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24th Oct 2005
To Tucson
Monday 24th October, 2005
Up early for the sunrise at El Torval. A motley troop this morning for what turned out to be a very ordinary sunrise … no clouds to really intervene and the light wasn’t nearly as sharp as it had been. We left directly from there at about 7.15 and drove south crossing a pass which got up to a height of about 8000ft.
An hour down the road, we stopped in at Flagstaff at probably the only café in the town which had never heard of internet access. We were served by Josh, whose major claim to success in life, seemed to be the extraordinary beard that he had sprouted (as opposed to grown) from his chin.
I was so inspired by this venue that I ordered a whole round of toast for breakfast. The boys had ‘melts’ – I’m not even thinking about going there!
Phoenix beckoned and we made good time. As we drove , we steadily lost height until as we dropped through the 3000 foot elevation, we suddenly started driving through Saguaro cacti … all favouring the south slopes of the outcrops.
In Phoenix, I wanted to try and catch a meeting on the way though with Mark Klett, the pre-eminent re-photographer in the States and I eventually managed to reach him at home and squeeze in a 2 o’clock meeting.
We hit Phoenix just after midday and went straight to the Heard Museum.
One of the main things I was keen to see there was the triptych multi media presentation which was commissioned some years ago, called (I think Our Land, Our People) which explores the cultures of a whole range of native Americans. It’s a good space; air conditioned with an array of native art.
Some of the dress and the weavings were superb, but other exhibits, such as the vast number of cachinas stacked in their cases were just too much to take in; There were rows and rows of them and about five or six high.
Around the walls were a considerable number of modern native paintings fairly simple themes but not classically ‘naïve’. The museum feels the need to run tours, (which we avoided as we hadn’t the time), but from ear-wigging on a couple as we passed through galleries, these seem to be intent on the interpretation of the art on the walls; what is symbolic, what the meaning of certain styles or content is, how the artist is staing such and such … it would perhaps have been quite nice to have had a native Indian presenting the legend and myth of the tribes and its probably a style of interpretation that the americans appreciate, but its not for me. I’d rather have the time and space to ponder my own judgements and perhaps catch up with a bit more from a taped tour if needsbe.
We drove on to Tempe and the others dropped me at Marks house (discernible by the rusty orange VW Beetle parked outside on the road with partially flat tyres).
They went off and found a charity shop (!) nearby and made various purchases while I sat and discussed re-photography with the maestro.
We set off for Tucson at about 4. Just a straight forward drive along a four or six lane all the way. Huge banner signs in the field at the side advertising ‘Active Adult Developments’ which seems to mean that much of the new housing being built, is being built as retirement ghettos …
Flat desert all the way and we started to see Tucson just as the light was fading.
Our destination was the Rancho Vistoso on Vistoso Highlands Drive which is the latest of the Oro valley developments .. and thus the furthest out. As regular readers will know our after-dark navigation is a bit dodgy not helped at all by the extremely low level of lighting and the American penchant for not illuminating directional signs. We saw it second pass and turned in … but what looked like the reception had closed. We went to the nearby golf club which was just closing up and a very helpful girl said to just follow her and she would press three times on her brake lights (Knock three times … dur dur dur dur dur dur …) to indicate where we should turn; unfortunately she forgot ... and then remembered and we were in the situation of doing a processional u-turn and following her back up the highway to do another u-turn until we got it right.
She took us back to the place we’d been and it was still closed,
Then someone else turned up looking for a reservation and he had a phone number so we followed him for a while.
It turned out that he was booked into the other resort anyway. But, they did let us use the net to check out the reservation number and also use their phone.
No, it was quite definite that the Emergency, Out-of-hours number was not being monitored. However, it was at this point that we noted in the e-mail, the very clear message saying that if you were going to arrive after 5pm, let them know in advance and they would leave a key out in a secure box …. Ahhhhhh, soooooo! That’s what the rank of mailboxes with keypad access was, at the front door.
We continued on the phone … I left a message (which has never been returned yet!) and at some point dialled up the number printed below the out-of-hours emergency number (obviously this confusion happens a bit and so they print the numbers of other, nearby resorts just in case you’re at the wrong place). Anyway, I had a brilliant conversation with the girl who answered.
“Hello, yes, I have a reservation number” ….
“OK Sir, let me have it” (Due recital of number)
“Sorry Sir, that’s not one of our numbers you want to be at the Casitas …”
“That’s where I am” ….
“No Sir, this is the (whatever it was).
I tried again. “I’m standing here and I’m looking at the doormat and on it is written the word Casitas.”
“Oh, so why are you phoning this number, Sir?”
… And it went on, until I realised my mistake and released her from the Basil Fawlty style interrogation. That cheered up the rest of them considerably. And for my next trick ... I decided that the resort wouldn’t be thick enough to go off and not leave a key outside in one of their secure boxes for us so I set out to code break the boxes (not quite with a rock … but ….), while Anne resumed the phone calling an increasingly agitated state.
Logic prevailed and I started with Secure Box Number 1 … and after about a minute of keying in random numbers, yanking unceremoniously on the handle and punching the metal door … it gave up quietly and miracle beyond miracle … and at this point there was a school of thought believing in Divine Intervention, opened to reveal an envelope inside with ‘Moore’ written on it. This contained a set of keys, an electric garage door operating set and a map.
Anne’s investigative skills had turned up a grill down a couple of malls away, which sounded promising. It was empty apart from a rather forlorn birthday party happening just across the aisle.
We were served by ‘Jeff’; it really is one of the features of this trip, particularly when you are accompanied by another four trained observers, that the serving staff in America can provide great entertainment. Jeff was striking deals this evening; if you had a starter with your entrée, it was half price … there was a discount on bottles of wine this evening … and if you didn’t finish it, you were welcome to put the cork in and take it with you … all of which was of course music to the Moore ears.
No-one was ravenously hungry but Jeff’s antics worked up a bit of an appetite and helped our digestion. His encore performance with us came when he presented the bill and forgot all about his discounts … which he rectified quick enough.
He then managed to throw my credit card spectacularly across the room and spent about half a minute trying to pick it up.
Oh, it was a relaxed and happy bunch that found their way back up to the casitas this evening.
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Diary Photos
| 24th Oct 2005 |
| The car full |
| Here's the crew pounding across the prairies towards Tucson. Anne languishing the sanctuary area at the back of the car out of earshot and out of range of any possible blame for errors in navigation. It should be noted that there was a strict rotation in operation and the back seat was usually the most hotly contested seat. |
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