High Desert Flora

Not quite all the places we visited in May count as high desert, but mostly that’s what we saw, including a wide variety of plants. I looked at them mostly for aesthetic enjoyment, since I’m woefully ignorant about natural history, and when I try not to be, the information mostly isn’t retained by the sieve of my mind.

Still, I know a Joshua Tree when I see one. These were outside Las Vegas. The further east you go from there, the fewer you see.Joshua Tree, Nevada Joshua Tree, Nevada

Smaller than many of the yuccas at Joshua Tree NP, but Yuriko, who hasn’t visited that park, was suitably impressed.

Moving on, flora at Zion National Park.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.Grand Staircase-Escalante NM

Owl Canyon, near Page, Arizona. Amazing the places life can cling.Owl Canyon, Arizona

Also near Page.
Near Page, Arizona

National Bridges National Monument.
Natural Bridges NM

Arches National Park.Arches National Park Arches National Park Arches National Park

Canyonlands National Park.Canyonlands National Park Canyonlands National Park

Salt Lake City.Salt Lake City flowers 2022 Salt Lake City - City Creek Park

The flowers were at Temple Square, near the Assembly Hall. The second image doesn’t look much like a city view, but it was, in City Creek Natural Area. The ground gets pretty steep pretty fast as you move away from downtown.

A 180-degree turn at that point, and you see this.Salt Lake City - City Creek Park

A nice change from desert scrub, though desert flora has its fascinations.

NV-AZ-UT ’22 (Or, How to Overdose on Western Scenery in a Week)

Years ago, I got to talking scenic destinations with a professional photographer who contributed to the Chicago-based magazine I edited at the time. He asked me if I’d ever been to Utah. I told him I had: northern Utah, including Cache Valley and Salt Lake City, which I’d visited in the early ’80s. Pretty places, I said.

“Northern Utah is pretty,” he said. “But southern Utah is ethereal.”

Later, after I visited Zion and Bryce National Parks, I was inclined to agree. But of course I wanted to see more. This year, I did. Yes, photographer whose name I wish I could remember. Ethereal. Absolutely.

Saturday before last, Yuriko and I flew to Las Vegas, returning late this Sunday from Salt Lake City. Two days in transit, seven on the road. In that time, we visited four national parks, three national monuments and two tribal parks, all in either Arizona or Utah. We spent a little time in the aforementioned major metros, plus more time in two tourist towns — one in Arizona, the other in Utah — staying there in two non-chain motels, one of which is arguably historic. We passed through an array of other tiny towns and wide places in the road, stopping when the mood struck.

I’m glad to report we ate no fast food. Besides grocery store food in our rooms or at picnic tables, and motel-supplied breakfasts, we ate at local eateries: Vietnamese, a family restaurant, Southern fried chicken, doughnuts, Mexican, barbecue (Texas-style beef), a retro diner, Thai, pizza, Korean fried chicken and Chinese hot pot. A few of those restaurants were in the cities — Vegas and Salt Lake — but I can also report that here in the early 21st century, the American appetite for food variety has spread far and wide into a galaxy of smaller places.

We drove briefly on Interstates, but mainly followed state, park and tribal roads, most paved, but not all. We walked a variety of trails, across sandy ground and over flat rocks, through woods but more often desert scrub. We crawled through slot canyons. All that under hot and copper skies, sunny or partly cloudy. Very warm, rather; in the 80s F. most of the time, except for a cooler spell on the last two days. Often as not, on the hot days, the wind kicked up and cooled us off, besides blowing sand at our faces and threatening to whisk our hats off high cliffs.

Mosquitoes were rarely a presence, fortunately, but gnats and flies made themselves known. If you looked carefully (actually not that carefully), you’d notice lizard trails in the red sands, and holes borrowed into the same sands by larger creatures who don’t care to come out during the daytime. Lizards, on the other hand, are more than happy to sit around in the sun, or scurry across the trail ahead of you or on the queer rock formations to your side.

I’m not the first to notice that deserts can be surprisingly green, though not the greens you see in less arid places. Notice it I did. I’m not a farmer or horticulturist or botanist or  florist, but I tried to notice the desert flora. Wildflowers bloom in great profusion this time of the year, along the roads and trials and off into the distance, even in the harshest environments.

People are back in the national and other parks. Middle-class American tourists, that is, of whom I’m obviously one, plus visitors from a spectrum of European and Asian nations. Perhaps a strict majority of the tourists we encountered were older, but younger age groups, including young families and groups of young friends, were out in force. The tourists passed through an inhabited land, of course, one with as diverse a population as most any city in the nation.

