“The Couve”

At the western end of the Columbia River Gorge, 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, in a wide valley at the foot of the Cascade Range, the cities of Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, face each other across the Columbia River.

On the south bank is Portland, population 588,000. On the north bank is Vancouver, population 162,000.

According to the local joke, the city is Vancouver (not the one in British Columbia), Washington (not the District of Columbia), in Clark County (not the one in Las Vegas), across the river from Portland (not the one in Maine).

To the locals, Vancouver is “the Couve.”

When Europeans first arrived there in 1775, the area was inhabited by an estimated 80,000 Native Americans, mostly of the Chinook and Klickitat nations. By the time the Lewis & Clark expedition camped there in 1805, half the natives were dead from smallpox.

By 1850, smallpox, measles, malaria, and influenza had reduced the native population to a few dozen miserable refugees whose land had been taken by the white settlers who brought the diseases.

But, hey — we Americans prefer to look forward, not backward, right?

Meriwether Lewis wrote that the Vancouver area was “the only desired situation for settlement west of the Rocky Mountains.” High praise from a guy who had reason to know.

The location isn’t perfect. Rain is a frequent thing, and occasionally, an ice storm will shut the city down.

On the other hand, heavy snow is infrequent, and the Columbia River has been neutered and doesn’t flood anymore. And when the clouds go away, you can look up and see Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Mount Adams, and Mount Saint Helens, looming above in all their glory.

Today, Vancouver is a bona fide bedroom community of Portland, not only because of the relative sizes of the cities, but also for economic reasons.

In Oregon, the income tax is high, but the state levies no sales tax. In Washington, there is no income tax at all, but the sales tax is 6.5 percent.

Consequently, people shop in Portland to dodge the sales tax, and they live in Vancouver to avoid the income tax.

I got to know a bit about Vancouver in 2010, when I spent two weeks exploring the Pacific Northwest and used Vancouver as my base of operations.

Downtown Vancouver is attractive and pleasant. A long stretch of the riverfront is public space — incredibly, green and undeveloped — and accessible to the water‘s edge. I wandered along the bank for quite a distance in the company of joggers, picnickers, and several kids wading in the water as their moms looked on.

One day, I had possibly the best meal of my life at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in downtown Vancouver. It was a divinely flavorful seafood soup.

I have a weakness for Oriental seafood soup, and that soup was as the nectar of the gods. Every spoonful was sublime — an almost religious experience. Even now, the memory of it gives me pangs of delight.

But I digress.

The Couve is a very walkable city. The same day I had that marvelous soup, I wandered for over an hour around Esther Short Park, Vancouver’s main public park and town square, which is about five acres in size.

After the trip, I did some research and learned a few interesting things about the city and the park.

For one, I learned that over the last couple of decades, Vancouver has faced two chronic problems: slow economic decline (everyone shops in Portland) and the presence of homeless people, lots of ’em, in the downtown area.

For another, I learned that the public square in Esther Short Park is the oldest in the state. It is anchored by the Salmon Run Clock and Bell Tower, which features (in addition to the salmon running around the base) a glockenspiel that goes off three times a day and relates a Chinook tribal legend.

The park is named for Esther Short, the founding mother of Vancouver and a colorful and fascinating character. She, her husband Amos, and their children arrived there in 1845 and established a farm near the British Fort Vancouver.

The British army and its corporate ally, the Hudson’s Bay Company, were not pleased with their new neighbors. The British wanted to confine American settlements to the south bank of the river. They wanted Amos and Esther gone.

At one point, while Amos was away, British soldiers rounded up Esther and her children and set them adrift on the Columbia River in an oarless raft.

Esther managed to beach the raft, and no one was hurt. Amos undoubtedly went bonkers when he returned, and, yes, the situation went downhill from there.

According to one version of events, the Shorts were squatters on British land. When the legitimate owner of the property went to California on business, he left his caretaker, David Gardner, in charge.

There was a confrontation. Amos shot and killed Gardner, then promptly went to court and filed a claim on the land in his own name.

A second version is that ownership of the land was unclear. Gardner, an officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company, tore down a fence Amos had built and ordered the Shorts off the land. Shots were exchanged, and Gardner was killed.

Amos, then, was either a murdering claim-jumper, or he acted to defend his home and family. He was, in fact, tried for murder and acquitted.

Not long after the trial, Amos drowned when his ship capsized at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Esther carried on and did quite well. Over time, she opened a restaurant and a couple of hotels. She also donated several strategic pieces of property to the new city of Vancouver.

One piece she donated in 1855 was the land for Esther Short Park. Another was the long strip of undeveloped waterfront.

The unsinkable Esther Short.

Fast-forward to the 1990s. By that time, Esther Short Park was old and shabby and largely populated by street people — the homeless, the mentally ill, hippies, panhandlers, bag ladies, eccentrics, and etcetera.

In 1996, a newspaper article named the park as “the nucleus of the majority of emergency 911 calls in the city.”

One day in 1997, while the mayor of Vancouver was attending an event designed to help make the park a more family-friendly place, he was rammed from behind by a street person pushing a shopping cart.

The angry assailant threatened the mayor and warned him to leave.

That did it. The man was arrested, and public support surged for efforts to take back and clean up the park.

My guess is, the police also began to crack heads and otherwise make the park less appealing to the “undesirables.”

Slowly, things turned around. By 2007, Vancouver and Esther Short Park were winning awards for excellence.

I should mention, however, that the park today is not transient-free.

During my afternoon stroll there in 2010, I noticed several unkempt or colorfully-dressed persons who were not tourists, business types, moms with strollers, or kids playing in the fountains.

In fact, for a solid half hour, one woman pushed her shopping cart slowly back and forth along the sidewalk while shouting at the top of her voice, addressing no one in particular. Profanities and incoherent babble rained down in all directions.

The moms and tourists and business types completely ignored the woman.

I suppose they can afford to be charitable. The park now belongs to them.

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Memories of Death Valley

In December 2005, after Death Valley National Park had cooled off for the year, I drove to California and spent a fascinating four days exploring the place. Memories of that trip still pop into my head from time to time. Apparently, I was impressed.

You probably know the basics about Death Valley, even if you haven’t been there: it’s the hottest, driest, lowest point in North America.

In July 1913, an all-time world record high of 134°F was recorded on the valley floor. In July of the year I was there, the temperature reached 129°F. Best to avoid Julys.

Rainfall-wise, the valley has averaged about two inches per year over the last 30 years. That’s an improvement. The historic yearly average is 1.6 inches.

Altitude-wise, the lowest point in the valley is the lowest point in North America: Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level.

