Arizona Trippin’ 2026 October 2 – 12           Elevation 50 – 9000

My annual visit to my daughter and her wife in Phoenix, Arizona, started out with me worried that my hip injury and my bad back wouldn’t allow me to have the kind of visit that we like to have… exploring. A week before arrival, Tracy asked me what my activity level would be like. My response was that my activity level would be at zero to nothing. As it turned out, nothing could have been more wrong.

In the early evening, Tracy met me at the airport in her giant 4×4 Ford pickup. From my first visit ten years ago, I had to use a two-step stool to get into the cab. I knew it would be no different and my expectations were high that I would be able to navigate this first obstacle with a strained hip flexor. But in reality my only expectation was pain. But to my surprise, it wasn’t that bad at all.

Then, we were off to pick up Kelly to have phò at one of their favorite places. Something I’ve learned over the years is about their love of cuisine from around the world. There’s nothing like Phoenix to supply that. I love that they will travel long distances to have the food they want or to explore new places. I was not disappointed. Phò and Thai tea filled the bill.

Saturday

In the morning was breakfast at Matt’s Big Breakfast with the usual, eggs and bacon. Then, it was off to a couple of bookstores. This is without question, a constant when I visit. Both Kelly and Tracy are avid readers. Their living room is set up like a library with wall to wall bookshelves, as is the office and any other spare space, like in the family room closet. I bought three books and Tracy bought me another.

From there, we headed off to Lake Pleasant. The views are spectacular, as you can see, and it’s always fun to see the feral donkeys. The donkeys were brought over by Spanish explorers (conquistadores) and later were used in mining and other labor activities. Eventually, they were set free and began to multiply. They we’re prolific and thrived too much and had to be we rounded up and sold off by, I believe, the Bureau of Land Management. On this trip I saw 20 beautiful, healthy donkeys with some bonkeys ( baby donkeys).

That night it was dinner at home. Kelly is an exceptional cook. She had prepared gently seasoned pulled pork that we ate as sandwiches on white bread with dill pickles and raw onions. If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it. Give it a try. I’ll guarantee you’ll love it. The night was spent talking about everything.

Sunday

We ate breakfast at home with our usual bagels, cream cheese, onions and avocado. I happened to mention that I had been taking lukewarm showers. I already knew that it was hard to turn on the water and shut off the water, because it had been so all previous visits. But now, the mixture of waters, cold and hot, were mostly cold. Fernando, Kelly’s brother, came over with his two daughters and Tracy and Fern repaired the faucet.

The girls arrived already in their swimming suits, so Kelly and the girls went swimming. I had been warned that the water was cold despite the 105°f air temperature. They both told me that they had done their last swim for the season, a week previous. So I decided not to get in, besides that, there was the difficulty of getting out of the pool once I got in, there is no railing. My damned hip injury again. I was so jealous. For dinner, there was delicious platefuls of chicken salad… Kelly’s doing.

Monday

and Tuesday were spent at home with Kelly. Kelly’s much needed vacation time was spent reading. She read four books in the time that I was there. Tracy had to work two more days so while she was working, I perused my new books but didn’t get much reading done. I’m really way too distracted to read right now. I thought I might go swimming, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get out of the pool, what with my bad hip and all. Dumb decision.

Later on that first day, being that it was over 100°f, Kelly jumped in the pool. Then, I threw caution to the wind, and right there, I stripped to my undies, and got in, to hell with my swimming suit. And boy, was I glad I did. After the first initial gasp, when the water hit waist deep, the water was lovely. That night it was Kelly’s homemade spaghetti and meatballs. There was absolutely no complaints from me.

Tuesday

There was no hesitation about getting into the pool. I played with the dogs, went outside a little bit, pretended like I was reading until Tracy came home. We went to La Carumba for Mexican food, meeting up with some of Kelly and Tracy’s friends. I should have known better because I had been there a few times previously with them,, but I threw caution to the wind once again and had 2 mojitos. Time for bed.

Wednesday

was one of Tracy’s days off. This was the day we planned to go to the Cosanti Studio, not Arcosanti, which is located just 70 miles outside of Phoenix. but the actual studio where they sell and also make the bronze bells in Phoenix. Paolo Solari, was an architect, who wanted to build a self sustaining city, he wanted to prove that he could do it in the desert of Arizona. There’s so much to say about Solari, but that’s for another post.

Each year, for the last five years, when I go down to visit, Tracy and Kelly have bought me a bell. I love walking through the area, because the studio, the shop and where they make the bells, is very strangely made. It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen. I have just a few pictures. I wish I had more to try to explain to you what it’s like on their campus. The bells are not cheap and never have been..  But to our chagrin, this year, every single piece was at least double in price. I was not going to make them feel like they have to purchase something of that expense. But we found a bell that I love just as well, and it’s every bit as beautiful, though it is somewhat smaller than the other bellls they have purchased for me. As we know, size does not always matter.

