajo Indians, thanks to a visit from SIL and BIL.

Hogan is a Navajo Indian dwelling that is roughly circular, constructed of rocks and branches, and sealed with mud or sod. The one that we saw in the Rock Art Ranch looked like it had just been recently restored. When I went inside the shelter, it was actually cooler by about 12 degrees. Having been outside in the blistering desert for a while, it was a refreshing treat for us. I noticed that there was a circular opening in the middle of the roof, but there weren’t any windows. I was wondering why the hole was there. Well, according to Mr. Brantley Baird, the owner of the ranch, on winter nights, when it was extremely cold, they would make fire directly below the hole to keep them warm, while allowing the smoke to escape through the opening. And then, when it got warm enough, they would quickly patch the hole up to preserve the heat until morning. That is how the Navajo Indians survived the harsh winters in AZ. Yes, it can get cold in AZ, down to zero even. Also, the smoke hole served as a source of light during the day.

Typical Hogan.

I like how they laid the rocks on the walls. I have seen many modern houses nowadays with similar walls, which could very well be attributed to the Navajo Indians

This is how the inside of the Hogan looks like – nothing much. But, it is refreshingly comfortable inside. If only there were windows to allow the air to come in and out…I wouldn’t mind staying there for a while, enjoying the view of the open fields.

Close up of the interior of the roof. Notice the opening in the middle that serves as a source of light and a vent for the fire.

Steam room where they took their baths. Water was taken from the nearby stream.

This is where they heated the rocks to be carried to the steam room.

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One interesting tour we took most recently when my in-laws were here, was at Rock Art Ranch. I already showed some breathtaking pictures of the Rock Canyon River in my previous post.

As we walked through the canyon, we saw petroglyphs up and down the river. A petroglyph is an image carved or etched into rock by the ancient people known as the Anasazi. Petroglyph is among the earliest form of art or early system of writing, which dates back as far as 9,500 years ago. That is quite a while ago, before Christ even! Amazing!

Petroglyph comes from the Greek word petros meaning stone and glyphein meaning to carve.

Nobody knows for sure what these symbols meant. Look closely, what do you think the pictures depict or symbolize? Your guess is a good as anybody else’s.

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Learn the art of seeing, which of course is another form of being, it is the most wonderful resource in the world. You become an independent being in your own right.

Then, standing on that site, look about you so that you see what has charm. What is the reason you want to build there? Find out. Then build your house so that you may still look from where you stood upon all that charmed you and lose nothing of what you saw before the house was built but see more. Frank Lloyd Wright

Today, we had a tour of Taliesin West in Scottsdale, AZ. (Taliesin, pronounced TALLY EHSSEN, literally means “shining brow” in Welsh, the nationality of Wright’s ancestors. Taliesin West was conceived by the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, and his apprentices as a “desert camp” where they intended to live permanently during winter to evade the harsh Wisconsin weather. Frank was originally from Wisconsin and came to Arizona in 1937.

He introduced beauty, health, tranquility, and harmony into the built environment. His goal was to integrate the structures with the “Nature” of the desert, its soul, and its physical features.

He called his work “organic,” showing that all parts should relate to the whole- that architecture must be appropriate to the time, place, and man.

He also introduced the concept of “compress and release”. I noticed that the door entrances are only 5’9″ in height, with narrow hallways. If you are six feet tall, you have to “compress” and duck your head. My BIL who is six feet tall wasn’t too happy about watching his head every time he approached the door. My husband said that it reminded him of some houses in Catanduanes. Anyway, the idea is to make the visitor feel uncomfortable and encourage them to move out of the hallway and proceed to a larger room, hence, the “release.” Catch the drift?

I was really impressed of his architectural style because of its natural beauty. His idea of “organic structure” fascinated me. You could see the raw beauty of the rocks, and its natural colors. The house is like an extension of the environment. It is rugged, irregular, and super strong. It is simply beautiful! Mr. Wright hated the idea of being in a square box like you see in most houses, so you don’t see any internal walls in his rooms.

During the tour, I learned that Frank Lloyd Wright owned a lot of stuff but was never rich. In fact, he always resorted to borrowing money from his friends. For him, luxury came first while necessity was secondary. Do any of you agree with his thinking?

Let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

office

living room

cabaret

theater

bedroom..notice how tiny the beds are and with a wall in between???

claustrophobic door entrance

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