John Wayne and Andy Devine

 

If you were born in 1950 or before, you remember Andy Devine.  If you were born after 1960, you probably have no clue who he was.  I remember him as the character, "Jingles," in The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok television series which ran from 1951 through 1959.  That was two years longer than the I Love Lucy Show!  The Hickok show was on the radio before it was made into a TV series.  Devine had a really raspy voice - which may be why he got the radio gig.

Born in 1905 in Flagstaff, Arizona, Andy grew up in Kingman.  One of the two main thoroughfares here is named after him, Andy Devine Boulevard.  There is a whole room at the museum here in Kingman that is devoted to him and his career as a film star.

As we've driven around this area, it has occurred to me that it might have been Andy that introduced Hollywood to the majestic, rugged scenery that shows up in films from John Wayne's "Stagecoach" to today's "Indiana Jones."

He had a total of five children, some of whom appeared in movies with him.  He was married to one woman, Dorothy, for 44 years before his death from leukemia. That's what you'd want your Hollywood actors to be - faithful.

His paternal grandfather was from County Tipperary in Ireland, coming to America in 1852; his maternal grandfather was the first Navy Commander killed during the Civil War.

Devine played semi-professional football under the name "Jeremiah Schwartz," (why the identity secrecy I don't know!) but his football experience held him in good stead for his first real acting role, The Spirit of Notre Dame in 1931.  He appeared in films from 1928 to 1973 - dozens and dozens and dozens of 'em - along with radio and television appearances. 

By all accounts, Devine was a good, good man.  He did Kingman, Arizona proud!

The Devil's Rope

In 1875, 2,840,000 pounds of barbed-wire were sold in the United States.

It was the Native American's, oddly enough, that nicknamed barbed-wire, "The Devil's Rope."  It was certainly bad enough that the white man was shoving them off of their lands and forcing one tribe upon another, but that barbed-wire!  It made it next to impossible for the nomadic tribes to continue with their ancient life style!

The first patents for this uniquely American invention were issued in 1873 and 1874.  (Just a year later 2,840,000 pounds of it were sold in the U.S.!)   Those patents were issued ten years after the original concept was presented as a wooden rail fence with barbs sticking out.   The most successful design was created by Joseph Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois who had been encouraged by his wife (way to go, girl!!) because she wanted to use it around her vegetable garden to keep the critters out.  They called it the "thorny fence."

Because its design was so simple, a wire barb locked (keyword: locked) onto a double strand of wire, and because he had even figured out a way to mass-produce the stuff, Glidden's patent, literally and figuratively, became known as "The Winner."  Here we are, almost 150 years later, and it's still the most familiar style of barbed wire!

Pretty cool, you say?  Well, sort of.  The problem with being almost the only barbed-wire being used was that it could be (and was!) stolen, and there would be no way to prove who it really belonged to.  The railroads were required to fence off their rail lines, and, like today, most folks think to themselves, what the heck, those big corporations can afford to replace the wire, and off they'd go with miles and miles of it.  The entire lengthy of a rail line was impossible to police!  The railroad's solution was to corner the market on a particular style of wire and at least make it easier to identify as theirs.

With the use of barbed wire, "wide open spaces became less wide, less open, and less spacious, and ... barbed wire became an accepted symbol of control, transforming space to place and giving new meaning to private property."  (www.archives.gov) The ranchers first filed land-use petitions, but the governments realized that farmers brought families, and families meant permanent settlements that would grow into tax-paying villages and towns and cities.  In places like Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, range wars ensued between farmers and ranchers.

The Devil's Rope was as influential to settling the American West as six-shooters, the telegraph, windmills and the steam engine.

Branding Irons and Brands

If you Google "history of branding," what you get is a list of the history of branding products.  That's all about marketing things. 



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The word "brand" itself comes from the English and referred to a burning stick or "firebrand."  In ancient times, in Rome, brands were chosen that represented magic spells intended to protect the branded animal from harm.  By the Middle Ages the definition of the word had pretty much transitioned to the mark left on animals as proof of ownership.  Spain had a lot of free-range cattle raising, and the concept of branding migrated to that country, too.  Their vaqueros brought the idea over to America's desert southwest and refined it into what most people think of today as the branding process.



Some Arizona Brands and Branding Irons

From America, branding to prove ownership showed up in Australia by 1866.  Branding was useful anywhere there were large free-range areas.  It allowed one owner's cattle to mingle with another all season on shared land until it was time to ship them to market.  At that time every ranch hand would join together, round up all the cattle, take them in to fenced areas, and then sort them out by brand.