Death Valley got the way it is because of its unique geography; the valley is a long, narrow basin walled in by mountains. On the west side, the Panamint Range blocks storms moving in from the Pacific Ocean. The western slopes get the rainfall, and almost none reaches the valley.

Deprived of moisture, the desert air becomes steadily hotter and drier. The heated air rises, but is trapped by the mountains on both sides. It cools a bit, falls again, and compresses the air below it, heating the air further. You learned that in high school physics, right?

If you look at the daily high and low temperatures in Death Valley over the course of a year, you get an average high of 90°F and an average low of 62°F.

So, Death Valley is a hot, dry, low-lying desert. Those fundamentals, I knew. But when I finally got there, I wasn’t prepared for the diversity.

For one thing, I didn’t expect to find heavily-forested mountains that are snow-capped in winter. Telescope Peak, the tallest mountain in the Panamints, rises 11,049 feet above sea level. Badwater Basin is a mere 15 miles away.

The Park has plenty of other surprises…

A giant salt flat on the floor of the valley covers 200 square miles. The salt has accumulated over thousands of years, washed down out of the mountains by periodic floods. Because the valley is an enclosed basin, the water is trapped in temporary lakes. When they evaporate in the arid climate, another layer of salt is added to the crust.

In the surrounding mountains, countless canyons and dry washes deliver a steady supply of sand to the valley floor. Most is dispersed by the constant wind. But in a few places, sand dunes accumulate. Death Valley has five sets of dunes, the largest standing over 700 feet tall. The sprawling dune field at Mesquite Flat is conveniently located next to the Park’s main road.

Salt isn’t the only mineral buried in the valley floor. In 1881, large-scale borax mining began in Death Valley. The operation at Furnace Creek became famous for using teams of 20 mules to haul double wagons of borax 200 miles over the mountains to the nearest railroad. The site of the old Harmony Borax Works, closed since 1889, is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

One of the most incongruous sights in Death Valley is “Scotty’s Castle,” a Spanish-style mansion built in the 1920s by Chicago millionaire Albert Johnson as a vacation getaway. When construction started, Johnson’s friend Walter Scott, a free-spirited prospector of questionable repute known as “Death Valley Scotty,” told the locals that he was building the mansion himself, using proceeds from a secret gold mine. Amused, Johnson let Scott have his fun, and the name “Scotty’s Castle” stuck. The mansion was turned into a hotel for a while, and now the Park owns it.

Another odd sight: high in the Panamint Range are 10 masonry charcoal kilns, beehive-shaped and 25 feet tall. The kilns were built in 1877 by rich mining expert George Hearst (daddy of rich publisher William Randolph Hearst). The charcoal was used to fuel the smelters at Hearst’s nearby lead and silver mines. When the mines played out, the kilns were abandoned. You can go inside them, but mind the soot.

Death Valley is home to eight ghost towns, most founded by miners or outlaws between the 1870s and the 1920s. The largest of the towns is (was) Rhyolite, located just outside the Park on BLM land. Rhyolite lasted from 1905 until 1916. In its heyday, the town had over 5,000 residents, two churches, and 50 saloons.

The “Bottle House” in Rhyolite was constructed using 30,000 empty beer bottles. Except for the bottles, it’s just an ordinary building. The Bottle House was badly vandalized after Rhyolite was abandoned, but in 1925, Paramount Pictures restored the building as an investment; by then, the place was being used as a movie set.

There’s plenty more to see in Death Valley. Ubehebe Crater (pronounced YOO-bee-HEE-bee) is a volcanic crater, age uncertain, that is 600 feet deep and half a mile across. Ubehebe (a marvelous word that should be spoken with feeling) is a Shoshone word that means “big basket in the rock.”

Elsewhere, tucked away in a remote canyon, is a massive natural bridge. You are not surprised to find such a thing in this rocky, bone-dry country.

However, in another remote canyon is beautiful Darwin Falls, hidden in a fern-covered glen. Totally unexpected.

Then there is “The Racetrack,” where rocks mysteriously slide across a dry lake bed, leaving tell-tale tracks behind them. No one has seen it happen, but the speculation is that after a rain, the surface becomes slippery, and the wind is able to push the rocks slowly along.

And there is “Devil’s Hole,“ a hot water spring inside a limestone cavern, fed by a vast aquifer. The pool is known to be an indicator of seismic activity around the world. Earthquakes as far away as Japan have caused the water in Devil’s Hole to slosh like water in a bathtub.

All of the above is tourist stuff. Anyone can see it, photograph it, write about it, and plenty of people do.

But my trip to Death Valley that year had an added benefit that was private and personal and intimate.

Well, maybe someone else experienced it, but not from my vantage point. Let me explain.

The morning I left Death Valley to start the drive home, I was on the road before dawn. I left early because the motel dining room at Stovepipe Wells didn’t open for another two hours. Hungry and irritated, I drove off in hopes of finding breakfast somewhere else.

What I found was a spectacular sunrise.

I remember it vividly. I had just left the Park and was driving south through Panamint Valley, heading for the little town of Ridgecrest and civilization once again.

For miles, the road was arrow-straight. Beyond my headlights, everything was black. I knew from the absence of headlights and taillights that it was just me and the stars and the desert.

Then slowly, the predawn light began to reveal the landscape. I could make out a few mountain shapes in the distance. I could see faintly the outlines of ocotillo and saguaro cactuses. I became aware of a barely perceptible glow on the horizon, revealing where the sun would rise.

Soon, I came to a place where the highway climbed a small hill. On the right, at the top of the rise, was a large, level pullout. I coasted in and turned off the engine.

For the next 20 minutes, I sat on the hood of my car, waiting for the sunrise, enjoying the solitude, contemplating what a fortunate fellow I am.

When the sunrise came, it was glorious.

The photos I took that morning are among my all-time favorites. A 30” X 40” enlargement of this one has been on my living room wall ever since.

 

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The Petrified Forest

It’s funny how things work out. Last month, I spent the day at Petrified Forest National Park — my first visit there since the late 1990s — and my most vivid memory is of getting a lucky photo of a passing train.

Let me begin at the beginning.

Petrified Forest NP in east-central Arizona sits astraddle Interstate 40, not far from the New Mexico border. The region is classified as “native Arizona grassland,” which you can take to mean a parched, treeless, windblown desert populated by rocks, tumbleweeds, and a suitably hardy selection of plants and animals.

In the hierarchy of national parks, Petrified Forest is not a hugely-revered national jewel or a top-tier destination.

In fact, the Park is a bit of a one-trick pony; you go there to see the countless petrified logs, sprawled at random across the barren landscape — which now, ages after they were formed, ironically is treeless.

