New Mexico/Arizona - 19-23 May 2007

Much of my life is ruled by the Law of Diminishing Returns. Briefly, this economic law states that additional input toward a particular repeated action decreases the marginal yield.

As much of my life is necessarily repetitious (driving, working, eating, sleeping etc., etc.), doing more of it doesn't automatically mean I'll enjoy it more. So over the past several years, I have attempted to shift my focus to the moments that break this law.

Hiking is one of them. Besides simplifying my life, hiking is what brings everything back to base zero and re-sets the meter. When Chris first mentioned Havasu as a hiking destination, I readily agreed; after all, this is but prelude to the Outer Mountain Loop.

Since hiking in nature is automatically a pleasure, hiking companions strengthen the experience. I always enjoy hiking with my father, brother, and Brian. I haven't hiked with Dave since I was a teenager; it was my first time to hike with Jackson, Andria, and Mason.

Also for this trip, I wanted to try to bring more of my everyday life with me. I read a quote somewhere that going to the back country shouldn't be roughing it - it should be smoothing it.

I quickly learned that it is more practical in theory. While planning my food rations, I wanted to cook some simple meals that I would cook in my own kitchen.

The first meal turned out great - couscous with sun dried tomatoes and dried herbs in pita bread. It was delicious and executed to near perfection. The second meal didn't turn out all. I hiked 10 miles with 6 fresh eggs in my backpack and cooled them in the river not thirty feet from our camp site with the intention of making egg salad sandwiches in the morning. The next morning, Jackson somehow managed to break all six eggs in about 10 seconds.

What follows are pictures and quotations, with one exception, provided by Mr. John Muir, with my observations.


"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike."

The Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM. These are the most pristine waters I have ever visited. 81 feet deep, 61 degrees in temperature, they are also the most brisk waters I have ever visited.




"Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God's wild blessings will search you and soak as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted."

The Tepees Area of the Painted Desert.

"Above, the bad lands stretch on either hand. This is the region of the Painted Desert, for the marls and soft rocks of which the hills are composed are of many colors - chocolate, red, vermillion, pink, buff, and gray; and the naked hills are carved in fanstastic forms. - John Wesley Powell, The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons (1875)

The Painted Desert is a marvellously isolated and desolate area. Its beauty is underscored by the petrified remains of the forests that once anchored these lands.

The bad lands show the process of nature's change. Layers of sandstone, clay, siltstone, and hematite highlight the colorful landscape.

"No matter how far you have wandered hither to, or how many famous gorges and valleys you have seen, this one, the Grand Canyon...will seem as novel to you, as unearthly in the color and grandeur and quantity of its architecture, as if you had found it after death, on some other star; so incomparably lovely and grand and supreme is it above all the other canons in our fire molded, earthquake shaken, rain washed, wave washed, river and glacier sculptured world."

This was my first trip to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Putting the visual perspective into words is near impossible; pictures reveal about a tenth of what the eye may capture.

"Deserts are charming to those who know how to see them."

My favorite places to hike - forests and deserts - are on opposite ends of the ecological spectrum. While the beauty of a forest is self-evident, it takes a different perspective to enjoy the beauty of a desert.

Time appears to slow down in the desert; life is more fragile and its residents are tougher.

"Every excursion I have made in all my rambling life has been fruitful and delightful from the smallest indefinite saunter an hour or two in length to the noblest summer's flight with steadyaim like a crusader bound for the Holy Land or a bird to its northern home following the flight of the seasons."

The desert goes through its own evolution. Canyons shift and rocks fall. This change disturbs shelters that took generations to form and creates new shelters for several more generations. The boulders that fall from the cliffs are not diminutive; many are the size of the kitchen in our house.

Every human, no matter what his wild disposition, would find his own way, if only he looked for it....Somewhere, if he wandered freely enough, he would enter the flow and begin to take his strength from the fountains."

Havasu Falls, 2 miles from the town of Supai, AZ and 10 miles from the trailhead. The falls drop 120 feet and create its own wind system to keep the swimming area cool on the hottest of days.

Worms, Roxanne! I'm Afraid of Worms!

My words and thoughts of late have been incomplete. Still, I wanted to share my latest musings:

-- I hate mathematics but I love numbers. Give me raw numbers, especially of the political variety, a calculator and I'm good for hours upon hours.

