March '05 Newsletter
March '05 Newsletter |
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Sorry folks - due to Susan's extreme over commitments to other things there will be NO March newsletter this year. APRIL FOOLS! Although it's been a struggle to get her to sit still long enough at the computer to write one. Life is good here in Black Canyon City. We continue to meet people in the community, making friends of most.
Karen Fiore came down from her home in Oak Creek Village to spend the night on Christmas Eve and went visiting with Susan. They visited Bob's mom at her care center before joining the Coles for their traditional Christmas Eve open house. Bob was sick in bed with a bad cold. There was ice in our garden hose and all of the water troughs on Christmas morning. Christmas Day we had a houseful of dinner guests. Blue came up from Tempe, the Lupo twins came with their families from Flagstaff and Prescott, and Sandy came from across the river. Everyone brought some kind of a dish and the food and fellowship was fabulous.
January brought a shake up in Meals on Wheels, when our 82-year young director retired. Our cook was supposed to move up to replace her but her husband passed away unexpectedly, leaving a gap in the system for most of that month. Susan really enjoyed working in the kitchen many of those days and is taking a food handlers class at the VFW later this month. Things are running smoothly now and she is back to delivering meals on Fridays while we are in town. Depending on who is available when we are gone, another gallivanting couple and a man who collects antique tractors share that duty.
Susan was gone so much in January, Bob got bored and found a job for himself. He was chosen to fill a vacancy on our local water board, which has kept him busier than he bargained for. As always in small town politics, he is accepted by most but less than popular with some. He has been reviewing the finances, searching for a qualified operator to oversee our water system, signing checks, and familiarizing himself with the system. It should be mentioned that he immediately assumed the Vice chair position and has been given a lot of jobs that no one else on the board has time to take care of.
Rio Vista Baptist Center, where Susan has volunteered the past few years has needed her help even more the past six months. She stepped up her participation from two Tuesdays a month to every Tuesday that we are not traveling. Rio Vista has reorganized their facility to serve more needy families daily. Susan's jobs include sorting donated food, making up food boxes, sorting and displaying donated clothing, and supervising volunteers who help with these projects. She brings some amount of food and clothing back to our little community to help a needy family and some of our elderly neighbors. She tries to schedule any other Phoenix business on her Tuesdays in town so that she doesn't have to go there any more often than necessary. Bob has been working more and more with Photoshop, getting better and better at printing pictures. He has taken some lovely flower shots this spring. After our bounteous rain and warm weather, the amount of blooming subjects is phenomenal this year. The wildflowers have been active for several months in stages and now the first of the cactus are unfolding their petals.
Ted Bruning from Colorado was in Phoenix for work and paid us a visit in February. Paul Lupo came down and joined us for a hike. We were all amazed by how soft and water soaked the desert soils were. We were unable to hike behind our house as the Agua Fria and Black Canyon Creek were still running too heavily to cross. They went into super flood several times in January/February. Several of our RV parks were evacuated on more than one occasion and though a few residents lost items from their yards, no structures other than storage sheds washed away. We were high and dry but the Agua Fria ran big in our channel and was a couple of feet up our grand old mesquite tree's trunk at the bottom of the hill. The highest flow recorded at Rock Springs, just downstream of us, was 36,000 cfs. Some of the rapids we could see from the town bridge featured waves comparable to Hermit Rapid in the Grand Canyon. After that big gusher, an expert kayaker friend from Tempe came up with another friend of his and boated the Agua Fria. He didn't recommend it because of the fast water and many log jams. Our river channel is looking healthier and less choked than it has in years but we're guessing that Lake Pleasant is still full of debris from the floods. The Agua Fria and Black are still running but we are now able to wade across them.