In fairness, if you count the considerable number of petroglyphs on view among the rocks, maybe the park is a two-trick pony.

Really, I don’t make these observations with malice. The Park has limited interest, but that’s okay. It is what it is, and that, in fact, is pretty remarkable.

The Park does a good job of presenting itself to visitors. It covers roughly 150 square miles and features a main north-south road 28 miles long.

The place is designed around a succession of parking lots, where one leaves one’s vehicle and sets off down paved loop trails to see the namesake logs up close. The system works fine.

Except in the rain.

Due to its desert location, the Park experiences precious few rainy days. But, as I learned last month, a rainy day there leaves you car-bound and seriously bummed out.

Let me set the scene about Petrified Forest NP and the abundance of fossilized logs it protects.

Most of the petrified trees in the Park are from the pine and fern families. They lived during the Late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago.

At the time, that region of the globe was located near the equator, on the supercontinent of Pangaea. The first dinosaurs and the earliest crocodiles were evolving. The climate was sub-tropical and humid.

The trees became petrified via a process called permineralization, which worked this way:

– When trees in the huge forests died and fell, some were carried downstream by creeks and rivers. Along the way, most of the logs were stripped of bark and branches.

– Eventually, the trees became wedged in great logjams and could go no further.

– Wood lying on the Earth’s surface will deteriorate, but some of the logs became buried in sediment, where, deprived of oxygen, the wood was preserved.

– There underground, water in the sediment percolated gently through the cells of the wood.

– Under the right conditions, minerals in the water — silica, quartz, manganese, carbon — slowly replaced the organic material of the tree, while the plant retained its original structure and appearance.

– The result was petrified wood: trees with cells of stone.

All of this, of course, took place below the surface. It took ages of uplifting and erosion to bring the petrified logs, some whole, some in chunks, some in fragments, to the surface.

The area was well-known long before it was established as a National Monument in 1906. How well-known was it? Well, the NM designation was intended to stop the systematic removal of petrified wood in large-scale commercial operations.

Petrified wood rapidly became a hot commodity, valuable enough to attract hoards of well-organized profiteers who mined it and sold it around the country.

In 1962, the NM was elevated to National Park status. By then, the commercial looting was more or less under control.

But the Park has continued to rail about the consequences of visitors illegally pocketing souvenir pieces of petrified wood. They say tourists steal about 12 tons of it per year.

Clearly, walking off with souvenirs is destructive and wrong. But is 12 tons annually all that consequential, out of a Park of 150 square miles? Remember, in the early years, countless wagonloads of petrified wood were stolen from the region daily.

Is it consequential? Maybe so, when you consider that most thefts by tourists occur from the most important, most visited sites in the facility.

Personally, I have resolved to be a good citizen who does not purloin artifacts. On this trip, I avoided the temptation of illegally taking home a piece of petrified wood by purchasing a souvenir chunk at the Visitor Center.

My prize is a nicely polished $2.00 specimen with a magnet glued to the back, which now resides on my refrigerator.

My day at Petrified Forest National Park did not begin well. It was a gloomy Wednesday morning when I left my hotel in Winslow and drove to the southern entrance to the Park.

By the time I arrived, so had a light rain.

I pulled up to the entrance station and reached for my Golden Age Passport, the lifetime National Parks entrance pass to which us old-timers are entitled, and to which the rest of you can only aspire.

The pass wasn’t there. I had left it in my hotel room.

The ranger lady at the gate listened to my sad story.

“I really do have a Golden Age Passport,” I moaned. “In fact, I have two of them. I went to Grand Canyon a few years ago, and I left my parks pass at home, so I had to buy a second one. I keep one in each car now, but I only brought one on this trip, and I left that in my room at the La Posada Hotel in Winslow. Please don’t make me buy a third one.”

The ranger lady stood with her forearm resting on the sill of the open window with practiced ease, nodding.

“Well,” she said finally, “With this rain, it ain’t much of a day for seein’ the place.”

She handed me a map of the Park. “But go ahead in.”

For the next hour-plus, I drove north through the Park, stopping at each parking lot/loop trail on the map. I peered wistfully into the gloom at the vague outlines of petrified logs dotting the distant hillsides.

Several times, I lowered the car window and took a photo, or pulled close enough to a roadside display to read it. But the drive, all in all, was hugely depressing.

However, by the time I reached the north end of the Park, the rain had stopped.

My plan had been to exit the Park at the north end, return in defeat to Winslow, and have a beer. But, hey — why not turn around and drive back south through the Park to try again?

Figuring I would get some lunch and stretch my legs first, I stopped at the North Entrance visitor center.

At the front door, I was greeted by a sign that said, PAY ENTRANCE FEE OR SHOW PREPAID PASS AT FRONT DESK.

Instead of going inside, I pretended I forgot something, went back to the car, and drove away slowly.

My second drive through the Park was as satisfying as the first had been dismal. I stopped at the same parking lots again — all of which I entered backwards, so they seemed new — and I walked the loop trails and took photos like a proper tourist.

In that last photo, the various colors are created by different minerals. Yellow, brown, and orange come from goethite, a common iron-rich oxide. White is produced by pure silica. Red is created by hematite, a form of oxidized iron that develops with minimal oxygen. (Think of iron stains in a porcelain sink.)

At the beginning of my tale, I mentioned a lucky photo of a passing train.

I took the photo from atop a bridge where the main park road, going north-south, crosses over the east-west tracks of the BNSF Railroad.

That afternoon, while returning south, I saw the train on my left, approaching from the north, still a great distance out. I was alone on the road.

Idling in my car on top of the bridge, I got out my camera (a Canon point-and-shoot that performed better than I expected on that trip) and zoomed in.

No, too far away. Not a good shot.

I hesitated to step out of the vehicle to get a photo, so I pulled the car over into the wrong lane, next to the north side of the bridge. If a car came along, I would have time to move.

The train came steadily closer. It was a diesel freight train, the kind you see regularly crossing the country, loaded with double-stacked containers bearing the names of companies — Maersk and Hanjin and such — that we don’t know beans about.

I zoomed in slightly, held my camera in the air to avoid the bridge railing, and fired off a shot.

Drat! I cut off half the engine.

The train was getting closer. I backed off on the zoom and repeated the procedure.

Dang! Out of focus.

By then, the train was looming in front of me, just short of the bridge, traveling at whatever hair-raising speed trains travel on a straightaway in the desert.

I had one last chance to get a photo, and I was rattled. I didn’t have time to think or to adjust the camera — only to fire. I raised my left arm out of the window and pointed the camera at the train.