I think and I hope that Tracy loves to drive as much as I think she does, because when I’m in Arizona with them, we drive all over the Phoenix area and not just Phoenix but Peoria and Glendale and Scottsdale, and so many other parts of the Valley of the Sun, as it is called. I always ask her to not take the freeways, but to take any and every other road that she knows so that I can see everything that there is to see. If you’ve never been there, you cannot imagine how beautiful and different it is from where I live. The landscape, the environment, the architecture, all of it, I love. And as anyone who knows me knows, I love the Saguaro in the Sonoran desert. If you don’t know that is where the Valley of the Sun is located right smack dab in the desert, and it’s the only place that the saguaro grow.

After our day in the city, when we got home, we jumped in the pool and all three of us swam around until we talked about dinner. Tracy had called home to see what we were gonna do for dinner. And Kelly mentioned potatoes. Well, there’s not much more that I like than potatoes cooked any which way. And like I said, before, Kelly’s a very good cook, so I knew it was gonna be good.

We all jumped in the pool, and were swimming around, cooling off, as it was nearly 105°. We were getting a little chilled, if you can believe it, when Tracy mentioned a barbecue place with the best potatoes in town. Next thing we knew, we were out of the pool and getting dressed to go to this restaurant, which wasn’t too far from the house.

The potatoes that they were talking about, were giant russets, baked to perfection. I said, “since you girls are experienced, I’ll have mine any way you do”. Butter, cheese, spicy sour cream, everything’s spicy in Arizona, green onions and I think some other things that I can’t remember. On top of that, we went over to the meat counter, and I had pulled pork put on top of mine. Eeeew whee! Then, there was mac and cheese and corn bread pudding! Wow! There was also chocolate cake, but none of us could eat it then, so we took it home for later. Time for bed.

Thursday

Thursday was all about getting ready for our trip to the Grand Canyon. I went with Tracy to Target for her to order new glasses. She also bought 3 umbrellas because we heard that the weather was gonna be wet and very cold, both in Page and on the Kaibab Plateau. I was going to wait in the car but she was insistent that I would walk. She was like Hannah in that I need to walk if I expect to get stronger and for my hip flexor to heal. So I did. I already knew that it was hard for me to walk. Not only because of the heat, but Portland is 50 ft above sea level and Phoenix is 1200, which is quite a difference. I was already wheezing on exhalation and exertion.

Tracy loaded the truck early with everything we needed for a safe drive through the desert from their house to Lake Powell in Page Arizona, right on the border with Utah. My phone was going crazy, trying to decide what time it was. Was it Utah time or was it Arizona time? We had plenty of water and snacks and everything to make turkey sandwiches.

That night we ate delicious crab salads, thanks again to Kelly’s good cooking. We all needed to pack because we were going to leave early for our trip to the Grand Canyon. Can you even imagine my excitement? Probably not. I have never been to the south rim nor the north rim. I never expected that I would ever get a chance to get to the Grand Canyon. And especially not this year. Tracy and Kelly both told me that they hadn’t made any plans for a trip. We were just going to have day trips, which in Arizona, in the desert and with their knowledge of Arizona, I knew was going to be exciting anyway no matter what we did.

Friday

The drive over was phenomenal. After leaving Phoenix on highway 17, we connected to highway 64 as we climbed out of the Valley of the Sun, into the cooler mountain air of Flagstaff. I love this part of the trip, as we drive through the fragrant lodgepole pines. 

From there, we connected with highway 89 heading north. We entered the dark black landscape of the San Francisco peaks, and the Volcanic Fields and Painted Desert and out towards the edge of the Navajo Nation.

Today’s destination was to head over to Lake Powell on the Glen Canyon, where we had reservations to stay at the Lake Powell Resort. One continues to drive on highway 89. You have then left the Sonoran desert, and it’s Saguaro into an “other planet” landscape. It’s flat and dry. As far as the eye can see it’s flat, but with humongous mountain ranges seemingly erupting from the flat earth.

The earth is red. We drove the 60 miles along side the massive layerd red rock Echo Cliffs… ending that corridor on the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. I am always over the top with the landscapes in Arizona. So unlike Oregon. I’m pretty annoying, probably, as my exclamations and constant narration of the incredible scenic views. I can’t help it. I have to exclaim, “Look at that. Can you believe it”?

I’m also fascinated with the demographics. Perhaps you will see a small village, or a gathering of a few houses. But more likely, you will see isolated houses, some with nothing around them. Some with a corral or a barn, and a couple of horses. I can’t help but to wonder who these people are. And what they’re doing out there. There doesn’t seem to be services like electricity or water. I know that they are the Navajo or the Dinè, as they like to be called. But I know nothing of their lives. You will definitely see, occasionally, a res dog wandering on the highway.