Leather suppliers would really prefer that a branding iron not be used because it diminishes the value of a hide.  (I know also that European cow hides are more valuable than American southwestern hides because of the damage Mesquite thorns, cactus, and ticks do to the surface of hides.)  Tanners call a hide with no brands, "native."  A Colorado brand (also known as a "Collie") means the hide was branded on the side of an animal, butt branded (obviously) means the animal was branded on the rump.

A branded calf was like money in the bank back in the day.  The brand design itself was considered personal property and subject to sale, transfer, mortgage or lien.  Today, many of our western states have strict laws regarding brands, including brand registration, and require brand inspections.  If a brand is not recorded by a designated time it is legally "lost."  At the end of the next year, someone else can pick up that brand and register it.

Cattle rustlers would have to alter a ranchers original brand if they wanted to sell the cattle they rustled.  If they were caught driving cattle with someone else's brand they would be subject to "immediate" justice (taken to a hanging tree!)  You had to have a steady hand to change a brand without smudging it.  It took a lot more skill than just slapping a new brand on an unmarked calf.  Sometimes they used what was called a "running iron" because it was run along the hide to burn the hair off and permanently leave a mark thereby changing the design of an existing brand.  Other times a very clever rustler would design a brand to fit over and incorporate the existing brand to the new design.  If they were caught before a new brand had a chance to heal they were as good as dead, too, because it was tremendously obvious what was new and what was "seasoned."

Freeze branding is a newer method, but it's a whole lot more complicated to accomplish, and in some places doesn't even constitute a legal brand.  It's also slower, more expensive, and even harder to get a good clear result.  A brass or copper iron is submerged in liquid nitrogen or dry ice to get the freezing part ready, but that's the easy stuff.  After that is when it gets pretty tricky.  The area to be branded has to be clean shaven because the hair is too good of an insulator to allow the cold to reach the skin.  Then the skin has to be disinfected.  Once that's done, the iron can be laid to the skin.  For how long you ask?  Well, that depends on the type of animal, thickness of skin, type of iron, type of coolant, even the color of the animal's hair.  Why the color?  Because the freezing is intended to kill the pigment-producing hair cells causing the hair to grow in white.  If the animal's hair is naturally light colored then the iron has to be applied longer to actually creating scar tissue that will show as an actual brand.  So, while all of these other factors are being taken into consideration, the guy holding the branding iron has to keep a steady hand, too.  Like I said, complicated.  In America, the Federal government uses the freeze branding method to mark wild mustangs found on BLM land.

Mostly today earmarks are used rather than branding irons.  Ears can carry a particular notch, punch, tattoo or clip, or be tagged with a metal marker.  Some high tech ranchers are using micro-chips for tracking purposes.  That oughta make a round-up easier!  Besides, free range areas are pretty uncommon today.  Most grazing land is marked off using the "Devil's rope," or barbed wire.

My Sincerest Apologies

One of our sons - and apparently only the one - keeps getting multiple text messages from me every time I publish a new post to the blog.  He's about to disown me over this!  His phone number is not even in my contacts list, so I have no idea why he's getting text messages about the blog.  I don't think I have anyone's phone numbers in my Google accounts lists.   I have tried everything I can think of to stop "harassing" him, and have finally just deleted him entirely from my contacts list.  When this gets published, I'll find out if even that works.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you are being harassed in the same way!  When you receive an email notification of a publish, you should be able to stop them (if you want to) by following the instructions at the bottom of the email.  But apparently that's not an option when our son receives a text message.

I know that with all of this technology everybody's everything is linked to everything, but this is crazy.  I offer my absolute sincerest apologies if I am bothering anyone.  Click on the comment portion at the bottom of the post and tell me!  It is a private communication with only me.  It doesn't get published to the blog unless I take action and authorize the publication of your comment.  Please help me to not aggravate you!  I am so very sorry if I do!

Cow Boys and Arizona

Our perception of the era of cowboys is that it lasted for a long, long time.  Well, it did last longer than the Pony Express ( http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-pony-express-and-split-rock-wyoming.html ), but not much longer.  In reality the aftermath of America's Civil War is what created the big cattle drives and therefore the cowboy persona.

Northern Arizona's cowboys got started a bit earlier in ranching than in the lower part of Arizona, and it differed from Texas ranching in so much as individual Texas ranchers owned thousands upon thousands of acres, and other state's land belonged to the Federal government who would only lease grazing rights.  (How'd they do that?  That's like kings in Europe and emperors in Asia, and that's un-American!)

