The Cocktail Glass Collection: The Sultana Bar, Williams Arizona

On my recent trip to Arizona, I had little time to casually photograph things that interested me along the way, but I did snap this view of the neon cocktail glass sign in front of the Sultana Bar, in Williams, Arizona. Excuse me, the world-famous Sultana Bar.

For more, click the "Cocktail Glass Collection" label at right at the top of the page.

On the Road: Sedona to Las Vegas (May 25, 2016–May 27, 2016)

I left Monument Valley on the 25th and headed for Sedona, Arizona, one of those odd places that have almost completely lost their identity to tourism. Sedona is in an undeniably beautiful setting. The red rock formations are impressive, even if not as big as those in Monument Valley and not so impressively set off by empty space, and I imagine the town has its charms, but virtually the entirety of the main street (and there is only one main street) is bad restaurants and tourist shops catering to those who come for the "spiritual energy" the place is supposed to exude. There are psychics and fortune tellers, yoga and meditation shops, and many stores selling rocks, minerals, and crystals—rocks, minerals, and crystals all laid out with tags describing their supposed powers. Practically none of these have any connection to Sedona geologically speaking. Inconveniently, Sedona is mostly red sandstone, which doesn't seem to possess much of interest to the spiritually minded. The minerals come from Argentina, South Africa, Brazil.... The hotel proprietor came from India, his office reeked amiably of curry. The place reminded me of Lourdes, in France. One thing I did like about Sedona is that all the intersections are roundabouts, which is great.

I did have the opportunity to see Sedona from the air, however, in a hot air balloon, which was a pleasure. It had been many years since my last balloon ride. The valleys around Sedona were set off in the early morning light by smoke from a forest fire burning to the north of the town. In places you could see smoke flowing over the hills and down into the low spots. Later in the day, I visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross, graciously shown around by Father Kieran, who is in charge of the place. Built in 1956, it's a modern piece of architecture but it sits comfortably in its niche in the rocks and offers excellent views over the town of Sedona and the surrounding rock formations, including excellent distant views of Cathedral Rock, Courthouse Butte, and Bell Rock.

On the morning of the 27th I headed back toward Las Vegas, my starting point on this trip, which was a working trip, interpreting for a small Japanese film crew getting footage for a number of TV programs to air later in the year. At Peach Springs, on the way back, you can access the only drivable road down to the Colorado River within the Grand Canyon. It's a bumpy, unpaved 19 miles, part of the way through water, but it was not as bad as people lead you to believe, at least at this time of year, ahead of seasonal rains, which seem to come mostly in July.

From the perspective of bird-watching, the trip was rather disappointing. I had few opportunities to get anything more than fleeting glances at anything. The Common Raven seems to be the most common bird. It's easy to see why ravens figure prominently in so many folk tales and in native lore of the area. Otherwise, I noticed a lot of House Sparrows and House Finches. Other birds included Great-tailed Grackles,  Scrub-jays, and Western Tanagers. At Desert View, in Grand Canyon National Park, I came across a flock of Chipping Sparrows, which  are fairly uncommon at home. In the canyon itself, there were many Violet-green Swallows and White-Throated Swifts. The only new birds I saw were a variant of the Dark-eyed Junco I've never seen before, also at Grand Canyon, either the Red-backed or Grey-headed variant—notably pale grey all over with black around the eye and a rufous patch at the rump—and the Juniper Titmouse (Baeolophus ridgwayi), at Airport Mesa, in Sedona. The Juniper Titmouse, a life bird for me, looks almost identical to our Oak Titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus), but I noticed its vocalizations were different. Some day I'd like to revisit the area as a birder.

On the Road: Lake Powell (May 22)

The road out of Grand Canyon north to Page skirts the Little Colorado River Gorge, which cuts through a plateau dotted with green sage bushes and Mormon tea. I noticed the people here never seem to say "the Grand Canyon" but only "Grand Canyon." I wonder why.

I spent the entirety of May 22 in the vicinity of Page, Arizona, making an early visit to the overlook at Horseshoe Bend, a dramatic curve cut through sandstone by the Colorado River just outside Page. A short walk takes you from the parking lot to a ragged outcropping of tawny rock that gives a view of the river channel several hundred feet below. A local resident told me three to five people fall to their death from the unprotected overlook each year, mostly trying to take pictures of themselves too close to the edge. As I was leaving, a bus load of elderly Japanese sightseers arrived for a look, crouching far too close to the edge for my comfort. It was hard to watch. The view is impressive, though.

I then headed out for a day on Lake Powell, motoring into Padre Bay, which gives panoramic views of the lake and the dramatic rock formations, once canyon walls, that form its perimeter. The lake, like Lake Mead to the west, is artificial, created by the Glen Canyon Dam, built between 1957 and 1963, which blocks the flow of the Colorado River here. The lake is about 180 miles long and is said to have more shoreline than the US West Coast. Before the dam was built, the now-filled canyon must have looked much like Grand Canyon.

Eventually I arrived at Rainbow Bridge, about two hours north of the marina near Horseshoe Bend that was my starting point. From the landing near the bridge it's a mile walk into a side canyon before the arch appears. This is sacred ground to the Navajo who, according to my guide, view natural arches as gives from the gods, gifts useful for crossing streams, fleeing flash floods, and escaping from enemies.

The stone that forms Rainbow Bridge is part of the redder formation known as the Navajo sandstone. The same rock is visible in parts of Grand Canyon, in Monument Valley, which straddles the Arizona/Utah border, and in Arches National Park, further into Southern Utah.

Something of a rock hound as a child, I know a thing or two about how rocks fracture. Obsidian perhaps has the most obvious conchoidal fracture among rocks that most people know, but the Navajo Sandstone, too, fractures in a way that leaves behind concentric curves. Many of the formations have a rounded quality. Natural arches form when the inner portion of a conchoidal fracture face erodes away more quickly than the rock above it. But the geology here is complex. There are many different layers of stone, including natural conglomerates, sandstones, and limestones. Some surfaces are pale, others redder, reflecting different amounts of iron oxide present. Some are smooth, some rough. Others are fractured and eroded into what look like rows of stacked pillows. Some are reminiscent of Chinese landscape paintings in ink, others of Egyptian statuary carved into the rocks. In several places I was reminded of photos I've seen of Egyptian sites near the lake created by the Aswan High Dam.