Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Our good friend Jo (from college days close to 50 years ago) lives waaaayyyy up in Northern California in Arcata, Humboldt County.  It’s about a 5 1/2 hour drive from San Francisco, part of which involves a lot of winding road in a deep redwood forest.  Too much after a long flight from NYC.  So our habit is to rent a car at SFX and get out of the City as far as Petaluma to spend the night.  This time we tried a new place - the Hotel Petaluma.  Not much to look at from the street, but it has a lovely courtyard, a lounge with a fireplace and bar, and a funky old elevator that’s kind of fun.  

For dinner we stuck with our tried and true Wild Goat Bistro.

Linda had her usual Four Cheese, Fig, and Pig pizza:

I had the Halibut with summer squash potato cake and grilled asparagus. The local pinot noir was warming and welcome after the long drive.  

We’ve been there twice before , but never noticed that behind it is a lovely river walkway with other restaurants, bars, and even a proper music venue which was featuring a full band with brass and piano as we walked by.  Next time we’ll explore further.  

In the morning we followed the receptionist’s recommendation and went to Hallie’s Diner around the corner.  Just the right choice.  Sweet neighborhood place that seemed to have a clientele that was mostly locals who’d known each other for some time.  The service and food were both excellent. Nothing fancy, but just right.  

Petaluma is a sweet little town that reminded me a bit of Asheville, NC - A similar old downtown that seems to have the facades from the early part of the last century, but with new insides.  There are also a lot of old Victorian homes since, unlike San Francisco, it was spared the earthquake of 1906,   

Two stores along the way particularly caught my interest - the Seed Bank which sells heirloom seeds and “artaluma”, which appears to be a space dedicated to supporting kids in being creative in many ways - with classes and other resources.  

I particularly loved these book titles

Once we were on the road, we had about 4 more hours of driving to do so we decided we’d have a lunch break in Garberville, about 2/3 of the way there.  When we saw the sign outside, we knew we had to continue our exploration of diners of Northern California and stop at the Eel River Cafe which did not disappoint.  

Linda was taken with the cow collection wall

Finally reached Arcata around 5:00 pm where a warm welcome was waiting from Jo and her wonderful dog, Molly.  She swears that Molly knew it was us in the (rental) car driving down the block even before we stopped or said a word.  More on Molly and her human tomorrow.  

Wednesday was our last day in Tucson.  Most of the group headed off to the U of A to visit the Center for Creative Photography and the UA Art Museum.  I stayed behind to get ready for the trip home the next day and to get in one more visit to the local YMCA in an attempt to head off the stiffness of a long day of travel on Thursday.

Linda told me that as they were coming out of the parking lot, they weren't sure which direction to head in.  Margaret pulled out her map, Linda started entering information into Google, and Chris snagged a passerby to ask directions - he turned out to work at the Center and walked them over to it while sharing additional information.  Seemed to me a tidy little story of the different ways that we navigate.  

The photography center is hosting a show of Linda McCartney's photos which include shots of many musicians from the 1960's music scene as well as photos of the McCartney family from the 1960s until her death in 1998. 

More info here if you're interested: https://news.arizona.edu/story/linda-mccartney-retrospective-coming-center-creative-photography.  

Collette said she enjoyed the photos of the 60's musicians "a walk down memory lane even tho it made me feel old".

Linda was intrigued with this wall of photos:

Next they headed off to the UA Museum of Art.  The featured exhibit was "Restored: The Return of Woman-Ochre" which was a room devoted to the story of a brazen mid-day theft of a William De Kooning painting in 1985.  "The painting was cut out of its frame in a UAMA gallery by a man and a woman who followed a museum staff member inside at approximately 9 a.m. on Nov. 29, 1985. The woman distracted the security guard while the man went upstairs and cut “Woman-Ochre” from its frame with a sharp blade. The two hurried out of the museum and never returned. The heist took no more than 15 minutes" [https://artmuseum.arizona.edu/willem-de-koonings-woman-ochre-returns-ua-museum-art ]  

Although the FBI investigated for years, the painting was never found and the thieves were not identified.  Then in 2017, the museum got a call from an antiques dealer saying that he thought he had the painting - found among other items in an estate sale.  It turned out that the painting had been in the home of a reclusive couple living in rural New Mexico.  Still unclear whether they were the thieves or they bought it, with or without knowledge of its provenance.  It's now been restored and has been displayed since last October.  

