Hiking pictures

Some more hiking pictures I had on my phone's memory chip.  Some are taken on Josephine's saddle in the Santa Rita mountains south of Tucson, the others come from the Douglas Springs Trail on the east end of town near Saguaro National Park East.

Sprung Spring

Will at the waterfall, Douglas Springs Trail.

My feet in icy cold water.  Felt really good!

Yours truly, intrepid hiker! <3

Back to the vintage stuff!

Ok, ok, I realize that I've gone perhaps a little overboard with the outdoors blogs when, after all, the title of my little slice of the blogosphere is "Retro-fy me."  But I've been having so much fun hitting the hiking trails over the past few weeks and have snapped such fun pictures that I couldn't help myself!

Having said that, I want to get back to some vintage-themed blog posts.  I've been watching a bunch of old films these last few weeks and snagged some great albums to review.  I have had to reorganize my vintage jewelry now that my hair is finally back to it's original ash blonde (consequently all the orange stuff I used to wear now clashes horribly but pink, pearls and rhinestones are my new best friends!) not to mention purchasing new clothes for work now that the Old Pueblo is starting to warm up a little.

 But perhaps the biggest and most exciting news of all is that I've bought a ukulele!

Image seen at seagoat musings on blogspot.

Image seen at seagoat musings on blogspot.

Image seen at geschicte der ukulele

The tiny instrument came with a piece of paper with maybe a dozen chords on it so I busted out my music notes and constructed my own chord chart for it.  It sounds really good, especially with some old standards, like some of the songs of Peggy Lee.  Stay posted for an online performance!

Hiking the Grand Canyon

Here follows a journal of sorts of our adventure hiking the Grand Canyon.

January 14, 2012 - I know we are planning on hiking this weekend because, after all, with three full days off why not?  I was a little surprised when Will suggested that morning to head for the Grand Canyon though.  It seemed a bit spur of the moment.  But I was game so we did our best to pack everything we could think of into the Jeep, then took off.  We set up camp at Mather's campground that evening, had some fabulous vegetarian chili at the Maswik Lodge, made some rough plans on what trails to take and how much we wanted to tackle, then settled in for a good night's sleep.

January 15, 2012 - We decide in a fit of optimism to hike all the way to the river and back in one day.  After all, it's only January so it isn't going to be hot, we are in somewhat good shape and, honestly, there isn't any way we could rustle up a camp site at Phantom Ranch at the last minute.  We are vaguely aware that it means hiking the last few hours in the dark, especially as our start time keeps getting pushed up due to frustrations at keeping our camp site another night (I absolutely hate setting a tent up in the dark when it's cold!).  But we have several (not joking here!) flashlights squirreled among us, enough food bars and gu to outfit an army, lots of water, so we are feeling really good about ourselves around 10 am when we start off down the trail.

Bad news for me; there is still ice on the first few switchbacks of the South Kaibab trail.  My adrenaline is pounding through the roof as I try not to slip and either A) break something, or B) slide right off into the vast chasm that is the Grand Canyon.  A tiny part of my brain starts worrying that there is a 40% chance of snow this evening and we still have to climb back out and I'm willing to bet there is ice on the Bright Angel Trail too.

The view, though, is absolutely breathtaking.

Mule train heading up from Phantom Ranch.

This goat was literally 15 feet above where I stood on the trail.  He's staring at all the noise I'm making.

Around 1 pm we make it to Phantom Ranch and I get to dip my tired feet into the Colorado River.  It's absolutely freezing but it feels delicious.  Afterward we grab a couple lemonades at the canteen at the Ranch before we load up our packs and start back on the trail.  I'm starting to get worried about how long it will take to get to the top.  It has taken us three hours to hike the 7 mile S. Kaibab trail and the Bright Angel is even longer at 9 miles.  We joke about begging for a spot with the mules for the night and don't talk about how our calves are already killing us.

We decided to take the longer Bright Angel Trail because of logistics: the shuttle stops servicing the S. Kaibab a full three hours before the other end and we don't want to have to walk back to camp.  The views along the trail are absolutely beautiful, with many waterfalls and tiny oases and a herd of deer that stood just off the trail and watched us curiously as we walked by.

