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Dead Horse Bounce

11/01/04
Roosevelt Lake
Arizona


I got a lot of flack from the somewhat locals over my lack of enthusiasm for Dead Horse State Park in the last installment.

For example, Anne Watson called it "one of my favorite places" and wrote:

"Bob, you have to understand us Arizonians. Any river in Arizona that has real water flowing in it is a real treat for us. The one just north of my house flows Maybe during a rain storm and then just quits dead till the next storm..."

Point taken.

There's lots of ways to travel. Pick one.

You can range far and wide, as I've been doing, taking the long view, checking off the list of available transcontinental wide-screen Cinerama spectaculars. Lake Superior. The Icefields Parkway. The so-called "Pacific" Ocean. The downside is that local wonders will sometimes seem a bit tawdry, a little tarnished, after two weeks at, say, Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon.

One can surfeit on grandeur. It makes your eyes ring. While you are still goggly, you might misunderestimate the merely impressive.

Often it's just as well to stay home and pay close attention to what happens to wander, or flow, or fly by your door. As my friend Luis Gutierrez once said, in a context more ribald : "You never see no spider chasin' no flies."

Walden Pond is all the world for those with eyes to see. And so with the Verde River in Cottonwood, Arizona.

Here's a thought: go crazy, buy a microscope. You can find a plenitude of wonders a muddy footprint. You don't need a "Red Rock Pass" from the National Forest Service to watch Van Leevanhook's "wee beasties" wage their desperate and colorful battles every second of the day.

But sometimes I'm just not going to be in the mood. You can't see everything. Or anyway I can't.

So. Tell you what I will do. As an Internet special, one time offer, available nowhere else, here's a guarantee: what you read here is going to offend practically everyone at some time or other.

All you are ever gonna get here, unfortunately, are my reactions and thoughts about things that happen to me. I will make no pretence of being even-handed. Indeed, on any particular day I am pretty sure to be unfair.

Absent the proper caffeine load, I will absolutely turn crotchety.

Just you watchety.


Bob



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