If you'd like to read more about this complicated real-life heist story there's an article titled "Who were Jerry and Rita Alter?": 

https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona/2022/10/06/who-were-jerry-and-rita-alter-missing-de-kooning-found-couples-home/8195231001/

Linda also found an artist new to her that she really liked - Robert Motherwell.  Here is an example of his work:

For me, one of the highlights of our trip was the trip to the Sonora Desert Museum.  I had been once before, some years back, but it's even more spectacular now.  It's mostly a kind of outdoor zoo dedicated to teaching about Sonoran Desert animals and plants. 

Just to the left as you enter was a very unusual Crested Saguaro - there's some disagreement about how they come to be, but they are very rare.  The population of saguaros is in the millions and there are around 2500 crested ones identified so far. 

 We went early to catch the Raptor Free Flight demonstration.  It was a bit of a hike out from the entrance, but for the first time, I rented a scooter to save my knees and feet. What a different experience! Instead of struggling to keep up and crapping out early, I was able to visit all parts of the museum and not be a wreck at the end.  At one point, Linda had to tell me to slow down because she couldn't keep  up with me (definitely a role-reversal).  

But back to the Raptor Free Flight.  This is just what it says - the raptors do have an enclosure, but at the beginning of the day, they go to the enclosure to invite the birds to come and participate (there are treats involved).  If they don't feel like it, that's OK.  So they can't tell you ahead of time what birds will be flying.  Also they don't use hoods or restraints.  Sometimes the birds fly off, but they often come back because they know there are good eats.  

We were lucky to see several species including Chihuahuan Ravens, a  Crested Cara Cara, a Great Horned Owl, and Harris Hawks  They have trained the birds to fly from one handler to another over the heads of the crowd.  You're warned not to put your hands up or have kids on your shoulders - both to protect the watchers and also because the birds get disturbed when they collide with things and may not want to fly out again.  

As I  cruised back from the demo, I stopped to survey the desert vista - on a clear day like that one, the last bit of Arizona and the first bit of Mexican Sonora is visible.  

In other areas we saw a couple of Javelina's (they look like pigs, but are actually related to peccaries), a coyote, a couple of grey wolves,  a big horn sheep, and a mountain lion who has a reclining spot up under some warm rocks. (check out the size of his paws - built for quick speed and maneuvering).  It was a coolish day, but the sun was very warm so many of the animals were lying in the sunniest patches they could find.  

I was particularly fascinated by the touch the stingrays pool.  Since the Sonora Desert actually borders the Sea of Cortez, the museum includes some aquatic species as well.  It was hard not to be frightened a bit of the stingrays, but they didn't "sting" at all.  Instead they're kind of velvety to touch and seemed to enjoy being rubbed gently just behind their eyes.  Definitely a first for me.

After roaming around, we had lunch in the cafeteria and stopped for some photos

A great visit and highly recommended if you're ever in Tucson.  

 

 

I wanted to record this outing, though I wasn’t part of it.  The pictures needed to be shared though. 

Julie had expressed a wish to go horseback riding. Chris and Linda decided to join. They had a perfect cool, but clear evening to ride out into the desert and caught the sunset as they headed back. They put Linda on Candy the biggest and somewhat ill-tempered horse because of Linda’s height and the fact that she admitted she’d ridden before (though 40-ish years ago). 

Linda reported the Wrangler was friendly and told them about the mountains and plants as they rode along.   They expected to be very sore the next day but were happy to report it wasn’t too bad.

Today is a travel day so not much time for blogging.  I want to come back and do a post on our trip to the Sonora Desert Museum which was fabulous and worth some time.  But today’s big headline was this 

The snow started last night

Sorry again for the earlier blank post.  I usually blog first thing in the morning and I seem to be unable to recall that hitting enter in the title line, sends the post.  