No destination was exactly crowded, but a number of places were very popular, enough to erase any notion of desert solitude. Even so, there’s a mild camaraderie among the tourists, greeting each other much more frequently than they would in an urban or suburban setting, asking and offering to take pictures of strangers, pausing for each other to pass on narrow paths, sharing information about trail conditions ahead, making jokes or other observations for everyone to hear.

At one particularly windy vista, I put my hand on top of Yuriko’s head to hold her hat down, at her request, while she took pictures.

“That’s why she keeps you around, huh?” one passing fellow with about 10 years on me said.

“That and to open jars,” I answered.

The kernel of this trip was Yuriko’s longstanding wish to see Antelope Canyon (and she knows how to pick destinations). Back in bleak January, I planned the thing, expanding the list of destinations a lot. I’ve wanted visit that part of the country again for years.

We went looking for scenic vistas formed by rocks of unimaginably various shapes, and boy did we find them — views of reds and oranges and ochers and browns and whites, seeing formations deep in canyons, vaulting high into the sky, or appearing wholly at eye level or underfoot. It boggles the mind: how did these rocks get to be so incredible to human perception? I know: wind and water and time. A lot of time. But damn. I also know — or at least have an inkling of — the fact that these rocks are temporary. Geologically speaking, only a little less the blink of an eye than my own lifetime.

We drove out of Vegas last Sunday morning, bound for the tourist town of Page, Arizona, where we’d last stayed 25 years ago this month, when we visited Lake Powell. En route, we passed through Zion National Park (a destination in 2000 but not this time) and later ventured briefly into the vast and contentious Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Our first major destination, a week ago on Monday morning, was the slot canyons of Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park, an embarrassment of sandstone riches near Page. Also near Page — actually in Page, but also part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area — is Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River, now famous because of Instagram. Be that as it may, we weren’t about to miss that. We watched the sun drop below the mountains in the distance at Horseshoe Bend.

Another thing we weren’t about to miss was the less-visited North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, which is every bit as grand as the South Rim, though it took some circuitous driving  last Tuesday to get there from Page, by way of remote roads, One of those roads, the only paved one anywhere nearby, edges the bottom of the dramatic cliffs of Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, a sprawling uplift of wilderness. Of it, the Bureau of Land Management says, “expect rugged and unmarked roads, venomous reptiles and invertebrates, extreme heat or cold, deep sand, and flash floods.”

Returning from the Grand Canyon to Page, we stopped at Navajo Bridge, which spans the Colorado River. It’s two structures: the historic bridge from the 1920s and the modern bridge from late in the 20th century, which was designed to complement the older bridge, and it does, masterfully. The old bridge is now a foot bridge, and we walked across it.

Leaving Page on Wednesday, we made our way to another tourist town, namely Moab, Utah, at first on roads passing through the Navaho Nation, until we reached Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, home of famed sandstone buttes. We did the drive on the park’s circular road, unpaved and dusty and rocky and as red-orange as Mars, flabbergasted by the stone masses, most of which don’t actually make it into the movies. If you think you’ve seen Monument Valley because it’s been captured on celluloid so often, let me assure you that seeing it in person is an experience a level higher.

Later that same day, before arriving in Moab, we stopped at the much more obscure Natural Bridges National Monument, whose name clearly states its prime attraction. Among the wonders of southern Utah, it is a modest one. But a modest wonder in this part of the country is still a wonder.

On Thursday, we drove the short distance from Moab to Arches National Park, an astounding place populated by lofty arches, but also an endless array of stone pinnacles and balancing rocks and other rock formations. We spent most of the day there. The crowds are such that timed entry is now being tested at the park, and the crowds are right. Arches is one of the places the photographer must have been talking about.

Less crowded but no less spectacular than Arches is Canyonlands National Park, a little further out of Moab. We spent Friday morning at the evocatively named Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands, whose vistas overlook canyons, mesas and buttes. Another ethereal place. On Friday afternoon, we drove to Salt Lake City on roads through pale badlands and along more cliffs, and then through the forested mountains of Carbon and Wasatch counties.

We spent Saturday in Salt Lake, a city greatly expanded since the last time I visited, in 1980. That’s so long ago it was like I’d never been there. We focused most of our attention downtown in the morning and took in urban sights, Mormon-oriented and otherwise, including Temple Square and Utah’s magnificent State Capitol. In the afternoon, we visited the This is the Place Monument on a hill overlooking Salt Lake, and finally the Natural History Museum of Utah.

On a stretch of Utah 261, we encountered the Moki Dugway, a mountain road and one intense drive — more about which later. When we got to the top, I stopped to take pictures, including one of a road sign just ahead of the road’s first serious curve.Moki Dugway Buc-ee's

That little bastard of an amphibious rodent is everywhere.