Pappo (Momma's daddy) was a rancher and farmer in west Texas.  His brother owned land right next to him.  His son, Pappo's nephew, ran that operation.  One summer when we were visiting our grandparents, Twin invited us kids to come over and help (watch) brand some of the cattle.  Woohoo!!  Would we ever!  and we flew out the door into the bed of his pickup truck.  This had to be around 1962.  Twin was always on the cutting edge of technology, and he had converted his truck to run on propane because the price of gasoline was so insanely high (almost forty cents a gallon!!)  At least that's what he told us.  I think it was because he could unscrew the lid of the propane tank he had mounted in the bed of the truck behind the cab, and he could hold a can of beer in the propane for about five seconds and, ta-ta!, have a frosty cold beer anywhere, any time!

But back to branding the cattle...  We sat on the propane tank while Twin bounced and bumped over the fields.  His cowhands were already hard at work.  But where were the horses?  Where were the lassos and the branding irons heating in campfires?  None of that for the Twin!  The branding iron was heating over a propane burner.  (That was a way to prevent range fires.)  He had the cattle in a corral and would move the cows into a chute.  The gate at the end of the chute allowed the cow to stick its head out and a lever that, when pulled, squeezed the chute in to hold the cow still.  While one cowboy was branding it's hip another was spraying a medicine in and around its eyes to prevent pink eye.  Then the cow was vaccinated for hoof and mouth disease and released.  Well, it wasn't as thrilling as we had imagined, but I did manage to completely trash the new white sandals Momma had just bought me the day before.

So it was around 1865-1870 that the big cattle drives began.  By the 1880's cattle was being transported by rail, and so there were only small cattle drives from ranches out in the counties over to the rail lines.  The cattle was then loaded up and taken to centrally located towns like Abilene, Kansas for processing or live transport back east.

Another difference between Texas ranching and Arizona ranching is that Arizona really and truly is the desert southwest.  In 1885 a major drought struck Arizona.  Between that and the overgrazing of the desert scrub, when the rains came what topsoil had been there was washed away.  The drought ended in the 1890's, and the cattle industry made a painstakingly slow comeback.

The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ended free-range grazing.  The good news here is that fencing was required.  That meant that the ranchers would have to control where the cattle hung out if they wanted to be granted those precious grazing rights.  The Act required ranchers to dig wells, build dams, and control natural watering areas by spreading cattle out to prevent over grazing around watering holes.

Grazing fees are based on AUM (another piece of governmental alphabetization: "Animal Unit Month") which is the amount of forage it takes to feed one cow or cow/calf pair for one month.  By Congressional formula, the fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM and cannot increase more than 25% over the previous year's level.

The bonus to the government and the general public is that the ranchers are paying attention to what's going on over millions of acres of remote land.  They report range fires, poaching of wildlife, and vandalism of ancient historic sites and rare plant life.

Have you ever wondered why the price of beef and other livestock keeps going up?  Try this list of old and new troubles:

Drought
Predators
Government regulations (barbed wire ain't cheap when you have thousands of acres to fence, and finding water and drilling absolutely isn't cheap!)
Capricious markets
Environmentalists
Real Estate developers (lobbying for government land to go to them instead of ranchers)
and us homeowners taking that government land, too.

And so the cattle industry in Arizona seems to have had about a 100 year run.  Starting in the 1970's, ranching has been on a steady decline.  In 1996, due to a lack of forage on the grazing land, one Arizona rancher had to sell his cattle, taking a $100,000 loss.  However, the rancher continues to pump water on the land that he had rights to so that the wildlife can be sustained.  (Thank you, Mr. Rancher!!) 

Butt-naked in the Arizona Desert!

Kingman seems to be centrally located to a ton of Southwestern tourist locations.  Within three or four hours driving time we can get to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas (where we hear there are several really excellent museums), the historic mining town of Oatman, the part of the Colorado River that divides Arizona from Nevada and California is only about thirty miles away, the Hualapai Mountain park, and, yes, even the famous London Bridge that some guy bought and had disassembled in London, brought to our desert Southwest, and reassembled.

With seven days on and seven days off we can do a considerable amount of sightseeing into California, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, too.  My goodness, we could even make a trip back to Texas and spend three days!  This may be the best gig ever!  No.  Wait.  There was that year in Hawaii, and almost a year in Virginia wasn't too bad.  Then there was that frozen winter in North Dakota that we thoroughly enjoyed...  Maybe we're just too easy to please.  All of that and a paycheck, too, makes medical traveling pretty cool.

The other day we were tootlin' down Route 66 in the middle of nowhere doing our sightseeing thing when we came upon something my eyes could have done without:  we happened upon a group of bicyclists that were butt-naked. It was really not a pretty thing to see from behind!  I would bet that those silly people had sores where sores ought not be and rosy cheeks for a week!  I do know this:  the next day I had a sore neck - probably from the whiplash I got when I realized what I was lookin' at!  One of the women was obviously embarrased to get caught in the buff because she headed off the road into some cactus.  I don't know that I would EVER be so embarrased as to go naked into the cactus...