Last picture of the trip.  One of the many waterfalls.  A portrait of sheer exhaustion.

We are really starting to wear out.  Our stops become more frequent and my backpack straps and back are coated in sweat.  We lose our sunlight with about three miles left to go on the trail.  Busting out the flashlights we forge ahead, even as I have to stop and rest from time to time and waves of dizziness and nausea sweep over me.  Will rubs my back and makes me drink water until I'm feeling better.  My lower back is in agony.

Then the snow starts falling.  Yeah.  Let the horror of that sink in.

We hike the last 1 1/2 mile in a snow fall.  It covers up the ice that indeed covers the switchbacks just like on the S. Kaibab so we are literally inching along.  Somehow neither one of us falls and we make steady progress all...the...way...to...the...top.

It's 9:30 pm by the time we stagger into the Maswik Lodge, covered in snow (!) and looking like we're more dead than alive.  We find out the last shuttle ran thirty minutes ago.  After getting down some hot soup and tea, we trek the last mile or so to the campground, pull off our hiking boots and bury ourselves in our sleeping bags.  Will slips and falls in the snow, 20 feet away from our tent; luckily he isn't hurt.

January 16, 2012 - There is an inch and a half of snow covering the entire campground when I blearily crawl out of the tent.  It covers everything; the jeep, the tent, the road.  We can barely walk and already the incredible feat of endurance and monumental stupidity of what we have accomplished is occurring to us.  We have hiked the Grand Canyon, to the river and back in one day and we are damned lucky that nothing horrible happened to us.  Do I want to do it again?  Hell yes!  But in April, when there is no snow on the ground and with a heck of a lot more preparation.  But it was by far the most challenging, beautiful and rewarding hike of my life and I cannot wait to go back.

Empire Ranch Part II

Here are some more pictures from my visit to the historic Empire Ranch.

The Vails, first family to live at the Empire Ranch.

The Boices, the family that occupied Empire Ranch during the 1950s.

The Empire Ranch was the beautiful location chosen for a few westerns, including the Last Train from Gun Hill.

I simply loved this picture.  Sherry Boice raised her family in one of the small homes on the Ranch.

Empire Ranch

January 7 - Continued!

Will took me to an incredible historic ranch dating from the 1870s in the area of the Coronado National Forest in Sonoita.  The Empire Ranch was owned by at least three different families before it was finally sold to the Bureau of Land Management, who is in the process of stabilizing the ranch buildings and creating, essentially, a museum.  Here are some images of the ranch and the people who called it home.

Evolution of the ranch, from foundation to its current incarnation.

Animal pens and partial view of the cowboys' quarters.

Historic photo of the ranch.

Barn, windmill.

The ranch as it stands now is huge, including the original ranch-house which had been converted into quarters for the cowboys and cook with it's adjacent animal pens, an enormous kitchen, a wing just for the children with a large Arizona room for them to sleep in during warmer weather, and the Victorian section which held the living and sitting rooms along with the master bedroom and bath.  Framed by the Victorian and children's sections is a large garden (where the above historic photo was taken) with a brick fountain and the foundation for a swimming pool which has since been filled in.

Jan 7th - The Gabe Zimmerman Memorial Trailhead

Here in Tucson we recently marked the 1 year anniversary of the shootings that took place on January 8, 2011.  Gabe Zimmerman was one of Gabriel Giffords' political aides and lost his life in the shootings.  He was apparently quite the hiker, so one of the trailheads of the Arizona Trail was dedicated in his memory.  Will and I went for the dedication ceremony and hiked part of the trail.  Here are some of the pictures from the days events.

Emily Nottingham (left), director of the Arizona Trail and Gabe's mother.

The new gate to the trailhead, featuring an image of Gabe and a dedication.

Reverse side of gate, with metal art.

Detail of reverse view of gate.

Snake bike rack.

This section of the Arizona trail is extremely beautiful and I highly recommend paying it a visit if you are at all interested in hiking.

I failed to get a picture, but Will and I were also honored to meet none other than Gabriel Giffords who arrived for the dedication ceremony.  It hadn't been announced that she was coming, so it came as a complete shock to us to see her there.  It was an incredible day.

Merry Christmas!