The engineer, seeing a car paused on the bridge, gave a deafening blast of the horn. The sound buffeted the car as the train rumbled under the bridge.

As the train receded to the west, I snapped two more photos, both forgettable.

Then I checked the camera and found this photo — level, sharp, and well-framed, but owing entirely to blind luck.

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LOVE

My trip last month to northern Arizona began and ended in Las Vegas.

The reason: the air fare. From Atlanta, flying to Las Vegas was cheaper than flying to Phoenix. Also cheaper than Birmingham to Phoenix, Greenville to Las Vegas, etc. I checked all the possibilities.

My son Dustin’s reaction was emphatic. “I hate Las Vegas,” he said like he meant it.

An understandable position. But I find Las Vegas entertaining — fascinating like a train wreck, if you will — and I hadn’t been there in a number of years. I was okay with how things worked out.

Not only that, I decided to hang around town for an extra day, rather than head to Arizona right away. My eventual destinations, Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest and Canyon de Chelly and so on, weren’t going anywhere.

So I booked two nights at my motel (an ordinary Best Western, thank you, not one of the resorts on the Strip), which gave me a full day to do the tourist thing.

In my case, doing the tourist thing means trudging along the Strip, meandering in and out of the casinos and resorts, playing the dollar slots now and then, taking photos, dining at my short list of favorite eateries, and observing that highly entertaining parade of Americana, the vacationing tourists.

In the course of my meandering, I came to The Mirage Hotel and Casino.

For the uninitiated, The Mirage is a fancy property owned by MGM Resorts International. That conglomerate also owns Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, New York-New York, Luxor, Excalibur, Circus Circus, and a bunch of others.

With that kind of resources, The Mirage has become the permanent home of a huge theatrical production entitled LOVE — the music of The Beatles as interpreted by Cirque du Soleil.

One ad describes it as, “The timeless music of The Beatles(TM) meets the magical imagination of Cirque du Soleil(R).”

Now, there’s an odd juxtaposition for you. What’s next — Rumpole of the Bailey as read by Willie Nelson? Leonard Cohen sings your Lil Wayne favorites?

Whether the thing works or not, I can’t say. I didn’t have the time or the desire to attend the show. I certainly wasn’t coughing up $150 for a ticket.

But inside The Mirage, I came across a light show advertising the performance that was pretty amazing in its own right.

The light show is located in the hallway in front of the LOVE box office. It consists of coordinated lights in the floor, ceiling, and walls that run automatically, 24/7.

The lights are strobes that slowly change color, from red to green to white to blue to red again. The display incorporates a back-lit British flag in the ceiling. In the center of the back wall are the stylized silhouettes of four dancing figures, representing the Beatles.

Music, of course, plays in synch with the lights. I remember the thumping beat of a drum machine, but whether an actual tune is involved, I can’t recall.

Up close, you are surrounded by the color and the beat and submerged in the spectacle. It’s a bit overwhelming.

From a distance, however, you can maintain your perspective, observe the light show, and appreciate the art of it all. The effect is really quite beautiful.

I knew immediately that I wanted a photo. And I wanted it during the red phase, which was the most dramatic.

Out came my camera. The hallway was empty. I composed the shot horizontally, rejected that, and switched to vertical. Better.

While I waited for the lights to cycle back to red, a young mother came toward me into the frame, leading a little girl by the hand. The child was about three or four years old.

Drat, I thought. Go away. But I quickly realized that having figures in the photo added to the scene — gave it scale and interest.

Stay where you are, little girl.

And she did. More than that, she stopped walking, yanked her hand away from mom, and stepped toward the center of the hall. She stood there, looking down, studying the lights.

As the strobes transitioned to red, the little girl looked up at the four silhouettes on the back wall, paused — and broke into a vigorous dance.

It was an impromptu jig, sort of an Irish stepdance, à la Michael Flatley in Lord of the Dance — arms motionless, feet flying.

As the little girl danced to the beat, and her pigtails jerked crazily in the air, her mother stood on the left side of the hall watching.

Then at the last second, a woman came down the hall on the right side, adding balance to the scene. Bingo.

Below is my photo.

What’s not to love?

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Canyon de Chelly

Canyon de Chelly, located in the northeast corner of Arizona, has been an important part of Navajo culture since the Navajo — the Diné, the People — arrived in the region some 500 years ago.

Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de shay), is 26 miles of sandstone canyon, in some places a thousand feet deep, where for generations, Navajo families have lived, farmed, traded, and retreated for protection from their enemies.

Various civilizations have lived in Canyon de Chelly for 5,000 years. Over 700 ruins, cliff dwellings, and petroglyph sites have been identified.

In 1931, the canyon was set aside as a National Monument in order to protect the fragile sites within it. Legally, it is owned by the Navajo, and about 40 Navajo families live in the canyon. Access to the canyon is restricted, and visitors are allowed to travel in the canyon only when accompanied by a park ranger or an authorized Navajo guide.

Technically, the Monument consists of two canyons. The southern arm is Canyon de Chelly — de Chelly being a corruption of the Navajo word tsegi, which means “rock canyon.” The northern branch is Canyon del Muerto, Spanish for “Canyon of the Dead.”

Physically, the canyon is wide and open, with a sandy floor that changes with every rainfall. Even though the canyon is subject to flooding, and the flood waters can be catastrophic, large sections of the valley floor are safe for fields and structures.

I went to Canyon de Chelly for the first time about 10 years ago. Back then, the Navajo-owned Thunderbird Lodge ran tours of the canyon. They seated the tourists is the backs of large trucks — open in the summer, enclosed in Plexiglas in the winter.

So, when I scheduled a return visit to the canyon in January 2013, I expected to sign up for a truck tour. I was ready for an interesting half day of laborious lumbering and bouncing through the water and the sand, with plenty of stops for photography.

When I arrived, however, I learned that the truck tours are history. There was an incident — a fatal incident in which a vehicle overturned and killed a couple of prominent geologists — and the trucks were retired.

But the demise of the truck tours simply opened up the market for other local outfitters. The young Navajo park ranger at the front desk handed me a sheet listing about half a dozen companies that conduct canyon tours in four-wheel drive, high-clearance vehicles.

“I can’t recommend one over another,” she said. “They’re all local residents, certified and authorized. Just call one and make a deal. They’ll meet you at the visitor center, and off you go.”

After a quick lunch, I called one of the numbers at random. Half an hour later, I stood in the parking lot shaking hands with Dave Wilson, a veteran Navajo guide driving an equally veteran Mercury Montero.

Dave said his family is one of the 40 still living and working in the canyon. He told me he was born in Canyon del Muerto and has farmland and horses there.