But not all of our trips are so very revealing.  Most just expose secrets of the past...

Mohave Indians' Body Paint and Tatooing

The oldest known tattoos were found on the remains of a dude over in Europe on the Italian-Austrian border in 1991.  It's estimated that he was over 5,000 years old.  (That would make him a contemporary of Adam and Eve maybe!!)  Two thousand years ago the Romans named one of the northern tribes of the English Isles, "Picti."  That's translated as "the painted people."  It was about that time that tattoos, then known as stigmata, transitioned from being marks of the upper class to marks indicating the person was a slave, criminal or belonged to a religious sect.  Around 300 A.D.  the Roman Emperor Constantine (the first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire) banned tattoos because he felt that they disfigured mankind who was created in the image of God.


According to the information in the Kingman museums, the Mohave Indians were sandwiched between the California tribes to the west (which were into body tattoos) and other Indian tribes to the east (which were into body and face paint).  Being clever traders who knew how to blend in, the Mohaves adopted BOTH.  (I suppose that they were ancestors of the Dallas Cowboys' Dion Sanders who wanted to play pro football AND baseball.)  Only the Yuman peoples combined the painting and tattooing.

To make the paint, the Mohaves kneaded deer fat while adding their paint to it.  Then they continued kneading it until the fat was like bread dough.  The paint would last a whole day - unless they sweated.   Red pigment came through trade with the Walapai who found it in their Red Mountain.  The Mohaves traded corn and pumpkins for it. 

The tattooing wasn't a very pleasant thing to get through.  The design was drawn on with charcoal, and then a sliver of stone was used to make skin pricks close together.  When the blood flowed, mesquite or willow charcoal that had been ground into a fine powder would be rubbed into the wound.  It took hours just to do a chin tattoo.  The design used on Olive Oatman was reserved for marking slaves.  (WHAT?!  The white man was not the only ones to have slaves?!  Imagine that!)

(Not my drawings :)

Most Mohaves had tattoos because a person without them would be refused into the "Land of the Dead" and had to "go down a rat hole" instead.  Even so, the tattooing process was so very painful that some refused, preferring the possibility of a rat hole to the certainty of pain.

Today's tattooers use pain killers, so it's not the symbol of strength that it once was.

Tonto Apaches and Mohave Indians

In 1851, Tonto Apaches captured Olive and Mary Ann Oatman and, as happened a lot, they were then traded to the Mohave Indians that lived along the Colorado River.  (The river is now the dividing line between Arizona and California.)  Olive survived five years of drought, starvation, and death by illnesses only to be traded to a white man.  What's cool is that that white man had been sent by her brother, Lorenzo.  That man had been searching for Olive for over a year.

Have you ever watched a cable TV series, "Hell on Wheels?"  (It's not for children...)  One of the female characters in the series was once a captive of Indians and carries a chin tattoo as a symbol of her earlier acceptance into an Indian community.  Interestingly enough, that tattoo is vaguely familiar to the one Olive Oatman carried to her grave...


In 1857, Lt. Beale noted in his personal journal that he believed a military presence in the Kingman area would be necessary to protect emigrants from Mojave Indian aggression.

In 1858, just a few months after Lt. Beale and his men (and camels!) finished their survey work on the wagon road, folks were already heading west.  When one of these groups made it back to Albuquerque, one of their men wrote a letter to the editor of his back-home newspaper:

The Indians came running from every quarter out of the brush, completely surrounding the camp, and attacked us.  They kept up a continued shooting of arrows for near two hours and part of them, having driven off all the stock except a few near the wagons, they all left ... Miss Bentner had been found dead, her clothes torn off and her face disfigured.  From this and the fact of an Indian shaking some scalps at us, which he had fastened on a pole, we supposed that they (the Bentner family) had all been killed.  Mr. Alpha Brown was also killed and eleven wounded (including a small girl who was shot through the shoulder with an arrow) ... We concluded to return the way we had come ... Out of near four hundred head of cattle, we saved seventeen head, and out of thirty-seven horses, probably ten..."  
Despite much hardship most of the group made it back to Albuquerque, walking most of the way.

Fort Mojave was established the next year - just as Lt. Beale had warned would be necessary.

ObamaCare

I don't think I've gotten political on my blog, but this ObamaCare thing...  Well, you know that Granpa is in the hospital working every day with cardiologists and other doctors - all over the country.  There is not ONE that thinks national health care is a good idea.  There are even some who have changed professions!  Please, go to this site and "sign" the petition.  Donate or don't donate (but all things you believe in have a price), and the book you get for donating is by Mark Levine - arguably the smartest man in the room!

http://www.dontfundobamacare.com/

Kingman Museums

There are three museums in Kingman - and one price gets you into all three!!  We started at the Route 66 Museum. (Of course!)  This mural pretty well tells the whole story.  Guess we don't even need to go inside, huh?

