Why things are quiet around here...

It's National Novel Writing Month and that means I'm both writing a (minimum) 50,000 word novel, and playing Municipal Liaison to over 250 Tucson writers. This is my 7th year doing NaNo and my 6th year as ML, and even though I know what I'm doing, it's still a new experience each year. I'm up to about 44,000 words today, and on-track to finish by Thanksgiving. Trips to Sabino Canyon and places east should resume after that, so I'll have lots of new photos to share. In the meantime, here's one from this year's NaNoWriMo Kick-off Party.

Historic Tucson - The Presidio Site

Tucson began as a walled fort. The wall was square of adobe that featured a lookout tower and military barracks for the soldiers stationed there. The wall was meant to keep out Apache raiders, and to protect the earliest settlers to the area. Most of the wall has been lost to time, but an archaeological excavation in the 1950s revealed one corner of the wall mere inches below the asphalt of a parking lot. About four years ago, the City began plans to build a replica of the corner segment of wall and turn it into a living history museum. Before work began, they brought in Desert Archaeology to find out as much as they could about both the prehistory and history of the site. On December 15, 2005, a groundbreaking ceremony was held at the site to kick off the reconstruction of the Presidio. Staff from Desert Archaeology were on-hand to answer questions and walk people through the archaeological findings. This picture shows how the archaeologists had to work around existing utility poles and such, and also how close the historic and prehistoric remains were to the modern-day surface.

Historic Tucson - Cheyney House

I've been working in historic preservation for almost 8 years now, so I've amassed quite a library of pictures of historic places in and around Tucson. I finally got around to uploading a few to my flickr account, so I'll share some here. This first one is of the Cheyney House after the restoration was completed. This is a house that caught on fire sometime in the mid-1980s and was utterly gutted. It stood vacant for years, charred and crumbling. The neighborhood felt it was an eyesore, and the City was getting ready to demolish it when a couple from Wisconsin found the house, saw the potential in its blackened bones, and decided to do everything in their power to restore it. The restoration cost over a million dollars and was a combination of private and public funding - mostly AZ Heritage Fund money which comes from lottery revenues. The newly restored house is a treasure. It's historically accurate, and now home to people who are passionate about keeping it a viable residence for years to come.

Tucson's 4th of July

We had a very delayed fireworks show this year due to a thunderstorm that pounded the downtown area around 7pm. The A Mountain show was pushed back to 10pm, but that just gave us extra time to find the perfect vantage point. We ended up along Granada Avenue, right near El Minuto. Even though my camera's starting to show its age (and does not do well with low-light photography), I brought my gorillapod and figured it was worth a shot. I mounted the pod in a mesquite tree, forgetting that mesquites tend to be frequented by large, biting ants. Ugh. Got some good pictures and some embarassingly bad ones, and ended up with a final count between 12 and 16 ant bites. Whoops!

Day #41 - Springtime in the desert

As my rampant allergies can attest, everything is blooming right now. The tree pollen is insane, but the stunningly vivid cactus blooms make it worth the suffering. This one is at a friend's house and is usually good for a few clusters of blossoms every year. They're about as big across as your hand, and the kind of wild red that makes you stop in your tracks and stare. When the desert blooms, it doesn't cut corners.

Day #40 - Valley of the Moon

Ok, last Valley of the Moon post for a while. This is a large mural underneath the Wizard's tower. I'm not sure how old it is, or how long it's been exposed to the elements, but it's obviously suffering some wear. Still, it's impressive to turn a corner and suddenly see a wall of Dragon before you.

Day #39 - Valley of the Moon

On the property, there's a small, old adobe house. It's currently being used for costume and prop storage, but seems to be mostly habited by spiders. There were some enormous webs strung up in the corners. I love the juxtaposition of webbing and costume fairy wings here.

Day #38 - Valley of the Moon

This was such a neat tour, so I'll post quite a few more pictures from it here. Next up, the "Hobbit house". There are several of these scattered about the property, in various shapes and sizes. All are concrete and pebble, but there's a lot of variation in the extra materials. This one had a lot of bottle glass in it.

Day #37 - Valley of the Moon

One of the perks of my job is behind the scenes access to historic sites, whether they're open to the public or not. On Wednesday, we got to take a short tour of the Valley of the Moon. The place has been mostly closed to the public for a while now due to safety issues. Some of the folks on the tour joked that we should have brought hard hats. It's a quirky slice of Tucson history, and a funky mix of imagination and folk art. One of the highlights of the site is the large "Wizard's tower" that dominates the central part of the park. It used to be the climax to the tour, and the site owner would let the kids come up into the tower after seeing the rest of the park. It's in a horrible state now, and long since closed, but you can still get a sense for how magical this must have seemed in its heyday.

Day #36 - A peculiar sunset

I was housesitting on the far east side of town, and happened to be driving east as a big monsoon storm rolled in. The sun was setting in a blaze of color behind me, but it was nothing but grey swirling clouds to the east. Suddenly, this otherworldly spot of color flared behind the clouds. It lasted for a couple of minutes - a bizarre trick of reflection and refraction. I've never seen its like.

Day #33 - Fox Tucson Theatre

In 2005, I got to take a tour of the renovations of the Fox Theatre. The place was pretty torn up, but a few parts were starting to come together. One of the most striking features in the theatre is a massive art deco (or "southwest deco") chandelier that hangs in the middle of a vividly painted ceiling mural. When we did the tour, the chandelier was lowered to ground level for repairs. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get so close to this Tucson icon.

Day #32 - Tucson in summer

Continuing the monsoon theme, here's a shot from 2004. I was visiting a friend and we were in the back yard with the dogs. When the monsoons are here, it's typical for the skies to be absolutely clear in the morning, then a bunch of clouds roll in by the mid-afternoon, then the rains come in the late afternoon, and things clear up until the next day. Summer skies tend to be diffuse and washed out by the strong desert sun, but during monsoon season, everything takes on a rich, sharp tone. The colors pop, and there's a kind of electric undercurrent in the air. I hate the summer heat, but the monsoons are fabulous!

Day #24 - Lights out

We're doing the lights out for Earth Hour (http://www13.earthhourus.org/) thing right now - yay for computing by candlelight. In light of this (heh heh), today's picture is from this past December's Winterhaven Festival of Lights. Winterhaven is an historic neighborhood in Tucson that goes all out with the holiday decorations every December. Displays run the gamut from religious to silly, and there's always at least a few University of Arizona offerings. This one features Sparky, the AZ State U mascot, on Santa's "naughty" list and Wilbur, the U of A's, on the "nice." This year, the neighborhood received a grant from Tucson Electric Power, the local utility that assists with stringing lights in the tall trees, and most of the public areas were strung with LED lights. They're much crisper and dimmer than conventional incandescent bulbs, so it was a much different Winterhaven than ever before. Still, lights are lights, and it's always a fun time.

Day #23 - back to Southern Arizona

All that tromping around Northern AZ got me a little homesick for the sights and sounds around here. We're entering the long, hot, dry summer, but I'm dragging out winter a little longer through photos. This is from January. We were on the road to Bear Canyon and found our way blocked by rapidly rising floodwaters. The clouds were dropping fast onto the tips of the Catalinas and several stranded hikers had to be airlifted out of the various canyons.

Day #11 - Snow!

Snow is no big deal to folks in most of the USA, but down here, it's big news. Went out to run some errands yesterday and found myself in the middle of a tiny little snowstorm. It lasted all of 5 minutes, but gave us plenty to talk about for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, I only had my cell phone camera with me, so the picture's only so-so. Still, it's SNOW!