I thought I would post some late pictures of my lovely Christmas tree.  I found it at Goodwill, decorated it with white lights and ornaments, some from my childhood, others purchased from the St. Mary's Auxiliary Thrift store.  My handmade, stuffed Christmas wreath that is hanging on my door was found at St. Mary's as well.

I love my Christmas decorations. They feel so homey and real to me, unlike the bland, uniform Christmas decorations and ornaments you can buy just about everywhere.

 

We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up.  We made do with what we had and saved our ornaments to use year after year.  The crescent moon ornament above is one my family hung for as long as I can remember. Maybe its the reason why I feel that Christmas needs to feel handmade, salvaged, unique, for it to feel real to me.

 

I really love the baseball Santa ornament.  He looks vintage to me but there aren't any markings to date him.  Stylistically I'd guess the 1960s though.  I gave him to Will because of his love of baseball, but Santa hangs on my tree.

May you all have had a beautiful Christmas filled with friends and family and cheer!  Merry Christmas!

Love,
Cass

Halloween Party

I am still recovering from the fun of this weekend!  Sixteen hours worth of driving, one incredibly scary haunted house, late nights and partying till the wee hours equals one very sleepy Cass.  I still haven't caught up on my sleep yet.  I'm just thankful I cleaned house before I left so I didn't have a huge mess to come home to!

The Haunted House was incredible!  Richard and Christy created a website with the back story to the haunt which you can find here.  Basically it is the All Saints Lunatic Asylum which was shut down some time in the past due to mysterious experiments and the general sadistic insanity of its employees.  A Ms. Carolyn Collins purchased the Asylum and since she can't afford the upkeep, was gracious enough to allow the public to enter on self-guided tours.  Ms. Collins greeted her vict.., er, guests, in the lobby of the Asylum, and then let us inside...

They have footage of me screaming the entire way through!  I even knew all the "haunters" and I was still wigging out!  It was awesome!!  I heard stories later about people who had to be escorted out the escape entrances because they couldn't handle it.  The haunt was seriously professional quality!  There are some pictures online at their Facebook page which I encourage you to take a look at if you enjoy getting the willies!  (I'd have posted a couple but I don't want to scare people away from my blog; tell me you don't agree after checking them out!)

The party after was a lot of fun!  I had the chance to hang out with friends and family I don't get to see all year, which was awesome to say the least.  Here are a few pics of the festivities:

Will as Inspector Clouseau

Rhiannon's Raven.

Dr. S. Freud

Yours truly as Marilyn

Unfortunately my camera's flash was acting up so I couldn't take as many pictures as I would like to and somehow I was the only one taking pictures!  So there aren't that many from this year.

Marilyn costume:

• dress from Rethreads, Downtown Tucson
• earrings, vintage cluster clips, 1950s
• all other jewelry purchased at the Downtown Mercado, Tucson
• wig, Savers
• purse (and matching heels, not shown), Rethreads, Downtown Tucson
• lipstick, Mac Red (I think)

Halloween - Before the madness...

 The annual Halloween party given by my family in California kicks off at 8:30 this evening so everyone is puttering about the house cleaning, assembling, visiting and watching really bad horror movies.  I have busted out my camera and taken some preliminary shots of the festivities.  I can't wait for tonight; my costume is retro-rific!

The Halloween Cake, during the final stages of assembly

Detail of the cake.

Detail of the cake.

Terry, proud creator!

The cake is awesome!  Terry always does an incredible job creating a new Halloween-themed cake every year and this one is so detailed.  I had to share some shots of her mad creativity!

In the retro vein, I had to take a couple shots of my friend Richard's incredible Art Deco era bar!  I just about fell over in envy when I saw it.

Shot of the entire bar. The side wings and table top swing out all at once.

A portable bar on the top along with other antique and Halloween goodies.

Closeup of the swing out wings and table.

Stay posted for more incredible pics!

Knitting is a dangerous hobby

Honestly I think knitting is the primary reason why I haven't been blogging as much as I did when I first started.  Well, that and the fact that I don't have internet access at my apartment and have to lug my (admittedly small and very light) netbook with me into work and use the library's wifi.  I'm a lazy slob, I'll admit it.  But the knitting is to blame too.  I've been knitting on the bus to work, at home, while waiting for a ball game to start.  It's getting bad.  I actually have to negotiate when I will put my knitting down and do something important, like jump in the shower and wash my hair so I don't look like one of Downtown's resident homeless when I go to work the next day.