An Excellent Story for Earth Day, Mrs. Maisel

It’s about time, backyard croci.

Today was warm, cloudy and windy, until the clouds let go a lot of water, and then another -y adjective came into play, rainy. Tomorrow will be rainy, windy and chilly, and it won’t get warm again till after Easter, I hear.

Got an email pitch the other day, one of very many. There was a fair amount of verbiage to it, but the heart of the matter was this line: Are you interested in speaking to XY, a holistic health expert, about the sharp rise in the use of anti-anxiety drugs and why taking hemp extract is better for your health?

The short answer is, no. A longer answer would also be no. And I feel not a jot of anxiety about my decision.

And another pitch, at about the same time:

We think this is an excellent story for Earth Day that your audiences will love. The nationally acclaimed eco-feminist artist XX is celebrated as the real-life Marvelous Mrs. Maisel of the art world.

Is she now? Got into art one drunken night when she was on the outs with her husband? I know that show has won some Emmys, and I’m enjoying episodes of the recently dropped fourth season (once a week), but it’s still interesting that the publicist believed it would be a widely enough known reference to make such a statement, silly as it is.

Thursday Grab Bag

Sluggish progress toward spring here. But some progress. Plants in a nearby park.the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la

The croci in my own yard have been very slow this year — no blooms even now. I don’t keep an exact track every year, but that seems a couple of weeks late. Some years, I remember seeing their very first green sprouts at the end of February. And of course, croci don’t mind a little snow.

On a bench in the same park. What is that thing?Soofa

A Soofa sign. The company web site says it makes electronics for advertising or as part of “smart city” communications. This doesn’t look like that, and it also looks inactive. Since I’d never noticed it before, it could be that it isn’t operational yet.

Or is it? According to a park district web site I couldn’t access fully — but could see a bit of, from my Google search — you can charge devices there. Solar-powered, and the top does resemble a solar panel. Wonder how much juice it has these many cloudy days.

The latest snack food to enter the house: Calbee brand Takoyaki Ball-flavored corn snacks. Though Calbee is Japanese, not a product of Japan, but rather Thailand, where ingredients and labor are no doubt cheaper.

No octopus, which is the main ingredient of actual takoyaki, is listed among the ingredients. Still, it’s flavored to taste like takoyaki, which it does, though the simulation isn’t quite spot-on. A little too sweet, Yuriko said, and I agree. Sweetened for North American tastes? Just how many North Americans are going to buy takoyaki-flavored snacks? But not bad.

Calbee, incidentally, began as a candy company in postwar Japan (1949) and acquired its name in the mid-50s, a portmanteau of “Calcium” and “Vitamin B1.” Soon the company found its way into crispy snack foods, especially wheat crackers. I suppose that was something of a novelty in Japan at the time, compared with rice crackers, which go way back. Calbee’s early confections caught on, and so the food technologists there have been working hard to make new varieties of snacks since then.

I see that the fifth season of Better Call Saul has appeared on Netflix. That’s good. I’ll watch it. Once a week or so, that is. That’s how new TV should be, according to Leviticus, I think, though it doesn’t apply to shows that might have been watched every day after school.

Savannah ’22

What to do during spring break on a three-night jaunt? Go somewhere that’s actually experiencing spring. A week ago Saturday, Ann and I flew to Savannah, Georgia, where the grass is green and the air warm, and the azaleas are in profuse bloom —Savannah, Georgia 2022

— and Spanish moss festoons tree after tree after tree, silver-gray and airy by day, slightly sinister by night, in the right light.Savannah, Georgia 2022

Besides pleasant flora, Savannah has much else to recommend it. I’ve known as much for years, but sometimes it takes years to get around to visiting even the most intriguing places.

We took long walks in the Savannah Historic District, which is enormous and very much lives up to its title, with street after street lined with the sort of aesthetic and storied buildings that speak of earlier times, both more genteel and more cruel. They also speak of restoration in the 20th and 21st centuries, and a new affluence for the city in our time.

We also spent time out from Savannah, as far afield as drives through the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and through the beach town of Tybee Island, with a longer visit to Fort Pulaski National Monument.

Naturally, I had to visit Bonaventure Cemetery, famed in book and movie, and alive with other tourists and explosions of spring azaleas. And Spanish moss. Lots of Spanish moss on towering southern live oaks.

We ate well: plentiful seafood, kolaches as delightful as in Texas, hardy diner fare, innovative sliders and amazingly delicious fried chicken at a regional chain in suburban Savannah, our first meal after arrival and a tiresome experience in the long line to claim our rental car.

