Places I'm Visiting: Birds in Texas and the Southwest

In nine days of traveling between Texas and Las Vegas, I had hoped to see many new birds or at least many birds less common than those I routinely see in Sonoma County, but I was disappointed. There were few birds in most of the locations we visited aside from the Crows and Ravens that seemed to be everywhere.

In Dallas and Fort Worth, I saw Boat-tailed Grackles here and there, and saw a handful of Robins and a pair of White-winged Doves in downtown Dallas along with a large flock of Starlings just before dark, but little elsewhere in Texas or in Oklahoma. Here and there I noted vultures – Black Vultures rather than the Turkey Vultures we commonly see at home. In Santa Fe, it was Crows and Ravens again and a handful of House Sparrows.

Somewhere along the way, I can’t remember where, I had a fleeting glimpse from the car of a red bird that I imagine was a Northern Cardinal and I had a similar brief glimpse from the car of a Magpie of some kind, but it wasn’t until the Grand Canyon that I began to see more birds. Monument Valley, was largely empty of birds aside from House Sparrows, although I imagine there must be species that live in the area besides these and the ubiquitous Crows and Ravens.

Along the rim of the Grand Canyon, I noted Crows and Ravens, but also Dark-eyed Juncos, Mountain Chickadees (always fun, as these are different from our Northern California Chestnut-backed Chickadees), and Pygmy Nuthatches. Most fun, however, was the bird that the Chinese man pointed out to me on our first morning at the rim. Although it looked like a California Scrubjay, in the Southwest, the local jay was split a few years back from our Scrubjays and declared a separate species, Woodhouse’s Scrubjay (both species were called Western Scrubjay in the past). 

So, despite a general lack of birds on the trip, I did get this new life bird for my list and I was pleased to be able to get good photographs of one. Woodhouse’s Scrubjay (first photo) differs from our California Scrubjays in being much greyer in color, especially on the breast and having different facial markings. I’ve included a shot of a California Scrubjay here for comparison (last photo). I'm also including a couple of photos of other animals we saw, notably a very tame squirrel and Mountain Goats that looked perfectly at ease on the steep faces just below the Grand Canyon rim.

Places I'm Visiting: Grand Canyon and Boulder Dam

My last post about my recent trip to Dallas and the Southwest claimed Monument Valley as one of the most photogenic places on Earth. Surely the Grand Canyon, our last stop, is another. We stayed two nights in Tusayan, just outside of the National Park. Somewhere between Monument Valley and Tusayan we hit a nail that set off a tire pressure warning on the dashboard of our rented car (a Kia something). After the Grand Canyon, we had another long drive ahead of us – to catch our flight home out of Las Vegas. While we had plenty of time on our last day to catch our afternoon flight, our plans assumed driving at normal highway speeds, which would be impossible on a flat tire or using the undersized spare in the car. With worry about the last leg of our trip in the back of my mind, we set out to the South Rim of the Canyon on our first morning in Tusayan. 

We ended up walking the Canyon Rim Trail for the entire day. We parked near the Grand Canyon Visitor Center, but went straight to the rim, thinking we’d see the visitor center later (although that never happened). Following the rim, we walked the two miles or so from the Visitor Center to the Bright Angel Trailhead (from which point most people who descend into the canyon start out) by way of the Mather Point overlook, Yavapai Point and the Geology Museum, and Verkamp’s Visitor Center. We had lunch at Maswik Lodge. At the Geology Museum, I was reminded that the Canyon was formed over the course of about six million years. The opening in the Earth scoured away by the Colorado river and its sediments over those millions of years today reveals nearly two billion years of geologic time. Interestingly, the Museum points out that the top 270 million years of accumulated sediment was long ago eroded away so that the only fossils found in canyon rocks are very old indeed, all pre-dating the dinosaurs. 

After lunch, we stopped in at Hopi House (a gift shop built more than 100 years ago as a place for local Hopi Indians to sell merchandise to Canyon visitors, a function it still serves). We enquired about the shuttle service back to the main Visitor Center, but ended up walking the two miles back again, which turned out to be a good decision. As a result of walking both ways and spending the entire day at it, we got to see the canyon in morning light, in the flat light of noon, and then in the waning light of late afternoon as the face of the Canyon rapidly changes toward sunset. The sky was clear most of the day but clouds were developing by the end of the day, which somewhat reduced the display just at sunset, but, overall, we were blessed with nearly ideal conditions. 

Early in the day, I found myself looking over a railing standing next to an elderly Chinese man. We both heard a bird call. He saw it first and wordlessly pointed ahead and down a little at a bird sitting almost motion-less at the top of a tree – a bird that looked very much like one of our common California Scrubjays. But, more about birds seen on this trip in another post.