All true. When I got back to Georgia, I couldn’t resist Googling Dave Wilson, and there he was. He is one of Canyon de Chelly’s original certified guides and founder of the Tsegi Guide Association. He also conducts tours for the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

His online bio says he was born in Canyon del Muerto, where his ancestors settled after returning from the Long Walk of 1864.

(I will address that sorry episode, in which the Navajos were deported from their tribal land at gunpoint and forced to march to Eastern New Mexico, sometime soon.)

“Up there, that’s First Ruin,” Dave told me as we started into the canyon, pointing to a small ruin in a natural alcove. “It’s called First Ruin because it’s the first ruin you see when you enter the canyon. It’s an Anasazi ruin — Ancestral Puebloan people.”

Dave was the stoic sort, as most Navajo are, but he delivered jokes and one-liners with relish. I resolved to be a good straight man. It was the polite thing to do.

When we passed a hogan, a traditional eight-sided Navajo structure, Dave said, “Did you ever wonder why Navajo men build the hogans round?”

“Why is that?” I asked dutifully.

“So their wives can’t pin them in a corner.”

For the next couple of hours, we swerved and bounced through Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto, stopping often at petroglyph sites and cliff dwellings. Dave pointed out the key features and the relative ages of everything.

“Up there is a mix of old and new petroglyphs,” he explained at one point. “The geometric patterns are Anasazi, going back to about 300 AD. The rest are more recent.

“Whenever you see a horse petroglyph, it was done after the 1700s. Weren’t any horses here until the Spanish came.”

I said I had noticed a horse drawing that was in full color and had a more modern look.

“Yeah, one of my neighbors probably did that one last night.”

We passed beneath a large rock cliff that jutted above the roadway precipitously.

“We call this Martini Rock,” Dave said.

I asked why.

“Because of the tremendous hangover.”

“See that stick?” he added, “Over there under the rock?” I did.

“We’re all afraid to remove it.”

During the drive, Dave stopped to identify Cat Rock.

And Alfred Hitchcock Rock.

And the dead duck.

We stopped to see ruins large and small. Several times, he dropped me off to wander around and take pictures while he waited in the car with the seat reclined, resting his eyes.

At one point, several miles into Canyon del Muerto, he pointed ahead. “Up there — that’s my son and my daughter-in-law,” he said. He stopped the Montero next to a young couple stacking firewood into the bed of an old pickup and got out.

The three of them chatted for a minute, then Dave got back behind the wheel. “They’re gathering firewood for my sister,” he told me. “She’s 80. Lives alone up on the rim.”

Around the next bend, Dave brought the Montero to a halt again. He pointed toward a cliff dwelling halfway up the canyon wall.

“That ruin up there is called Dead Cow Ruin,” he said.

I studied the wall around the ruin, looking for a petroglyph, perhaps of a cow, lying down. Nothing.

“Dead Cow Ruin?” I repeated. Dave nodded.

Then I spotted the telltale hump of an actual dead cow, sprawled in the undergrowth below the ruin.

“My God!” I exclaimed. “How long has that poor cow been there?”

“Couple of days. They’ll probably dig a hole and bury it today or tomorrow. Good thing it’s winter.”

“Too bad about the cow,” he said. “But, we all gotta go sometime.”

The time had come to turn around and head home. As we bounced down-canyon, I looked out at cliff dwellings that Dave had identified a short time earlier, but whose names (with the exception of Dead Cow Ruin) were quickly escaping me.

Several minutes later, he gestured up through the windshield again.

“Up there, that’s Last Ruin,” he said. “We call it Last Ruin because it’s the last one you see when you leave the canyon.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought you said that was First –”

Doh!  

Dave should have paid me that day.

When we reached the mouth of the canyon and emerged onto the pavement again, I noticed the office of one of Dave’s competitors, Changing Woman Tours.

I pointed to the place and said, “I almost called her this morning. I’ve heard the name Changing Woman before. She’s someone important in Diné culture, isn’t she?”

“Changing Woman gave birth to the Diné,” he explained. “She brought us into the world. She symbolizes the power of women, and the earth, to create and sustain life. She is called Changing Woman because her youth is renewed as the seasons progress.”

“But,” he continued, “That isn’t why the lady who runs the tours uses the name Changing Woman.”

I took the bait. Why does she use that name?

“She just got divorced.”

The dramatic wall of desert varnish above White House Ruin.

The slender double spire of Spider Rock, 800 feet tall, is the home of Spider Woman, who taught the Diné the art of weaving.

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Antelope Canyon

Antelope Canyon is an awe-inspiring slot canyon located on Navajo land just outside the city of Page in northeast Arizona. The canyon was formed by erosion — flood waters cutting down through the Navajo Sandstone, one monsoon season after another. The process is ongoing.

Antelope Canyon is not a “grand” type of canyon, but a narrow defile that at times can be claustrophobic. Often, you can reach out and touch both walls with your hands, and you may need to turn sideways to get through.

Meanwhile, way, way up above your head, the sky is occasionally visible.

Photographers and tourists adore Antelope Canyon for its spectacular colors and shapes. The Navajo Nation adores the visitors and no doubt takes in a goodly sum from entrance fees and guided tours.

Actually, there are two Antelope Canyons — upper and lower. The upper canyon is a short distance away via four-wheel-drive vehicle, and the canyon floor is more or less flat. Most tourists sign up for that tour.

Lower Antelope Canyon is steeper, narrower, and a bit more challenging. It begins within sight of the parking lot.

I saw both canyons for the first time about 10 years ago. The experience was thrilling, but my photos were lacking. It isn’t an easy place to photograph.

So last month, when I scheduled a two-week trip to Arizona, I put a return trip to the canyon on my itinerary.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Ten years ago, I paid the entrance fee and ventured down into Lower Antelope Canyon alone. But nowadays, under the current rules, casual visitors must have a guide. I was turned over to a friendly, 30-ish young man names Victor.

While Victor was getting ready, the dude who takes the money motioned me over.

“Look,” he said, “These guides are experts on photographing Antelope Canyon — real experts.

“They’ve seen every model of every brand of camera. They know which settings to use in the different seasons and lighting conditions.

“If you’re cooperative and pleasant, Victor will ask to see your camera. Give it to him. Some people don’t want anyone messing with their gear, but trust him. He knows what he’s doing.”

I gave the dude a thumbs up and thanked him. Victor soon appeared, and the two of us set off toward the entrance to the canyon.

The entrance to Lower Antelope Canyon. The day was overcast. I didn’t know what that would do to my photography.

