A Trip and A Journey
Note: Not all of these photos are mine. and if you want to get passed all of my verbiage, just go to the video at the bottom
As I transition from a boothie to an origami artist, I decided that as I aspire to gain a foothold in this new discipline that I need to do the senbazuru, to make a thousand cranes in a year. I started this trip on the winter solstice. With luck, I will finish by the next winter solstice. I am afraid that I cannot claim any virtue in keeping up with the schedule I set for myself. This is the story of how the journey can remind one about what is really important.
I saw a TV show on Sand Cranes and how they were facing extinction. Hunting was being blamed, but DDT and habitat destruction was the true culprit. This was right around 1970. The Scientist/Environmentalists were embarking on an intensive repopulation program. This was a big part of my becoming an environmentalist.
White egrets visit the vernal pools at my house. Cattle birds will follow tractors doing plowing. Snowy Egrets with their fluffy crown and yellow galoshes. Grumpy Greater Egrets solo in their hunt for frogs.
When I got serious about doing Origami, the Crane is the quintessential fold. Not only is it the most famous of the folds, it teaches many of the basic folds: Valley Fold, Mountain fold, Reverse fold. These are all basic tools for someone doing folding. But like most novices, as I started moving up in the difficulty of folds, I became dismissive of the humble Crane. I made my share of cranes and moved on.
But as I traveled forward in Origami, it became more than just learning shapes, figuring out the diagrams. It has become a meditation a Zen. The diagrams ceased to be instructions, but puzzles to be challenged. What technique that I already know is being presented in this new form. What wrong thinking was blocking my path forward?
This was the point I started my Senbzuru. And at the same time I started letting this quest slide. Returning from Wales. Driving to Arizona. Doing stuff.
One of the things I do in Arizona is to go to new places, especially places I have always wanted to see, but never had the time to get off the highway. One of these is the Chiracaua mountains. With a free half week, I drove up toward the mountains. Along the way I did some Letterboxing. (I will blog on this at some future point, but it is a hide and seek game that takes me weird places.)
Wilcox Arizona. Looking for a letterbox "AZ Crane". The search takes me behind the golf course. A bird viewing place. I am in the back of the van, putting on my boots. And I hear a weird sound. A weird weird sound. But I see nothing out of the ordinary.
Ok the directions take me down this dirt road a bit further. As I start to get out of the van, the sound is there again as a flock of loud cranes take off and circle the area. Well that is cool. And I remember that I am supposed to be folding cranes this year.
The rest of the day was jolly, finding boxes. Driving thru new territory. Doing that stuff that makes me happy. I turn to go into the Chiricahua National Park. And find that all of the camping is reserved. WTF. This is the middle of winter, there is bits of snow. It is in the middle of nowhere. And the camping is booked, full?! My brain is just not able to process this.
I had the good fortune to find a Park Volunteer who told me about free camping on the BLM land. Just go down to the park gate, turn left and drive 5 miles. And when she gave me the map she circled another place that was about an hour further, but I didn't pay much attention to that because BLM is usually good camping.
A few minutes back down the road looking at the gorgeous rock formations. Turn left, planning to come back in the morning for some hiking. Drive a mile and find some of the most god awful corrugated road. For those of you that are not country raised, corrugated road is a building technique that creates a durable dirt road, like corduroy fabric. It will also shake the fillings out of your teeth.
OK this will be unpleasant, but it can't last too long, can it?....OK this has gone on long enough, look for a place to turn around...Well I have gone almost 5 miles, find a place to camp the night...Where is a place to turn off...That looks camp-able.
As I pull off the road, the van reminds me that it is really easy to stick a Sprinter in the mud, and there is snow already on the ground. And those are big fat snow flakes starting to fall. I decide that it would be better to back up, do an 85 point turn and go back.........down the corrugated road. Sigh.
Once out of the BLM land, I still have to find a place for the night. I look at the map with the circled place. I know I can stay there three nights. I check the drive time on the GPS, look at the sun slowly settling in the west. I can do this, if I don't stop, and I drive fast.
At sunset I pull into the Whitewater Wildlife Viewing area, it is ugly as only the center of an Arizona valley can be. Flat. Dusty. Scrub grassland. These two photos I took do not do it justice. This was one of those few cloudy days, and my camera is very optimistic.
Oh well, it is a place I can sleep without being hassled. And there is one parking place left. One? This spot was infested with bird photographers. I start to drive around to see if there is another spot than the one next to the generator guy (really 3 generators?) But I see headlights coming down the road, and grab what turns out to be the LAST spot.
I turn off the van. Get out, putting the leash on Jax. And the full moon is rising in the east as the last of the sunset is fading in the west. And there is the sound. Three days later and I am still there.
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