March 7, 2008

Piestewa: When I lived in Phoenix the best (free) activity in town was climbing Squaw Peak – the Phoenix Mountains Park inside the city’s limits. I headed there directly from skyharbor. In the ensuing ten years the name has been changed to Piestawa Peak (Squaw is actually an offensive term) and either they have added a few hundred feet, or I have added about thirty pounds.

Thunderbird: I drove around the area I lived, the restaurant at which I worked, and my alma mater. In the ensuing ten years the name has changed twice and either they have made the campus bigger, or I have added about thirty pounds. What actually did expand was the city: Phoenix streets are numbered, starting from the center and the roads running north south expand out, Streets East and Avenues West. When I lived at 63rd Ave and Bell, I could ride my bike to the end of civilization – today I drove west to the Desert loop and never lost sight of subdivisions and traffic.

Regret: I had a chance to take Agua Caliente Road from just west of Buckeye – it is a dirt road that loops around and through the Gila Mountains. It was a lot of fun driving through the desert on the dirt road, and I even took a side trip offroading (with Arizona Dept. of Resources Blessing). It was awesome! I was kicking myself for not going to a grocery store so I could have camped out there, with two granola bars and three bottles of water it wasn’t an option, so I pushed on to Yuma.

Books: in 2003, JM Coetzee won the nobel prize for Literature. I read ‘Slow Man’ and recently completed ‘Disgrace.’ Both books are entertaining and I recommend them, but with the warning that Coetzee’s forte is character rather than plot. The subtle nuances of the personae and their perceptions of the world are rich and fulfilling where the thread of the story is tenuous at best.

God’s Little Instruction Book, The Book of Questions, lists of 1,000 Things (insert social group) Should Know. Haiku. It is a series of exponentially more compact ideas. While I still look forward to the return of prose, Kerry mentioned, then NPR made multiple references to ‘not quite what I was planning’ a collection of six word memoirs by famous & obscure writers (edited by Smith Magazine).

From the introduction: Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. Papa came back swinging with, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Some say he called it his best work. Others dismiss the anecdote as a literary folktale. Either way, the six-word story was born, and it’s been popping around the writing world for years.

Story of six word stories short – Ideas in six words are eloquent.

Unwords
Starting Point: Memphis, TN
Waypoint: Phoenix, AZ
Ending Point: Yuma, AZ
Today miles: 266; Trip Miles: 10,673
Offroad Miles: 53.4
Route: 303S, 10W, Old 80S, Agua Caliente Rd., random dirt, 8W
Dirt Road Soundtrack: Sonata in C by Domenico Scarlatti
Piestewa Peak Trail: 1.2M
Piestewa Peak Height: 2,608ft
Phoenix elevation: 1,117ft
Do I subtract to get vertical distance traveled? 1,491ft
Height of antenna of Empire State Building: 1,472ft

Pics: a) using photo-op as an excuse to take a break on squaw peak; b) tower of power; c) i'll devour - after a couple of honks to get this character off the road; d) how i roll in the dirt; e) about 95 miles west of Glendale - the avenue count continues