Water in a parched land

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

CORNVILLE, AZ — We’ve only traveled about 140 miles today, and it’s as if we’ve entered a different world. Our resting spot is the LoLoMai Springs Resort, which is a 15-minute drive south of Sedona, with an elevation of 4,500 feet. Flagstaff, at 7,000 feet, is the nearest city, another 20 miles or so beyond Sedona.

It was a beautiful drive today after we left the busy freeway ringing Phoenix and headed out into the countryside. For the first leg of the trip, the land was rather flat, with a few rolling hills, and still dry and gravelly with prickly pear and saguaro cacti scattered across the landscape. The tall saguaros seemed to become more numerous after a while, which surprised me, because our guide for our desert tour last week told us they usually give each other quite a bit of space because their root system is shallow and widespread and they don’t like to compete for the little water that’s available.

All the while, the highway climbed, and the rolling hills became higher as well. Off in the distance we could see more mountains, and behind them, other mountains fading to the horizon. Then, you could almost say suddenly, we went through a pass cut into the rock, and on the other side, the landscape had completely changed.

The land was fairly flat, but instead of gravelly soil, there were huge expanses of grass – lots of it pale yellow, or almost white, and some of it actually green. No more saguaros anywhere – instead, there were evergreens spotting the landscape! They weren’t tall, but there were a lot of them and there was a lot of green.

We stopped at a rest area for lunch. It was the first one we’d seen that took us from the north-bound lane of the highway around and under an underpass and back to the south-bound side. After we ate in the trailer, we went out to see the view. There were several look-out points from which to see a huge valley spread out below us, ringed with mountains all around it. A couple of guys admiring the view were kind enough to snap a picture of us together – a rare happening, with a decent result, as you can see!

Back to the north-bound side of the highway, we continued our journey, awed by the vistas ahead of us. There were flat-topped mesas and off in the distance we caught sight of a craggy mountain-top that was white with snow. In front of it were mountains with purple at the top, greenish tan in the middle and brilliant red stone at the bottom. I tried to take a picture of them, but the result hardly did justice to what we were actually seeing.

Finally we arrived at our new campground, the LoLoMai Springs. It’s a Hopi name which has the same sort of meaning as “aloha” and also means “beautiful”. There are tall sycamore and cottonwood trees, some with enormous trunks, and red soil, and the rushing Oak Creek on one side, as well as a tranquil, spring-fed pond on the other. Dozens of ducks have made the pond their home, and robins are chirping and hopping around. There are tenting spots, cabins, and spaces for trailers such as ours. It has a nice, summer camp kind of feel.

The creek has been designated a “unique waterway” by the federal government, and the camp itself lies above an ancient aquifer, a stratum of earth or porous rock that contains water which nourishes the many trees around us. It’s really quite lovely, and such a change from what we’ve seen lately!

One shortfall of this resort is that we don't get internet at our trailer, so I've had to stroll over to the office area to post this. As I sat on a chair by the office door, I heard a rustle behind me, and there on a big stump next to the building were three racoons staring at me, and two skunks lurking around the base of the stump! I have moved operations slightly further away to complete this, but I won't be lingering here for long!!