We slept well: I think I surprised Ann by booking a room at a one-of-a-kind inn a mile or so from the historic district, a sizable 1906 house renovated in the early 21st century for guests like us. Each room had its own theme, and the common areas were comfortable and ornate. Best of all, it really was an independent hotel, not a faux unique property of a high-priced boutique chain, and so I didn’t pay the moon.

We were also did a kind of Methodist pilgrimage, odd as that sounds. First, the only Savannah church we were able to enter during our visit was Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church, completed in 1890.Wesley Memorial UMC
Wesley Memorial UMC Wesley Memorial UMC

During our visit to Fort Pulaski NM the next day, we encountered the John Wesley Memorial.Wesley Memorial, Georgia
The memorial says (among other things): John Wesley landed in America on this island, February 6, 1736. He was still an Anglican priest at the time.

That evening at dusk, we strolled into Savannah’s Reynolds Square, and there he stood.Wesley Memorial, Georgia

The pilgrimage wasn’t planned. I don’t belong to that denomination, though of course I know that in earlier days, they ran with a pretty rough crowd.

The Gardens at Lake Merritt

Not far from the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland is Lakeside Park, the lake being Lake Merritt. The afternoon of October 28 was sunny and pleasant in Oakland. Actually a little warm; I should have brought some water.

Nice views of the city from the park.Lakeside Park, Oakland
Lakeside Park, Oakland

Paths to follow.Lakeside Park, Oakland

With wildlife to be found. Small examples, at least.
Lakeside Park, Oakland

This isn’t a gazebo. No. It’s a bandstand. Quite a bandstand.Lakeside Park, Oakland Lakeside Park, Oakland

A section of the park is given over to the Gardens at Lake Merritt.Gardens of Lake Merritt Gardens of Lake Merritt

“In the late 1950s, a coalition of garden clubs and plant societies developed and built the Oakland-East Bay Garden Center,” says Pacific Horticulture. “Upon completion, the building was donated to the City of Oakland with the understanding that the coalition would be able to use it in perpetuity for meetings and other activities. Later, the various groups took on the task of landscaping the seven-acre site.

“The gardens flourished for many years under the care of 16 city gardeners. However, by the late seventies and eighties, membership in many formal garden groups waned and, little by little, the city’s resources were directed elsewhere. Inevitably, many of the garden plots were neglected, and the appearance and appeal of the Gardens declined.

“With the vision and commitment of Victoria (Tora) Rocha, who was appointed Park Supervisor in 2010, and with renewed interest from garden groups and local residents, the Gardens at Lake Merritt are once again an interesting, enticing, and very attractive group of plantings.”

Sure enough. All sorts of gardens are part of the collection: bonsai, California riparian, Japanese, lily, Mediterranean, pollinator, rhododendron, sensory and urban edible gardens, along with a native bee hotel and native lawn.Gardens of Lake Merritt Gardens of Lake Merritt Gardens of Lake Merritt

The Japanese garden.
Gardens of Lake Merritt

I spent the most time in the nearby bonsai garden.Gardens of Lake Merritt Gardens of Lake Merritt (Bonsai)

A collection of more species than I would have expected, but that’s just my ignorance of things bonsai.

A Chinese elm.Gardens of Lake Merritt (Bonsai)

Ivy, gingko and olive.Gardens of Lake Merritt (Bonsai)

Sierra juniper.
Gardens of Lake Merritt (Bonsai)

Not all the botanic marvels of the park were in the designated gardens. Some striking trees could be found scattered through the park.Gardens of Lake Merritt (Bonsai)

Including the impressive whatever-it-is pictured above. A botanist, I’m not.

ISU Quad Walkabout

Heavy rain for a while today and cooler temps, but not till afternoon, so there was time for one more lunch on my deck.

Ann invited us to visit her over the weekend, which we did, heading down to Normal on Saturday morning and returning Sunday afternoon, spending the night in a motel near I-55. Daytime temps were nearly as warm as when I dropped her off at ISU in August.

Toward the end of the day on Saturday, it had cooled enough for a short walk — including the dog, whom we brought — around the prettier parts of campus. Mostly that meant the ISU Quad. What’s a university without a quad or two?

As mentioned yesterday, most of the foliage is still green. An eastern approach to the Quad.ISU Quad

ISU Quad

“The Hand of Friendship,” which honors Robert G. Bone.ISU Quad

Bone (1906-1991) was the ninth president of Illinois State Normal University, which was renamed Illinois State University during his tenure. Though only president for 11 years (1956-67), he oversaw a lot of construction, including the tower where Ann lives. Later, the school’s student center was named after him.