Silly people!  Of COURSE we have to go inside!! 

All of the American Southwest is full of artisans.  A local artist did this mural, portraits of every American President and their First Ladies (not always their wives, by the way) which are shown in the Mohave Museum here in Kingman, and even a depiction of Mount Rushmore.  It's really great artwork if you ever get a chance to see it up close.

The Route 66 Museum, in part, tells the story of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl migration of America's Great Plains farmers to California.  There are even huge panels quoting pages from "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's famous novel about those times.  It's a good museum - but not nearly as good as the Mohave Museum that we spent a couple of hours in a few days later!

Here at the Mohave Museum they have everything from Native Americans in the area to the blacksmith's shop outside to the story of World War II and Arizona's part in that event. 

I'll be sharing parts of this story with you over the next few days!

Kingman Turquoise

Our friends that we met in Hawaii but that now live in Texas (see what a great influence we are?!), were excited to discover that we would be in Kingman, Arizona for awhile.  Seems Paul is a turquoise aficionado and knew that the very best turquoise on earth (literally) is found in the mines around Kingman!

An ancient myth has it that turquoise comes from a mythical beast, the Corprus, which eats the earth around copper deposits and eliminates turquoise.  (Couple that with the ancient American Indian myth - http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2011/10/huron-indian-myth.html - that tobacco originally grew wherever a woman sent by the Great Spirit sat, and you have I-don't know-what!)

Early ancient history says that turquoise came only from Persia (today's Iran) and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.  It's unique color is what qualifies it as a gemstone.  With the exploration of the New World (the Americas) deposits were discovered that were of the same or possibly better quality as Persia's.  This is so true that, even if you buy something labeled "Persian Turquoise," it may simply mean that it is of the highest quality regardless of its origin.

Copper must be present for the signature turquoise color to be created.  Obviously, copper is a better financial investment, but turquoise is pretty lucrative as a raw stone, hand-crafted ornament, highly polished jewelry, or carved figurine.

There are also different types of processing that you might find a stone has gone through.  Raw turquoise may be pretty crumbly, so a particular piece may have been "stabilized."

It was probably not until the late 1800's that it began to be incorporated into jewelry, and the first piece created is thought to be a belt that a white man asked a Navajo craftsman to fashion for him from silver coin.  Previous to that, the Navajo simply worked turquoise into solid beads, carvings, or inlaid mosaics.

Today the majority of the world's finest quality turquoise comes from the United States, the largest producer of turquoise.  Some of the gemstone-quality material goes for as much as $2,200 per kg.  It, as I said, is sometimes pretty fragile and must be recovered by careful extraction using hand methods.  It can also be found in California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada.

The Kingman mine is owned by the Colbaugh's and you can purchase the raw mineral directly from their outlet store.  What you really want to do, though, is get hand-crafted jewelry made by today's descendants of native Americans who still work with silver and turquoise.  One just has to be very, very careful that you aren't sold something "made in China."  Variscite and faustite are minerals that are turquoise in color and shading, but they are a separate mineral species.  This, I think is where caveat emptor comes in (buyer beware!)

Test - And please tell me if you no longer want to hear from us :(

One of our sons is getting his notice of a new post - in triplicate - in a text message to his phone!  That is NOT the plan.  It should come to your email address.  That way it costs you nothing, and you can delete it if you don't want to read it.  (You can also ask me to remove you from my "Circles," and that should keep you from even getting a notice.)

So, I'm sending this test post.  I really, really, REALLY do NOT want to bug anyone with my goofiness.  Please let me know if you don't want to receive my emails...

Internet Explorer vs. Mozilla Firefox

A thought came to me while taking a shower last night.  It was like the proverbial light bulb going off:  Try using Internet Explorer rather than Firefox to access the Internet.  My blog is Google based, so maybe whatever was driving me nuts won't happen.  It's worth a try...  So, before going to bed I gave it a shot.

Well, whaddya know!  Everything worked slicker than snail snot.  (That's an old Texas saying, too.)

But, before I go killin' myself working up a "real" post, I'm gonna use this as a test case.  If I can't get it to post right with Firefox, I'll try again with Internet Explorer.  If you get duplicates today MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES!  Just delete me, and please forgive me.

Here goes nuthin'.

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Okay.  With Firefox, when I clicked "Publish," the site froze up.  I'm going to try Internet Explorer.

Problems, Problems, Problems

Ah, tis a Monday for sure!  I'm about ready to toss the Blogger concept and my laptop into the pool.