I mention the Chinese man and the bird because later on the trail he approached me with his phone to show me a short video of a hummingbird that looked like an Anna’s Hummingbird. His companion, who spoke rudimentary English, indicated the video was from China, which was puzzling as there are no Hummingbirds native to China. It may have been recorded from Chinese television. After seeing the bird in the tree together in the morning we had run into him and his friend a few times during the day, once while he was sitting dangerously close to an unprotected edge of the drop-off into the abyss. A dozen or so people die each year falling into the canyon through foolhardy actions, usually attempts to get daring photographs, although some of the deaths are suicides. 

On the walk back to the visitor center, as the sun moved lower in the sky, the shadows lengthened and the landscape took on a different character. It was remarkable how quickly the light changed. One spot in shadow a moment later was picked out briefly, as if spotlighted, and then the light would pass away into another crevice or onto another outcropping of rock. Three or four times we thought the sun had set and that the light show was over only to see a distant formation suddenly illuminated in the distance for a moment as the shallow rays of the sun found a path into the canyon again. 

We arose early the next morning to see the show at sunrise, but, because the sky had clouded over overnight, the light was not that interesting and soon we had to turn our attention to our flat tire. Happily, we learned that Park Service has its own garage right in the National Park (to serve the park vehicles, but they help out in emergencies). We headed there first thing after sunrise and they were able to repair the flat for us in less than an hour, allowing us to head off to the airport in Las Vegas at normal highway speeds and without anxiety. 

The main attraction along the way is Boulder Dam (also known as Hoover Dam). I had driven across the top of the dam before, but never seen it from the nearby Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, which allows you to look straight down into the area in front of the dam where water exits turning turbines to generate power. It’s a bit of a climb up to the bridge walkway and it can be a little scary looking over the edge of the walkway and down at the giant crescent of concrete below (the largest dam in the world when it was completed in 1936), but it’s worth the effort. Less than an hour later, we were in Las Vegas. It took more time at the airport to return the car at the remote rent-a-car lots and then get back to the terminal than it took to get from the dam to the airport. From there, it was a short, uneventful flight home.

Places I'm Visiting: Monument Valley

Monument Valley has to be among the most photogenic places on Earth. It is, at least, among the most photogenic places I have ever visited. We arrived at around 1:00PM and took a four-hour tour lasting until just before sunset. I'll let the photos speak for themselves in this case. 

 

Places I'm Visiting: Santa Fe and Taos

The next stop on my recent trip to the Southwest was Santa Fe, a rather long drive from Tulsa. At first, our goal was simply to get as far west of Tulsa as we could the night before to somewhat shorten the drive awaiting us the next day. We ended up staying in a fairly shabby motel in El Reno, New Mexico, after having rejected a room in an even shabbier motel where the night manager seemed incapable of programming a key to the right room or programming a key that worked once a suitable room was found. We looked at it, declined, and moved on to a nearby alternative. El Reno had the cheapest gasoline we encountered on the trip; we filled up at a Shell station at $2.05/gallon.

Dinner was in the only restaurant in the area that wasn’t fast food – a Mexican place where the food was decent and the was staff friendly but barely bi-lingual. While I’m bi-lingual, Japanese was of no use. A football game played on a big screen over the bar. Men sat at tables in baseball caps and cowboy hats drinking beer –  a cowboy hat is a look that some people can actually pull off, but I think you have to be born to it.

We found a quirky hotel in Santa Fe, a place called Guadalupe Inn, which was close to Josef’s where we had an interesting bottle of wine (an Italian Ribolla Gialla) and a decent meal, but one that gave the impression the chef was trying too hard to impress with fancy presentation. After the nearly eight-hour drive that took us from El Reno to Santa Fe, I had a terrible headache that made it hard to enjoy the food, but the kale salad was excellent. Who knew kale could be so delicious? We were seated at the bar beside a voluble local man who said he eats at Josef’s once or twice a week. He was eager to talk with both us and the handsome young bartender who served as our waiter.

We stayed two nights in Santa Fe. The morning of our first day, we went straight to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum, which, I have to say, was a disappointment. The collection is not very large and I’ve seen a lot more of her work and better work by her at various museums around the world. About half the space was showing work unrelated to O’Keefe. Having said that there were a few gems. Also, I long ago read that a friend of O’Keefe’s showed some of her (O’keefe’s) early charcoal drawings to Alfred Stieglitz, which prompted him to show them at his Gallery 291 in New York (formally called the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, but known as “291” for its address at 291 Fifth Avenue) and that that was how O’Keefe and Stieglitz met. I’ve always been curious to see what these drawings looked like and the Museum has two or three of them on display. Apparently, the museum will soon move to a new, bigger location now under construction. It may be that not everything usually on display was there to see when we visited.

The rest of the day we spent walking around the old downtown, looking at bookstores, other shops, and at galleries, but the galleries were showing mostly commercial art for the tourist trade, nothing much of interest. For some reason, Santa Fe has a lot of rug dealers. I like rugs but already have more than I need. We stopped in at Mission San Miguel Archangel, the “oldest church in the US” (built around 1610 and rebuilt about 100 years later) and saw “the oldest house in the US.” The church claim is credible. It's attractive and interesting for its altarpiece and for the adobe buttresses added to shore up the original adobe structure. The oldest house claim is disputed and the building was closed. 