The Quad also counts as the heart of the arboretum that spans the campus — the Fell Arboretum, to cite its formal name, honoring one Jesse Fell.

Fell (1808-87) was the sort of businessman that America spawned in the 19th-century — lawyer, real estate speculator, newspaper publisher and sawmill owner. Specific to Illinois, he was a friend of Lincoln’s. He founded towns in central Illinois and helped organize counties there as well, and is considered a founder of ISU.

As for the arboretum, apparently Fell not only profited from cutting down trees, but was a fanatic when it come to planting them, so ISU named it in his honor.

Elsewhere, we saw a plaque on a rock honoring the horticulturist who designed the original landscape for the campus, William Saunders (1822-1900), who also happened to be a founder of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, an organization I had only scant knowledge of before. That is to say, little that I remember, though I’m sure heard about the Granger movement in a U.S. history class. Always good to learn or re-learn something.

In the middle of the Quad is a lush garden.ISU Quad

ISU Quad

ISU Quad

The centerpiece is the Old Main Bell, dating from 1880.
ISU Quad Old Main Bell

Old Main was the campus’ first building, which stood from 1857 to 1958. A memorial honors the building not far from its bell. Unusually, it depicts all four elevations of the building.
ISU Quad Old Main
ISU Quad Old Main

We wandered on. This is Cook Hall.

“One of Illinois State’s most interesting buildings and the oldest one still standing on the Quad, Cook Hall was originally built to be a gymnasium,” ISU tells me. “It was completed in 1897 and was named after John Williston Cook, the University’s 4th President (1890-1899). He earned his diploma in 1865 from Illinois State Normal University and in 1876 he became a Professor of Mathematics.

“The building has also been known as the ‘Old Castle’ or ‘The Gymnasium.’ The governor at the time, John Altgeld, had a great liking for medieval castles and insisted all new state construction during his term in office resemble castles. You’ll find a Cook Hall look-alike at many other state schools; they are called ‘Altgeld’s Folly.’ ”

Really? I had to look into that more, and found this Wiki item about Altgeld Castles. It does indeed seem that a raft of crenellated, or quasi-crenellated buildings at Illinois state schools dates from the 1890s. I remember seeing Altgeld Hall at UIUC, but didn’t know it was part of a pattern. An eccentric pattern. That’s two things I learned (or relearned) today; makes for a good Monday.

Mallard Lake Twilight

Heavy rain part of the day, with the promise of a cooling trend later this week. Not down to icy depths, but rather a hint of the months ahead.

Yesterday we walked the dog around Mallard Lake. Last time there was April 2020, which seems like an eon ago. This time, the sun set while we walked the trail.Mallard Lake

Mallard Lake

Lots of goldenrod still.Mallard Lake

Mallard Lake

And Brown-Eyed Susan.Mallard Lake

Bridges to cross.
Mallard Lake

Toward the end of the trail, a pretty western sky. Much prettier than the image below, but that’s the way it is.
Mallard Lake

A good moment to finish the walk. The dog thought so too, though I don’t know that she paid much attention to the aesthetics of the sky.

Waning Summer Tidbits

As if on cue, we had a cooler afternoon and evening to start September. Not much cooler, but noticeable. Warmth will be back soon, but the air is slowly leaking out of that balloon as the days grow shorter. Back to posting around September 7.

There’s a nice bloom of goldenrod out by the back fence.

I realize that it isn’t causing our intermittent runny noses, which have been worse this year than last, but not as bad as the worst ever. That would be 1987, the first late summer/early fall I spent in northern Illinois, maybe without much experience with the pollen in question. Ragweed causes that unpleasantness, I understand.

“About Hay Fever,” says American Meadows. “In short, it’s an old wives’ tale. Goldenrod does not cause hay fever. It simply got that bum rap since it blooms at the same time as the real culprit — ragweed.”

Today I started reading When In Rome by Robert J. Hutchinson (1998), subtitled “A Journal of Life in Vatican City,” which is part travel book, part memoir, part popular history, and all very readable and amusing.

Something I found out today: Lyle Waggoner (d. 2020) founded a successful company that provides trailers to movie and TV studios, Star Waggons. After The Carol Burnett Show and Wonder Woman, that’s what he turned his attention to. One of his sons runs it even now, though it has been acquired by a REIT.

One more thing I found out today, early this morning: even at my age, dreams about missing class, or being unprepared for a test, do not disappear completely. Also, the sense of relief is still there when you wake up — ah, I haven’t had to go to a class in nearly 40 years, much less be prepared for one.