Cooler minds usually prevail:  I think I'll go shopping instead.  (Not to cause you the grief I'm having, darlin,' I'm leaving all methods of purchase at home.  :)

First Kingman Housing

We arrive in Kingman (not by camel though), and are surprised to discover that the lodgings I have contracted for are fifteen miles away from the hospital.  That's fifteen miles up the straightest, flattest, loneliest road you can imagine!  It's so straight that the law says you have to have your headlights on day and night to catch the attention of what other drivers might maybe be out there.  With that kind of traffic congestion you can guess that it's only 15 minutes to work, though, so all is good.

You can see in this almost-sunset photo that we are in a valley that is flatter than a flitter (as we say in Texas), but there are mountains all around us, literally 360 degrees all around us.

Our little community, Valle Vista, is on it's own golf course, has its own community swimming pool, tennis courts, and has some mighty fine homes in it - including ours.  Not to brag, because we are paying a pretty penny for this one, but it is beautifully decorated, too.  (I suppose the owner being an interior designer has something to do with that. :)  The community is right on the famous Route 66, which pleases Granpa greatly.

The front yards throughout the community are not lawns, they are beds of pebble with cactus of umpteen varieties growing out of them.  For the most part they are expertly landscaped.  I'm surprised that I like it so much; they are really pretty.  Our yard is a bit sparse on vegetation.


 This home is across the street - and for sale!

Rock-filled landscape wouldn't work in East Texas though, because in no time at all grass and weeds would be growing up through those pebbles.  Here in Kingman, the days are around 100 degrees, but the nights cool off to the upper 60's.  In Texas, you're lucky to get night time temperatures down to 80, and those pebbles would be radiating heat 'til the sun comes up - and then just get hotter.

Our back yard here IS grass and rose buses and a vine-covered patio that is so refreshing!  There's a large glass-top table and six chairs, and a breeze blows all the time.  It's like a combination of the best and the best.

I want the whole family to come visit because we have two extra bedrooms with king-size beds, a dining room table that seats six, a sectional sofa that seats - oh, my goodness, maybe a dozen if you're a close family!  And it is excellent seating, firm but soft, even holds my big backside up. The sectional ends in a chaise lounge that I have claimed as my own!  (Not really, as I spend most of my time at a table and chair next to the sofa doing my computer work - but occasionally I come out from behind the desk and hug up to Granpa on the sofa.  (Yes, grandparents do still hug up - that's another reason you have to marry the right man or woman from the get go...)  And the sunsets are beautiful!

Camels in the Cavalry

Back in the day, when Lt. Beale, a Navy officer, was ordered by the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers thru the War Department, to build that wagon road I was talking about, he was given secondary orders to "test the feasibility of the use of camels as pack animals in the southwestern desert."
 

Beale Survey Team

Now, my first question is, what's a Navy officer doing working for the Army?  Next, what's a Navy officer doing in the desert?  And finally, what does a Navy officer know about camels?! 

Regardless, Lt. Beale must have been a good officer because he did exactly as he was told.  In 1857, Beale and his team took a herd of 25 camels and rode from Fort Defiance in Apache Territory in Arizona to the Colorado River, did his thing along the way and then took the camels to the Benicia Arsenal in California.  The camels legendary ability to go without water proved invaluable.  They were super-duper strong and could move quickly across terrain that horses had a terrible time in.

But how did the camels get to Fort Defiance in the first place?  That's a pretty cool story in itself!

Seems as early as 1843 the War Department was being lobbied to use camels as pack animals.  By 1847, the lobbyists finally got the attention of a Senator, one Jefferson Davis of Mississippi.  (Yup, THE Jefferson Davis who later became President of the Confederate States of America!)  Even with Davis' support the camel lobby got nowhere with the War Department - until 1853 when Davis was appointed Secretary of War for the United States under President Franklin Pierce.  (Kind of ironic, huh?  Future President Davis of the Confederacy as Secretary of War for the Union.)  Now Pierce and Congress had to take this camel thing seriously.

You have to remember, even as late as the mid-1800's folks back East thought the southwest was some huge desert like the Sahara.  That's why Davis, and eventually Congress, ultimately decided to give those ol' camels a chance.  In March of 1855, Congress appropriated $30,000, and said, go buy your camels.

Well, here we go again.  Major Henry C. Wayne of the ARMY was put on a ship in 1855 and told to go buy some camels.  (We have the Navy in Arizona and the Army on a ship.  I don't know about you, but I'm confused!)  He left New York aboard the USS Supply, and sailed off for the Mediterranean.  They ultimately purchased 33 camels:  two Bactrain (those are the ones with two humps), twenty-nine dromedary, one dromedary calf, and one booghdee.  (Huh?  Whats a booghdee?!  Ah, ha!  It's like a mule!  Its a cross between a male Bactrain and a female dromedary.  Who knew?!  I wonder how many humps they have??)  Wayne was also smart enough to hire five camel drivers.