Descending into the canyon. In the old days, they used rope ladders.

Victor was an affable sort, and we got along well. I snapped a few photos. In the viewfinder, they looked… okay. But clearly, the camera wasn’t capturing the gorgeous signature orange of the sandstone.

But then, I was using a new camera, a modest Canon PowerShot SX260, purchased only days before the trip. The thing had capabilities I knew nothing about. I wasn’t able to drift very far from auto mode.

This shot is typical of what I was getting:

Then, Victor spoke up.

“Rocky, can I take a look at your camera?”

Like a world champion manipulating a Rubik’s Cube, Victor quickly drilled down into the menus of my Canon. Twenty seconds later, he handed it back.

“Try this,” he said casually.

I looked at the settings. The camera was set in the “underwater” shooting mode.

What the –?

Oh, well, I thought. Might as well see what happens. I turned and took this photo.

Wow!

Babbling and ooh-aahing happily, I commenced to taking shots in every direction.

The photo fest went on for another hour. I went home with a solid bunch of photos that, even though taken with a pocket-size Canon, are vastly superior to those I took on my first trip with a big honking Nikon SLR. (May the Nikon gods forgive me.)

And no question, I owe it all to Victor.

They say the photography in Antelope Canyon is best in the summer months. Between March and October, beams of direct sunlight reach down to the canyon floor in some spots. That gets the shutterbugs salivating.

You should see the place. I recommend it highly. And please, ask for Victor.

Victor leads the way.

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On the Road #7

Seventh and final in a series of stories from my road trip last month to the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Desert Southwest.

—————

Making Amends

Last year, I did a bad thing.

It didn’t register at first. Instead, I concluded slowly and painfully that the deed of which I speak was wrong.

It started in New Mexico in April 2011, when I visited Chaco Canyon, the ancestral home of most of today’s pueblo tribes.

The civilization in Chaco Canyon, known as Anasazi or Ancient Puebloan, rose around 800 AD and lasted for 300 years. The experts say Chaco was a place where native groups met to trade and compare notes about regional goings-on.

Chaco Canyon is seen by many of today’s Southwest tribes as a key stop along their migration path. They consider it important to their history, a spiritual place to be honored and respected.

Chaco is a remote and fascinating spot. I hadn’t been there in 30 years, so I spent a lot of time exploring the massive ruins and enjoying the solitude.

On the south side of the canyon is Casa Rinconada, a huge subterranean kiva surrounded by the ruins of smaller structures. The site is accessed by a half-mile trail that loops away from the road and into a box canyon.

The day I was there, I was alone. I took my time following the map and stopping at the numbered guideposts.

At some point, I left the trail and began wandering around, looking at the ruins, plants, rocks, bugs, and lizards.

Then, in the same way that your eye detects a four-leaf clover amid a sea of shamrocks, I spotted a sherd of pottery among the fragments of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone.

The piece was white, irregular in shape, and an inch or so square. Across it were several perfect horizontal black lines.

I gasped and picked it up. It was beautiful.

Enthralled, I began to look around for more sherds.

Broken pottery was everywhere — hundreds of pieces, maybe thousands, in various shades of black and white and gray. Many had the incongruity of grooves, patterns, and painted designs angled across them.

Ten minutes later, I had selected five magnificent pottery sherds and dropped them in my shirt pocket.

Collecting artifacts is illegal. I knew that. But in that one small area of the canyon were so, so many pottery pieces. And they were exquisite. I couldn’t help it. I was simply atingle with satisfaction.

Back home, after the trip, I placed the sherds in a small velvet-lined wood box, which I kept on a bedroom shelf. I took the pieces out often to study and admire them. They were a prized possession.

For a while, one question mark remained: I was puzzled by the abundance of pottery sherds in the Casa Rinconada area. It seemed unnatural — far too many pieces were there to be random. Was the spot a trash heap?

So, I got to Googling, and I found a plausible answer.

The Chacoans, I learned, often broke pottery vessels ceremonially. Breaking the vessels made them useless to the living and in effect presented them to the dead.

No wonder the area around one of the major kivas in Chaco Canyon was littered with broken pottery. What better place to make an offering to your ancestors?

All of which made the sherds even more fascinating and desirable.

But only briefly. Slowly, like a fog, guilt was creeping in.

In most matters, I am a relatively honest guy. It isn’t the fear of getting caught; it’s because my conscience has a way of prodding and scolding me. It’s an unpleasant sensation I find I can avoid by behaving myself.

In the case of the purloined pottery sherds, my conscience began to inform me, quietly, but insistently, that the artifacts belonged not in a velvet-lined box in Georgia, but in Chaco Canyon, from whence they came.

Although I soon came around and owned up to my wrongful act, my options were limited. I could keep the sherds, conscience be damned; I could throw them out; I could mail them back to the Park Service in New Mexico; or I could personally return them.

I thought about it for months, still unsure.

Then, in early spring, when I hatched the idea of a road trip to the Black Hills and Glacier National Park, I realized I could stop at Chaco Canyon on my way home. Returning the sherds would not erase my transgression, but it was a positive step.

So, in August 2012, 16 months after I took the blasted things, I was back in New Mexico. I left civilization and drove south on County Road 7950, the road leading to Chaco Canyon, described in the literature as “13 miles of rough dirt road.”

CR 7950 seemed especially awful that day — in many spots, a brutal washboard. On arrival, I asked the ranger about it.

She said road conditions are unpredictable. It depends on the weather, the traffic, and when the surface was graded last.

“It’s extra rough right now,” she said. “Just your bad luck.”

I didn’t spend much time at Chaco that day. I drove to Casa Rinconada, parked, and walked down the loop trail toward the kiva.

Again, I was alone. I went straight to the place where I had collected the artifacts in 2011, selected an out-of-the-way spot far off-trail behind a shrub, and placed the five sherds on the ground.

I stood up and took a photo. Then, impulsively, I said, rather loudly, “I’m sorry!”

Who I was addressing, I don’t know.

To be clear, there was nothing spiritual about the incident. I never viewed it as “offending the spirits,” because that kind of thing isn’t in my belief system. It was simply that I did something wrong and regretted it.

No matter. The sherds were back where they belonged. I felt relieved. Case closed.

I walked back to my car and drove the 13 miles of washboard road back to civilization. After that, I settled in for an uneventful drive home. The vacation was over.

A few days after I got back to Jefferson, I left my car at the shop for an oil change and went home to wait.

Later that afternoon, the mechanic called. He had unwelcome news.

One of the boots enclosing the steering racks on my front wheels had been ripped open, probably by flying debris.