Anyway, We started our Sunday split up in two groups.  Julie, Chris, and Marg went off to the Tucson Museum of Art while LInda and I went to check out the Museum of Contemporary Art.  The group that went to the first museum reported that it had a small, but good permanent collection including some Cassat paintings, a Rodin sculpture and a few other impressionists as well as a collection of indigenous art.  

At the MOCA, Linda and I spent most of our time at the Cecilia Vicuña exhibit: Sonoran Quipu.  Described as “a map, a diagram, a braid, a knot world - composed of plant and industrial materials that are held together by relationships.  The artwork is made from offerings collected by individuals and organizations across Tucson, gathered over six months from kitchens, gutters, artists’ studios, gardens and streets.  The invitation was to bring fragments that held beauty or significance, but were not necessarily useful, having been shed by a plant, broken by a child, or left in an alley.  These scraps were alchemized by the artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña who transformed the museum into a living studio to realize the installation with help from a small and powerful team of makers.”

A quipu is a is an ancient Andean communications technology that uses knots to record information.  It was banned by the Spanish colonizers.  Vicuña also refers to “precarios” (installations - but also in Spanish it means precarious) and “basuritas” (little bits of trash) to describe her sculptures hanging from and engaging with quipus.  

Linda and I were very moved by it and by her videos which include her singing of songs in an indigenous language - unclear to me whether her own Andean language or one of Sonoran origin.   One device in particular struck me - the use of her basuritas on a beach that are then overtaken by the tide, leaving bits of the original sculpture surrounded by a foamy, but gentle wave swirling around them and creating shifting patterns.

It’s a challenging installation to photograph because of the garage-like gallery it’s hung in with a dark grid wall on one side and a very bright wall of windows on the other.  But here are a few items to give you an idea:

This one was hard to capture, but I tried with a brief video.  The two pink anchors are halves of a child’s pail.  The plant laid across them is shedding pieces on the floor - disappearing slowly as we view it. 

Next item on our agenda was to meet up at the pottery studio again and glaze our now fired pots:

Hopefully they’ll have their second firing before Marg and Chris leave Tucson.  Our creations were clearly those of beginners, but we did learn a lot about the process and have a new insight into how one has to let go of expectation in making pottery because, as several of the potters reminded us, you never know for sure what will happen in the next step.  

After glazing, we hopped on the tram and grabbed a quick lunch on 4th Avenue, an area with lots of restaurants (though Tucson is a UNESCO designated “City of Gastronomy” so restaurants are actually everywhere),  Then back on the tram to our final destination for the day - the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium for a show about the Planets.  It’s a beautiful planetarium with reclining seats so you can see the “sky” projected above you.  Obviously pretty dark in there so no photos, but afterwards Chris tried out the “Human Sundial” - it worked!

We also got to witness one of the delivery robots from the Student Union dropping off one of the planetarium staff member’s lunch and heading off on its next mission:

Friday I had some work to do grading assignments and I was the designated chef for dinner with Maxine and Carol that evening so Chris, Margaret, Julie, and Linda went off to the Tucson Rodeo.  I tried to interview them about the experience, but, while they all agreed they were glad they went, they didn’t have a lot to say about it.  They sat in the  bleachers section so it was very hot in the sun (even though the temperature that day was in the low 60s).  They commented that it was one of the more diverse crowds they’d seen in Tucson so far which surprised them.  The contradiction between admiration for the athleticism of the cowboys and cowgirls and the suffering of the animals was hard for them to reconcile.  They were glad to have gone, but also ready to leave after a couple of hours.  

They did come back with some pictures:

Friday night was dinner for 7 when Max and Carol joined us.  Carol told some fascinating stories of her recent work as a poll-watcher in Ukraine and Bosnia.  Of the poll-watching in Ukraine, during the election of President Zelensky, she said that a number of people thanked her for being there because they believed that their presence alone was a deterrent to election fraud.  

She and Max had been out to the Tohono O’odham reservation that day and had reflections to share about that day too.  Tohono O’odham means people of the desert. Their reservation is about the size of Connecticut, including land in 3 counties in AZ and extending into the Mexican state of Sonora.   Carol also spoke about issues the Mexican tribal members have in trying to stay connected with a huge wall between them now.  The fact that it has historically been a relatively easy place to cross the border also means that they are subject to a Border Patrol presence and surveillance that is not welcome.  There remains a lot of poverty on the reservation though the tribal leaders are trying to improve conditions using money from the casino on their land to create a health center, a community college, and several recreation centers, all of which provide jobs as well as supportive services.  