In April of 1856, the Supply landed safely in Indianola, Texas.  All the camels were in better health than when they were originally purchased!  That's pretty cool!  But, then again, they ARE called Ships of the Desert, so maybe they just naturally took to the sea.  (LOL.  I don't think that's the reason.  It was just a funny thought!)

One successful trip calls for another and by the first of 1857, forty-one more camels landed in America.  During this time there were some births and deaths of a few camels, so the grand total of camels in the United States Army now came to seventy.  Camp Verde in Kerr County, Texas became their home.

The first time, some of these camels were used was by Lt. Beale.  Then in 1859 they helped the Army survey a shorter route across the Trans-Pecos region of Texas to Fort Davis, and again during a survey of the Big Bend area of Texas.  In 1860 there was another survey done of the Trans-Pecos area that utilized the unique gifts of the U.S. Army Camel Corps.

Things were going so well with the camels that the Department of War requested another 1,000 be purchased, and there was a bill before Congress to do just that.  Then all ---- broke loose and the Civil War was on!  Jefferson Davis, of course, left the United States for the Confederacy, and the new Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, ordered the Camel Corps out of existence.

Now then, what does one do with a bunch of camels that freak out horses and mules with their behavior and smell?  Well, Beale had taken such a liking to the animals that he offered to keep the whole lot of them on his property.  Stanton, however, ordered them sold.  Some went to private owners, some "escaped" into the desert, but Beale bought some, including his favorite, Seid.  A few years later, during rutting season, Seid fought with another camel - and lost.  His bones, believe it or not, were sent to the Smithsonian!

Feral (domestic animals that have gone free in the wild) camels were sighted as late as 1941 throughout Texas and the Southwest - some apparently even made it to Canada!  There is even talk of GHOST camels being seen.  Now that would scare the britches off of ya'!

Hadji Ali, lead camel driver hired by Major Wayne in 1855, died in 1902, and is buried in Quartzsite, Arizona.  His grave marker is a pyramid-shaped monument with a metal profile of a camel on top.  Quite fitting, don't you think?

The End of Bearizona - Fabulous!

There were at least a half dozen juvenile bears (bear?) in this enclosure.  They were all up moving around, climbing on the rocks, and, see that stock tank in the middle?  I don't know if that was for drinking or ... maybe the bear doesn't know either...

Silly boy!

I guess he needed to rest after his bath, because he climbed up on some rocks, leaned back, rested his arm on his leg, and just surveyed the world for awhile.  He seemed mighty satisfied with what he saw...

Then we came to the baby bears!  (Well, this was labeled as "K - 12.")  The first ones we see are up a tree.  The next picture is also of a baby bear, but look! at the size of those paws!!  I guess they're like Momma always said about dogs:  look at a puppy's feet if you don't know what breed it is because they will grow into their feet.  She meant, giant feet would mean a giant dog.  I'm guessin' this is gonna be a giant bear for sure!
 

This bear stayed up the tree the whole time we were there.  Others were walking around, still others were sleeping, and we were only a few feet away all of it.  This was a way-cool place.  I would absolutely recommend it to each and every person out there!  Outstanding!

Red Fox, Swift Fox, Peacocks, Porcupines, Badgers, Bobcats, Beaver ...

Bearizona just gets better and better!  Meet Yazzi and Francis.  Here is where it gets confusing:  Yazzi is a swift fox; Francis is a marbled red fox.  Now why would someone name a fox that is white, a marbled red?

Yazzi - a Swift Fox

I had never heard of the Swift Fox before.  He gets his name because he can run up to 30 mph! They are both only the size of large housecats.  They used to range from Mexico to Canada, but that area has now shrunk to only 40% of what it was.  There are reintroduction efforts under way on Indian reservations that are very successful though, so not to worry everyone!

Francis - a marbled red fox

Wandering free were peacocks and their babies.  Well, I guess this was actually a peahen and her baby.  These guys 'n gals have a reputation of being very aggressive, but here they were as tame as a chicken - but then, we didn't try to pick one up or mess with its baby!  And, yes, even the babies have the pretty feathers on top of their heads.





Now, who would have thought to look up a tree for a porcupine?

And here's a lil' feller I've never seen stuffed or alive!  A badger - the bad boy of the Plains!

That coat of fur over his back is as thick as a horsehair saddle blanket.  It instantly reminded me of an armadillo.  I would not want to tangle with this guy anywhere!  He was up running around while most everyone else at Bearizona was sleeping.

Look at how long this bobcat's back toes are, and how big his front paw is!  I love the silly tufts of hair at the ear tips.  What's that all about??