He knew it happened during my road trip, because he had done a pre-trip inspection just days before I departed.

Immediately, I had a flashback to the primitive road to Chaco Canyon, and the violent pounding my poor Subaru endured that day, and the dinging sounds as chunks of rock ricocheted off the underside.

“When the boot goes and dirt gets in, it’s fatal for the rack and pinion,” said the mechanic. “It’s chewed up pretty bad in there.”

The repairs were costly. Very costly.

If that was the revenge of the Ancients, I guess I deserved it.

The road to Chaco Canyon, photo by Q. T. Luong, 2009.

 

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On the Road #6

Sixth in a series of stories from my road trip last month to the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Desert Southwest.

—————

Curb Appeal

After an interminable drive down the length of Utah on I-15, I was back in familiar territory: the Arizona Strip, the isolated band of desert north of Grand Canyon.

It made for an extra-long day, but I continued east, trying to reach Fredonia for the night.

My goal was the Crazy Jug Motel, a reliable stop on previous trips. I knew I could count on the Crazy Jug for clean accommodations and a good meal at a reasonable price.

I pulled into the parking lot at around 6:00 PM, and — woops — the motel sign was gone. Sad to say, the Crazy Jug is no more.

Fredonia is a tiny place, only about 1,200 in population, and I had no idea what other lodging was available. I drove north through town to find out.

Just up the street, I passed the Grand Canyon Motel. Impressive name, but the curb appeal was… quite the opposite.

No, not there. I drove on.

Two minutes later, I reached the north edge of town without passing another motel. Hmmm.

My choice, then, was to keep driving north to Kanab, Utah, which has plenty of motels, or to settle for the Grand Canyon Motel.

I was tired. I had driven 600-plus miles that day. I decided to settle.

The motel advertised air conditioning, wi-fi, and vacancies. Maybe it would be okay in spite of its appearance. I went into the office.

Immediately, I had second thoughts. The office was an unruly mess, piled high with stuff — cardboard boxes, old magazines, a rack of dusty postcards, and assorted cheap souvenirs.

And it was permeated by the distinctive odor of cats. Lots of cats.

The office was empty, and I was on the verge of making my exit when the proprietor appeared.

She was tiny and wizened, like Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies. She shuffled in and bade me welcome.

“I guess you noticed the cats in the yard,” she said.

I had not. I looked through the window, scanning for cats. As a matter of fact, quite a few cats were out there.

“They’re feral,” she said. “They won’t bother you. Just don’t leave your cabin door open. One of ‘em will run inside for sure.”

At that point, I feared that the cabins would feature the same choking cat stench as the office. But I couldn’t summon up the fortitude, or the rudeness, to say so.

“What’s the rate?” I asked.

“$39 per night. You get air conditioning, cable TV, free wi-fi, and full kitchen with stove, refrigerator, and microwave. Come on, I’ll let you take a look.”

“By the way,” I said, “I’ve been to Fredonia several times in the past, and I always stayed at the Crazy Jug Motel. What happened to it?”

“It was the Crazy Jug for years,” she said. “Then it became the Juniper Lodge. Now it’s a school for wayward girls.”

No doubt a fascinating story that keeps the town in gossip.

She escorted me to a cabin, which was old, but clean. To my great relief, I detected no cat odor. I took it.

The view from the front door of the cabin was a pleasant surprise.

(Note the feral cat diving for cover in the upper center.)

I unloaded my bags, keeping a watchful eye for lurking cats, locked up, and drove off to find supper.

Later, I sat in front of the cabin with my laptop and caught up on my email. While I was there, Granny emerged, carrying plates of food for the cats.

They assembled and milled around impatiently, staying just out of her reach. Only when she walked away did they approach the food.

A few minutes later, a violent storm appeared suddenly from the south and drove me inside. The cats quickly disappeared to wherever cats go.

I watched the storm through the cabin window for a while, then turned in early.

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On the Road #5

Fifth in a series of stories from my road trip last month to the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Desert Southwest.

—————

Of Vice Unhindered

In 1874, Colonel George Armstrong Custer announced the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

That triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush and led to the rise of Deadwood, a town that was illegally built on Lakota land and grew more lawless over time.

Saloons, gambling halls, and brothels quickly appeared, sometimes in tents, to serve — and prey upon — the growing population of miners and prospectors.

Deadwood in the early days.

In 1876, Deadwood averaged one murder per day. The opium trade flourished. The streets were ruled by ruffians and desperados. 90 percent of the females in town were prostitutes.

Unofficially, one end of Main Street was controlled by Seth Bullock, the virtuous and principled sheriff. The other end was controlled by a cabal of gamblers, pimps, thieves, and brigands. It was Dudley Do-Right versus Snidely Whiplash.

Wild Bill Hickok was murdered in Deadwood while holding a “dead man’s hand” — a pair of aces and a pair of eights, all black. Wild Bill is buried in Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery, next to another Deadwood resident, Calamity Jane.

The man who shot Wild Bill (in the back of the head) was acquitted in a Deadwood miner’s court. One year later, in another jurisdiction, he was retried, found guilty, and hanged.

By the end of the 1800s, Deadwood had settled down, cast off its rough and rowdy reputation, and become respectable.

But today, the town takes great pride in its outlaw legacy. This is a city that stages mock gunfights in the streets to entertain the tourists.

“Still as wild at heart as it was in the 1800s,” boasts the tourist literature. “An ideal place to release your inner outlaw.”

Releasing the inner outlaw is a nice segue to the circumstances of my own visit to Deadwood last month.

I arrived on Thursday, four days before the start of the 72nd Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Sturgis, a mere 10 miles from Deadwood, was expecting half a million bikers.

Sturgis in 2008.

Deadwood that morning was a veritable hive of bikes and bikers and noise and fumes. The town was full up, and parking was at a premium. To my chagrin, all downtown parking was reserved for motorcycles.

But soon, I found a parking place a few blocks from Main Street. I fed three hours worth of quarters into the meter and set out to wander around, take in the sights, and shop for souvenirs.

Lunchtime arrived, but all the eateries I passed looked alike. So I picked one at random.

It was the Mineral Palace, a hotel and casino. A sign in the window read “the largest variety of superb steaks in the Black Hills.” I went in.

The Mineral Palace.

According to the menu, the Mineral Palace formerly was the Gem Theater, identified as a notorious brothel and saloon in the 1870s. It said the Gem was prominently featured in the HBO series Deadwood.

I’ve seen a few episodes of Deadwood, but I didn’t know the plot details very well. “Gem Theater” meant nothing to me.

I ordered the Gem Buffalo Burger with homemade garlic potato chips. While I waited, I whipped out my cell phone and Googled Gem Theater.