Dinner at Sazón, one of Santa Fe’s fanciest restaurants. My wife was acquainted with chef and owner Fernando Olea because he sometimes visited a girlfriend here in Santa Rosa and sometimes ate at the Chinese restaurant she (my wife) worked at. We were given the royal treatment. Two glasses of Champagne appeared. Chef Fernando came out to greet us. We were served appetizers we didn’t order. Dessert was on the house. Sazón prides itself on its selection of mole sauces. Five are presented at the start of every meal as a sort of pre-appetizer, which allows you to decide whether you want a dish prepared with mole (or not) and which mole you prefer. We had roast pork with two mole choices, one made with jalapeño peppers, one made with hotter red peppers and tomatoes that was spicy but flavorful. We also had roast duck with two other versions of mole. Overall, excellent, but too much food – as is so often the case at restaurants in the US. Along with the meal, we had a Mexican Tempranillo/Cabernet Sauvignon blend.

Before dinner we had visited Sherry Parker, a fellow collage artist and friend, formerly of Santa Rosa, who left for Santa Fe after losing her house in the 2017 Santa Rosa fires (and a beautiful house it was, with a very fine art collection). Her house in Santa Fe, too, is beautiful, situated north of the town with a breathtaking view. It was good to catch up, if even only briefly. Sherry told us why we missed seeing good art in Santa Fe. Apparently, the better galleries are in the railyard area near Site, which is a big, modern art complex. Next time we’ll know better.

The following day we went to Taos. I hadn’t realized that Taos was more than an hour north of Santa Fe. We took the scenic “High Road” (New Mexico Route 76) rather than the highway, stopping on the way at El Santuario de Chimayo, which put me in mind of Lourdes, in France, because of all the notes and tokens of thanks left around statues along the walkway up to the main church. El Santuario de Chimayo refers to the main church here but also to the whole surrounding pilgrimage complex. People who believe they’ve been healed leave tokens of thanks and prayers and many photographs.

One of the main draws is a little chapel with “holy dirt” that people scoop up and take with them for the healing powers it’s supposed to have. The dirt sits in a pile in a shallow hole in the ground (with scoops conveniently provided) at a spot where a cross is said to have once miraculously appeared. When I asked, the attendant in the gift shop and visitor center casually said “Oh yeah, people scoop up bags of that stuff and take it home with them.” Having seen the depression full of loose dirt, I suspect that once in a while someone dumps another bag of potting soil in there from Home Depot to sustain the demand.

Aside from the dirt, people come for mass held at the main Sanctuary de Chimayo, which has an attractive rustic altarpiece. There are various other small chapels and outdoor memorials and prayer areas set aside on the grounds aside from the above-mentioned gift shop and visitor center. The parking lot is very large. On pilgrimage days thousands gather here we were told, but, on a cold January morning, we were the only visitors. 

Taos itself is a rather ordinary-looking small town that could have been any other city in the Southwest or the US. I had imagined something more quaint. The main attraction (for me) was the famous church there, the San Francisco de Asis Catholic Mission. I’ve always wanted to see for myself this church made so familiar by images by O’Keefe, Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, and others. 

It’s easy to miss. We drove right by it and had to backtrack about ten minutes as it’s not really in Taos but in Ranchos de Taos, just outside of Taos proper. Its famous backside faces the road but the building is at the far end of a parking lot about 60 yards from the main road and facing the opposite direction.

It’s easy to see why the church has fascinated so many artists. Its back side is simple, elemental. It’s pure form. Although a row of boulders has been added around the perimeter (presumably to keep cars from ramming into the vulnerable adobe) and the view is somewhat marred by a gas meter, it looks much the way it looks in the famous Paul Strand photograph and other representations. Remnants of a recent snowfall adorned the soft adobe curves when we visited.

All these early adobe mission churches seem to follow the same plan. The front façade has one or two towers, usually with a bell or bells. The front door opens into a single open space with a timber ceiling and an alter at the far end. Sometimes there are side niches, but often there are none. Usually there is a loft directly above the front entrance, accessible by a single set of wooden stairs (or just a ladder) on one side of the main doorway. 

Facing the parking lot of the church was a little gallery that looked like a tourist trap but I was curious. It turned out to have a museum-quality collection of native American basketry that was worth seeing. From there we headed west again, aiming to get as close as possible to our next stop, Monument Valley. We stayed at a very attractive hotel called Casa Blanca Inn & Suites tucked away a bit incongruously in a residential neighborhood of Farmington, New Mexico. We settled into our room after another longish drive (a little under four hours). The décor is a mishmash, with suggestions of both the Southwest and Morocco, but it somehow works. The bathroom was rather elaborately done in two shades of green tile. Dinner was microwaved leftovers from Sazón and leftover wine from Josef's. Farmington put us a manageable two and a half hours drive from the Monument Valley Tribal Visitors Center where we were booked for a sunset tour of the valley the following day.