This is a beaver.  I've never seen one up this close.  Look at that flat paddle of a tail!  Again with the sleeping...

I think this raccoon was playing opossum.  If you look really close you can see his eye is open just a bit.  Check out those feet, too.

They also have a Birds of Prey in Flight show, but it didn't fit into our time frame...

The Bears

Now, we're expecting to see a couple of bears.  Most everything has been asleep or not moving around a whole lot, so even if we see some bears we figure they'll be sleeping.  Guess what?

Aww, isn't he adorable?!  But, even sleeping, there were so many of them.  I want you to notice that there are no pesky insects buzzing around him.  I highly commend "Bearizona" for the level of their care for all of these animals.  Even horse owners have trouble keeping down the bot flies (unless they give them a medication that kills the larva in their poop.)  This place is not your average zoo, folks.  I am so glad on so many levels that we stopped here.  Thank you, Granpa, you are the BEST!

We've seen lots and lots and lots of bear in our time of vacationing, but never a sleeping bear.  They're funny!  And just like us humans!

Look at the size of those paws!!  If these guys had been up walking around we would not have ever gotten this photo!  I'm glad they were snoozing!

I would bet there were a dozen or more bear here, but, we discover, there are even more in the walk-around part - along with lots more species of Arizona critters - some that we had never seen before !  We are definitely getting our money's worth.  If you're ever in Arizona...

But you'll have to come back again tomorrow to see the rest of the animals.  (I hope I'm not boring you with the photos...

Bearizona - Bears in Arizona

So we're rolling down the Interstate across Arizona.  The scenery and the clouds are just beautiful.  I keep asking myself, are we really going to live in Arizona, the desert southwest, the Mojave!  Well, yes, for at least three months anyway.

There aren't a lot of billboards out here. (Thank you very much.) But occasionally I see one talking about Bearizona.  That's a weird name.  It takes me a few billboards to get comfortable with it.  Seems it's one of those wildlife parks where you drive through - with your windows rolled up I hope!

We've been making excellent time, and I for one would really like to stretch my legs a bit.  I see another billboard, and I decide, what the heck, I'll see if Granpa will stop.  He checks his watch and the mileage left until we reach Kingman.  He says, why not, and we exit.  Now, the "why not" is always contingent on how many miles off the highway someplace is.  We are both amazed to discover it's right next to the Interstate.  Irresistible, eh.

I love the wood carving at the entrance. (Don't miss noticing the fish in the scene!)  There's no welcome center - just pull up and pay your money.  So much for stretching my legs.  Hmm.  The price is a bit much for my liking, but we're here, and I do love those bears...

The first thing we see are Dahl sheep.  (Now, their sign said "Doll" sheep, but I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt that they just did that so tourist would know how to pronounce their name.  We first came across these guys in the Canadian Rockies.  There's no mistaking them for domestic sheep or Big Horn sheep or any other kind of sheep.  These are definitely Dahl's.)

There is a veritable flock of these guys, including babies.

Next it says we will see burros.  A tourist may think this is a burro, but seeing as we have one at home, we know better.  (Geez, you just can't trust anybody these days!) It's known as a Crucifix donkey because of the markings across the shoulder and down the spine look like a cross.

Our Mordecai is a much happier donkey that this guy!

This, however, is a burro:

We cross a gated cattle gap and search for the next animal.  What's that under the pile of fallen timbers?  It's a wolf!!  Do you see it? A white wolf !!  Christopher, our youngest son, had a white wolf.  (Didn't fit too well with our flock of chickens and guineas when he came to visit - but he was a way cool "dog!") 

Whisper had yellow eyes, just like this guy.

As long as everyone's tummy is full I guess that you can get the lion to lay down with the lamb (or wolf with a sheep.)  But, just in case someone wants a midnight snack, Bearizona has super tall fencing and the gates that they close between species at night.  There is a whole pack of wolves here, not just this one.

(Are you gettin' tired of the pictures yet?  This placed is so amazing that we took a zillion of 'em.)

Next up, just to match the white wolves, we find white buffalo.  A whole bunch of 'em!  How'd they do that??  I thought white buffalo were super-rare.

 Granpa liked this picture the best.

They had the standard dark brown buffalo, too, but I just can't show you everything!  Next up:
Big Horn sheep.  There's no mistaking these guys either!  Again, there are lots more than what's in this picture - including babies.  There were babies of all the different species - I guess because this place has been here for three years and these guys (and gals) just keep reproducing.  Works for me!!

Ohhh.  It's bears you wanted to see!  We'll, you ain't seen nuthin' yet!  There are bears, bears and more bears - and a place to stretch my legs.  You can't call it all a petting zoo, though there is one in there.  But you really won't believe what comes next.  See you tomorrow!