What a revelation.

For 22 years, the Gem was operated by Al Swearengen, an unprincipled cad of truly world class proportions. Swearengen was a larger-than-life lowlife — a cunning opportunist and con man, known for his political savvy and an appalling brutality to women.

Swearengen’s practice was to go to Eastern cities, seek out young women in desperate circumstances, and lure them to Deadwood with promises of legitimate employment, either in offices and hotels or as stage performers. He graciously paid their transportation costs. On arrival, they were forced into prostitution.

If a woman refused, Swearengen demanded repayment of the trip costs. If she still resisted, he had her beaten by his flunkies and/or thrown onto the mean streets of Deadwood.

The Gem Theater took in as much as $10,000 a night ($250,000 in today’s money) from prostitution, the saloon, stage shows, and prize fights. Swearengen insulated himself from efforts to clean up the town through payoffs and shrewd political alliances.

The Gem Theater in 1878.

The Gem Theater saloon. Al Swearengen is behind the bar, right of center.

In the TV series, Swearengen was played by English actor Ian McShane, who won a Golden Globe Award for the role in 2005. The series depicted Swearengen as plenty murderous and abusive, but far less so than the man himself.

The leading newspaper of the time, the Black Hills Weekly Pioneer, usually was silent about Swearengen’s establishment, but it changed its tune in 1899, after a fire burned the Gem to the ground.

Said one article, “Harrowing tales of iniquity, shame and wretchedness; of lives wrecked and fortunes sacrificed; of vice unhindered and esteem forfeited, have been related of the place, and it is known of a verity that they have not all been groundless.”

Al Swearengen left Deadwood and went to prospect for gold in the Klondike. In 1903, he was found dead near a streetcar track in Denver. He died of blunt force trauma to the head, cause undetermined.

When my buffalo burger arrived, I stopped Googling. My head was swimming with input. I love history, and this was wonderful stuff.

On the way out, I stopped at the front desk. “I picked your place at random,” I told the hostess. “I didn’t know a thing about your history. But I Googled Gem Theater on my phone, and wow! I’m just amazed.”

She seemed pleased with my interest. “We do have a colorful past,” she said. “You might like to see our collection of historic photos.”

The photos were framed enlargements lining a long hall. I spent the next 10 minutes studying the photos and reading the elaborate captions. Fascinating stuff.

Later, I took a stroll through Mount Moriah Cemetery, high on a hill overlooking Deadwood. Standing next to the grave of prospector “Potato Creek Johnny” Perrett, I heard gunfire coming from the town below.

Either some bikers were going at it, or I was missing the day’s mock gunfight in the streets.

Sheriff Seth Bullock with Teddy Roosevelt in 1905. (Note: Bullock was six feet tall, and Teddy was 5′ 8″.)

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On the Road #4

Fourth in a series of stories from my road trip last month to the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Desert Southwest.

—————

End of Watch

Rapid City, South Dakota, population 68,000, is located close to the Black Hills and is a popular stopover for tourists.

I stayed there for a couple of nights last month. It’s an attractive, lively, interesting place, a worthy destination in itself.

I reached that conclusion on my first night, when I went downtown to find a meal and a brew.

It was Thursday. I had spent the day doing the tourist thing — Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Wind Cave National Park, a mammoth excavation site near Hot Springs, and more. I was beat, in a good way.

I saw an ad for a promising establishment, Firehouse Brewing Company, located in a vintage former fire station on Main Street, so I made my way there.

However, when I got to within two blocks of the place, I faced a roadblock. A literal roadblock. Complete with police officers and aluminum barricades.

As a nice officer forced me to make a right turn, I got a quick glimpse of what was going on: a street party was getting underway.

I later learned that every Thursday night, June through August, downtown Rapid City holds its Summer Nights Festival, featuring music, food, and drink. It’s a popular family thing.

With some difficulty, I found a parking place. I made my way to the restaurant and over the next hour, enjoyed a pint of Firehouse Red Ale and a Brewer’s Burger and purchased a souvenir tee shirt.

By the time I emerged onto Main Street, the party was well underway. I waded into the crowd, ending up near a portable bandstand that straddled the intersection.

Music was booming forth, but the volume was reasonable, probably in deference to the many kids and grandparents present. A banner said the band was the week’s headliner, Judge Jackson, a group of LA rockers.

Judge Jackson soon wrapped it up, took a bow, and departed. Onto the stage in their place bounded a group of helmeted Rapid City firefighters, wearing kilts and brandishing bagpipes and drums. The crowd went wild.

As it turned out, I had innocently gone downtown on the night that the Festival was honoring the memories of two Rapid City police officers killed in a tragic shooting.

I pieced together the full story later, and it is compelling.

The officers were Ryan McCandless and Nick Armstrong. On August 2, 2011, at about 4:00 PM, 10 minutes into a non-confrontational encounter with four men about an open container of alcohol, one of the four pulled a revolver and shot the three officers present.

McCandless and Armstrong died. The surviving officer shot and killed the assailant.

I was in town on August 2, 2012, the anniversary of the deaths. Rapid City had turned that week’s Summer Nights Festival into a ceremony of remembrance.

Being cheered on stage was the Rapid City Professional Firefighter Pipe and Drum Corps, a group created in 2009 after the death of a local firefighter.

Bagpipes and drums are not uncommon in the world of firefighters. For many departments, pipe and drum corps are part of their tradition.

But the Rapid City firefighters had to start from scratch. Six firefighters formed the corps, purchased instruments and outfits, took music lessons, and practiced several times a week, month after month.

The corps is a union group, created under IAFF Local 1040. No taxpayer money is involved.

Although admittedly still learning, the group plays regularly at events around the area. They perform at funerals, too, including those of McCandless and Armstrong.

With so much going on, it took me a while to realize that many in the crowd were wearing commemorative tee shirts.

The shirt fronts read, Rapid City Police Department, HEROS WEAR BLUE. The O in HEROS was a police shield.

(Yes, I know HEROS should be HEROES. I prefer to overlook the error.)

One of the firefighters on stage then asked the crowd to raise their glasses in remembrance of McCandless, Armstrong, and fallen police officers and firefighters everywhere.

As the crowd complied, the firefighters began to play a rapid, upbeat version of “Amazing Grace,” punctuated heavily by whistles and snare drums.

Next, a lone bagpiper took over and continued with a slow, traditional version of the hymn.

When the solo ended, the crowd erupted again.

Resourceful fellow that I am, I recorded their performance of Amazing Grace on my cell phone.

The boys might have been a little ragged, but nobody cared.

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