*sigh*

 It probably doesn't help that I've given myself the task of knitting gifts for everyone on my Christmas list this year.  I believe in homemade gifts above all others.  When I was growing up, my family was dirt poor.  So much so that my Mom got in the habit of "bracing" us for the potential of not having a Christmas.  Every year.  But somehow she always scraped together enough to buy some yarn and make us all slippers.  Which, since we only had electric space heaters for most of the time I was growing up, went a loooong way to keeping our feet warm through the winter!  They were beautiful, practical, warm and - even better - they were handmade by my partially blind mother with carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists and she always would give them to us with this self deprecating statement like "I wish I could have given you guys something better" or "I know its not much but" or something like that.  Many times she will talk about how much she regrets the past, not being able to give my sister and I better things, like she had disappointed us or somehow been a bad parent.

It makes me want to shake her and kiss her at the same time.  My Mother is incredibly talented.  She is a master of crochet and has taught herself to knit.  In fact she was the one who taught me when I went back to Ohio last month to visit with her.  She cooks from scratch, makes the world's best flour tortillas, made my birthday cake every single year and baked sugar cookies and cranberry-apple turnovers for every Christmas morning.  She sewed the dress I wore to homecoming and the one I wore to graduation and the one I wore as Maid of Honor at my best friend's wedding.  She taught me how to cook; how to read a recipe and how to ignore one.  She taught me how to suck it up and carry the heavy loads and do without or to make do with what you have.

She is an incredible woman.

Ok, back to the knitting. :)  So far I've knit a pair of bright orange legwarmers (hurry up and get chilly, weather!  I wanna wear 'em soooo bad!), a shawl and two scarves.  I finished the last one just this morning, promising myself I would wait to start the next one until after I've checked my email and updated my blog.  I have the skein sitting in my huge purse.  It's big enough to hold all my purse things and my knitting at the same time and my mama gave it to me!

crazy life update

Yes, things have been crazy lately.  I'm just grateful all the craziness comes in terms of "lots of stuff that have to be done NOW" as opposed to anything tragic or sad.  Nope.  I moved into a new apartment this weekend.  It was in the same complex but in a quieter section away from the noisy-messy-rude college kids (man, don't get me started!).  Since it was in the same complex, and I lack what could be called traditional furniture, I had the brilliant idea to schlep everything from the one building to the other primarily by myself.  By hand.  Do you know how many books I own??? I have to think I was on something when I came up with this little scheme.

Amazingly enough, though, it worked!  I moved my entire apartment, cleaned up the old one and got my new one into cozy livability in one weekend.  In the meantime I ache in places I didn't know I could and I feel like I hiked up Mt. Wasson, oh, maybe two or three times in one day.  I wish I had kept track of my mileage and how much weight I lugged.  It would have been neat to see how many calories I burned.  Did I mention that I'm upstairs, again, so there were two flights of stairs to traverse on every trip?  Crazy!

Will pitched in on a bunch of the heavier stuff which was desperately appreciated, especially when it came time to move my antique Chinese desk.  It's beautiful, with deep relief carvings on all sides and the back of the matching chair.  It's not particularly heavy once you've got the drawers out, but its awkward and it causes me anxiety to imagine the reliefs getting chipped or damaged in any way.  I will have to post a pic and share its loveliness!  Time to bust out the camera and get my lazy blogging butt back to work!

My Grandmother

I spent a wonderful time in Ohio visiting with my family.  I had to share these pictures of my grandmother which she graciously let me make copies of.  Presenting: Carol Arter.

Carol and Tom Arter, 1951

Tom and Carol Arter, 1951 (?)

Carol Arter, c. 1950

Carol and Tom Arter, on their honeymoon, 1950

My grandmother is gorgeous!  I have many, many more pictures of her, but these are some of my favorites.  I would love to have her sense of poise and polish, not to mention her clothes!  And my grandfather is quite the looker too, no?