Saturday was a laid back day.  Julie, Chris, and I went off to check out the local YMCA pool and gym - lovely facility and only 3 minutes away.  The charge for a day pass was only $10 (in contrast to the usual $20-30 back home) and for the pool use only $3.  

That night we tried again to see the Milky Way.  Our local sources thought that perhaps it would be dark enough in the Western Saguaro National Park.  It was indeed dark and the stars were lovely, but the moon was also by then a waxing crescent.  We could perhaps imagine that we saw a suggestion of the Milky Way flowing from Orion, but we couldn’t be sure.  We did see a bit more of the Orion nebula though which is rarely visible from our usual spots at home and Jupiter and Venus were very clear.  

Thursday we met up with our friend Maxine and her college roommate Carol, who lives in Tucson.  Carol had suggested that we meet for brunch at Tohono Chul (the name means desert corner) and then explore the grounds and galleries there.   The site was formerly the home of Richard and Jean Wilson.  They deeded it to a non-profit foundation in order to “keep something natural in the middle of all the (surrounding) development so that people could come easily for a few hours and get out of the traffic and learn something at the same time” 

We had a really tasty and interesting brunch in the bistrot located in the former Wilson home.  I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures of the food or the space, which was lovely with indoor, courtyard, and verandah seating.  Again we were too wrapped up in conversation for pictures.  

After brunch, we strolled around the grounds which feature many of the local plants and cacti as well as sculpture and other installations. 

Carol, on the left in the picture below, generously guided us along, explaining the history, naming the plants and answering our questions.  The depth of her knowledge was impressive and much appreciated. 

Here’s a panoramic view of one section of the walk

There is also an outdoor concert space and a couple of small art galleries back by the main house. Here are a few pieces that caught my fancy:

[In order: 1)Tumbleweed, Sandario Road, Tucon by Kate Breakey 2&3) Shrines to Botanical Relics #10 and #23 by Barbara Rogers 3) Tumbleweed, Avra Road, Tucson by Breakey

Wednesday Chris’ sister Julie joined us after making it safely through the crazy windy and rainy weather (Arizona got snow on the mountains, but only rain and high winds here in the valley).. She was game for a bit of adventure so we went over to the Saguaro National Park which is very close to where we’re staying.  It’s a magical place with miles of the majestic saguaros and other cacti and desert plants.  

These giants can live to be 150 years old and don’t sprout their first side arms at about 75-100 years old.  They have a small taproot, but t sends out roots in every direction absorbing what water is available.  The cactus itself can expand and store the water and then contract as it’s used.  We didn’t see any of the birds who make their homes inside the Saguaros, but here’s a picture of one I cribbed from the National Geographic:

And some pictures of our walk around the area near the Visitor Center

Monday we had a day of “going about our business” separately.  I had some teaching obligations, Linda, Chris, and Margaret went off on a hike in the Saguaro National Park - marked as “Easy”, but the consensus was that it was actually more challenging than advertised.  

That evening Linda and I had dinner with our old friend Jill who’s been living in Tucson for some years Sadly, We were so involved in conversation that I forgot to take pictures so there’s not much to show.  We ate at a place called Seis Kitchen that served really good Mexican food and had Tequila and Margarita flights.  

Tuesday, we had a special morning, gifted to Margaret for her birthday (by our friend, Maxine) - a class at the Romero House Potters in the Presidio Historic District of Tucson.  We were very much beginners, but welcomed by the lovely teachers, members of the staff and other potters. Our teacher, Janet, talked us through the process of making “pinch pots”, slab pottery, and coil pots.  

Margaret even took a turn at throwing a pot on the wheel (they told us it was probably too advanced for a first lesson, but she was courageous and tried anyway) 

The results were less than stellar, but we had a really good time.  Lots of fun and we really appreciated  the supportiveness and friendliness of the Romero House community of potters.