Bob's knees continue to give him grief and we sadly fear our days of carrying heavy packs up and down steep grades are over. To get us farther a field without crippling him, we purchased a "Bombardier" two-person quad this spring. It is a four-wheel drive, powerful model with a comfy seat for the passenger. Susan hasn't driven it yet but only because she hasn't had the time to take it out alone. She is looking forward to the day, she can buzz up to the post office and library on it. We also purchased a new Toyota Tundra and have been busily preparing it for the road. Our old camper shell fit it perfectly and we have only the camper lighting and wiring to finish up. This truck has more power and bigger wheels than our old one, which is living less than a mile away with a young couple who treat it as if it were their own child. Susan ran into them serving chili at the chili cook-off yesterday and they are still proclaiming their love for the truck.
Speaking of the chili-cook off, Black Canyon City was a buzz yesterday with the Lion's Club annual White Cane Parade and Bradshaw Mountain Days Festival. Clown mum Bubble Lee arrived at 7:00 AM and following a quick breakfast, she and Susan spent over an hour applying their make-up and getting on their get-ups. The ladies at Rio Vista had saved a donated clown suit for Susan and she elected to wear it yesterday. They have also provided her with two new wigs to try out. The parade had the best turnout we've seen in our three years in town. It lasted for several hours and it remains to be seen if our clowns may have lost their trophy to the competition. Other events in town were the chili cook-off, the antique tractor pull, the arts and crafts festival and a street dance that rocked into the wee hours. The arts and crafts fair continues today.
That's all for now. Time to get crackin' and packin' for the Lake Powell trip!
| Participants: | Bill Cooke, Lorie Erickson, Keith Fuqua, Lynn Gardner, Susan Groth, Marsha Hawk, Christina King, Pete King, Bob Marley, Ava Marshall, Dave Sample & Rosayln Sample. |
| Our page URL: http://www.kwagunt.net/ |
Updated on Sunday, April 3, 2005 @ 4:30 MST © 1995-2005 by Robert R. Marley |
Email address: themarleys@kwagunt.net |
We left Woodland Park, Colorado right before lunch and dropped Canyon (our dog) off at my parents in Chalk Creek Canyon (near Buena Vista) for a week of R&R, then traveled on to Santa Fe New Mexico for our first night on the road. We drove the rest of the way to Show Low, Arizona the next day and arrived at the put-in in the late afternoon. What chaos! There were many boaters (commercial and private) and the put-in was crazy. The river looked low and it turned out to be about 1,440 cfs at the Chrysotile gauge. Bob, Susan, and Lorie had arrived the previous evening. They were already rigged and taking it easy near the long trudge to the river. As we unloaded our rigged boats the Indian rangers were adamant that permits were to be bought immediately or we would get a ticket. The rangers seemed irritated by the entire situation and we had a difficult time figuring out how to do the right thing quickly enough for them. It all worked out fine in the end but I recommend boaters purchase their permits (two boating days per person @ $15/each and possibly one night's camping at $10 per person) before unloading at the put-in.
With a early camp, it was nice to have the time to set up wet tents and get everything dried out before the sun went down. Pete, Bill and I cooked a steak dinner for everyone and we all had a leisurely night in camp after the wind died down. Everyone enjoyed the bacon-wrapped scallops. I think you can wrap anything in bacon and boaters will eat it. This camp (Sandy Beach RAP) is at the beginning of the Sonoran desert and marks the start of Saguaro cactus "forests". I didn't notice any significant cactus blooms or flowers. Saguaros flowers, the state flower, usually bloom in late April, May, or possibly early June depending on weather and elevation. 
The bad weather front seems to have passed through and today is partly sunny with some clouds. We only have about eight miles to the take-out. Don't remember any particular rapids but lots of shallow chutes and glorious views. This canyon sure is pretty. The Saguaro cacti are really spectacular. We got to the take-out before lunch and picked up the cars at the Rock House store. Bob's vehicle was boxed in by others and it was a real chore to get it out (involved lifting a trailer and pulling a truck with a backhoe). We had the ramp to ourselves and left just as another group arrived.