Additionally, I've always had a knack for remembering dates and other statistical data. Just not birthdays.

A couple of months ago, I slept in rather late. Until 8:12. When I opened my unadjusted eyes, I saw a "1" in front of the 8. My first thoughts were of Andrew Jackson and the Lafitte brothers fighting a swamp-land war they didn't know had already been won.

It happened again last Friday night: Melissa rolled over and woke me up. At 4:44. It was a little more timely since I've been reading this.

-- Melissa's favorite show is Everyday Italian. About 80% of our DVR recording memory is reserved for this, and other, cooking shows. I'm not complaining since Giada and Bobby Flay have helped Melissa to learn that cooking is simple and fun. The only downside is that she now wants all their appliances to make our meals.

Christmas Eve, Melissa and I cooked a rather elaborate meal for her family. But the one thing we were really missing was a zester; our grater can be a make-shift zester, but it's not specifically suited for that purpose.

I had actually purchased one from Williams-Sonoma as a stocking stuffer. I gave thought about taking it out of her stocking a day earlier than intended. I left it hidden since I wanted her to be surprised Christmas morning.

Turns out the surprise was for me. She had also purchased a zester from Williams-Sonoma for my stocking stuffer and also wondered if she should take it out earlier than Santa intended.

Just one of the many memories from this Christmas. I'm sure there's an O.Henry-esque story in there somewhere.

-- A few weekends ago while Melissa went to the gym, I went to Half Price.

Typically, my trips to the fiction section are pro forma. This time instead, thanks to the book club, I slowed down and looked more thoroughly.

Anyway, I made my final stop in the T's. Ever since Presumed Innocent, Turow has issued a new book every three or four years. As he published a book last year, I was not expecting one for at least two more years. In retrospect, I'm not even sure why I looked for his book section; nevertheless, I'm glad I did. I quickly grabbed his latest work, Limitations.

His formula for character development is fabulous. A secondary character in one novel becomes the central figure in the next. As the series progresses, characters and plots are revisited to provide error-free continuity.

Every novel takes place in a fictional mid-western city, DuSable, modeled after Chicago. Turow even went so far and created a history of the city and provided a map in one of the books. This city and its residents have become real to me in a cry-for-help kind of way.

His books go beyond judicial temperament and legislative intent. He is able to make tangible the deeper questions that form the bedrock of our judicial system. He is able to clarify the murkier complexities that exist in the prosecutorial system.

Once again, I'm reminded of why Turow is my favorite writer; once gain, I am left wondering how Grisham has become the more popular author of this genre.

Over The Weekend

Vignettes:

-- I've been reading Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything. Regular viewers of Iron Chef America will instantaneously recognize Steingarten as the curmudgeon rarely content with the food he eats. That, however, does not prevent him from polishing off each plate presented before him. He is the living embodiment of the adage to never trust a skinny cook.

Steingarten is an attorney and food critic for Vogue. He is every much the curmudgeon in his book that he is on the show.

Steingarten is never above reducing the talent of any first-class chef/owner of a Michelin rated restaurant (exceptions made for only Bobby Flay) to that of a short-order cook of a construction site roach coach. Neither does he spare criticism of his fellow judges; he has likened the insensitive palate of a fellow judge to a center field fan at Wrigley Field who just swallowed his third hot dog and guzzled his fifth beer. The guy's wit, honed at Harvard Lampoon, is as sharp as the knives in Kitchen Stadium.

He, however, is an excellent teacher of how to appreciate food.

-- We were supposed to have dinner with Nikki on Friday night before she went back to school. Nikki cancelled because she didn't want to drive in bad weather. It deprived us of her company and me from borrowing a movie over the weekend.

I texted her to express my disappointment- "Fredo, you broke my heart."

She called me a few minutes later and started off with "Who the heck is Fredo?".

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Hilary came over to watch Desperate Housewives with us. Every time Julie comes on-screen, I sing "The Rainbow Connection" because I think she looks like a Muppet. Hilary was vaguely familiar with Ms. Piggy and Kermit but didn't know what a Muppet is.

I forget that they are just kids.

- The second season of Rome started last night. Melissa and I have eagerly been waiting as the first season ended in November of 2005. Octavian is smarter and more calculating; Antony is more arrogant and cruder; Atia and Servilia meaner toward each other.

If I had to pick only one show to watch this season, I wouldn't even consider another.