From there, we took a slight detour onto highway 89A towards Marble Canyon and the Navajo Bridge that crosses the Colorado River. Marble canyon marks the exact beginning of the Grand Canyon. We wanted to see if we could catch a glimpse of the California Condors who frequent the area. And we did. Tracy and Kelly walked out over the bridge. I’m not much for heights, so I stayed up on the viewing area. We were about to leave when we heard a man saying that there was a condor right under the bridge. Tracy got a good look at it, and so did kelly and I as it was flying away onto the opposite side of the canyon. It’s flight was beautiful as it never flapped its wings once. It’s a giant bird.

Just past the bridge on the highway is Lee’s Ferry road, Driving five miles takes you down to the banks of the Colorado.River where the true canyon begins. The rock formations on the road are otherworldly. One rock, in particular, which is called Umbrella Rock, fell from the mountainside thousands of years ago. Rain has eroded the land away. Except for under the rock, the compression and protection from the rain has created a sculptural phenomena. To me, it looked more like a mushroom, but I’ll try not to change its name.

We drove down to the water where I took my shoes off and walked in the sand and Tracy went down to the water and put her hands in. Two Dinè women were fishing from the bank. After maybe 20 minutes or so, the wind kicked up. And looking into the sky, we saw huge black clouds coming. The wind was so strong it was blowing big clouds of rust colored dust onto us from the mountain tops. It was time to get out of there and get out of there fast. The wind was blowing so hard, it almost blew my shoes down the beach. Tracy helped me and took my hand and we walked as fast as we could back to the truck climbing into its safety. Our ears, our eyes, our noses and every crevice was filled with red gritty sand. It took a couple of showers to get rid of all of it. The rain came down in torrents. The rain came down in sheets so that Tracy could hardly see to drive. But we did get out of that canyon. It was amazing to be on the actual river at the bottom of the canyon.

From there it was back onto highway 89. First stop was Lake Powell. It is a reservoir that serves to store water and to distribute water throughout the southern states. But also the lake is a playground for, especially boaters. The lake cold’s a large marina. The lake itself was greatly diminished, but the Glenn Canyon dam held as much water back as it could. This is the dilemma. For these desert states, there’s just not enough water. The sad part is the history of the location once again. As it happens to all Indian land, it was taken over by the US Department of Engineering without consideration for their ancestral homeland. They were forced to move. Oh, yes, they were promised compensation, but as usual, it never came through.

We stayed at the Lake Powell Resort. We had a great view of the lake and surrounding land. Tracy was tired from driving and cold, as were all of us, having come from weather. that was 100°+ to somewhere in the 70s. But we came prepared because we knew that once we were on the Kaibab Plateau, that it could get down to 20°.

It was dark when we arrived, so we dumped our suitcases in our room and went to the lounge for a simple dinner. Tracy had a BLT and Kelly and I ate chef salads. It didn’t take us long to shower and climb into bed. We all passed out pretty quickly.

Saturday

I woke fairly early and wandered out onto the patio in front of our room. I wandered around a bit on the trails and looked at the lake and the surrounding landscape of gray and blonde mountains and hills. The water was very, very low and it was fairly desolate looking. I think mostly people come to boat and to fish and to relax. There were a number of swimming pools and trails down to the lake. When Tracy woke up, we wandered down to the coffee bar. Tracy got one for Kelly so that we could wake her up and get going.

There really wasn’t much of interest for us to do there, so we were just going to head directly to the Grand Canyon. No one was hungry except me so Tracy stopped at the Mcdonald’s and I ordered two fish sandwiches. I remember them being quite small and very cheap. My how things have changed. They each were $7.00! I actually felt guilty. I could only eat one.

From Lake Powell, we climbed up onto highway 89 again, heading south. As we drove south the Echo Cliffs, were now on our left. We passed the Vermilion Cliffs again and came upon a very strange sight. The desert floor was made up of massive shale lumps. These are impossible to describe. They must be seen to believe.

After about 75 miles, we turned on to highway 64 west and entered the eastern gates of the Grand Canyon National Park. From there, our route began to climb and pinyon and ponderosa pines filled our view. I was fascinated by the view of Cedar Mountain, which looked like a large flat top hat. What was so fascinating was that it just stands there, alone with no other mountains or hills around it at all. One can keep it in ones’s view all the way to the entrance to the South Rim Park entrance and on to the village on the rim.

Stepping out of the truck at the South Rim Grand Canyon Visitor Center, the first thing that hits you isn’t the view—it’s the sheer scale of human logistics. The parking complex is absolutely massive, a sprawling sea of asphalt divided into huge, numbered lots designed to hold thousands of cars and tour buses. Well, maybe not thousands, but at least hundreds. It feels like arriving at a major amusement park or a bustling airport.

People are everywhere, a moving sea of humanity from every corner of the globe, speaking a dozen different languages, unloading strollers, and adjusting backpacks. Before you even see a speck of red rock, you find yourself navigating the beautifully stone-crafted plaza, modern water-filling stations, and the predictably large, industrial public restrooms built to handle the endless waves of travelers.

But then, you follow the paved path toward Mather Point, and the crowd begins to thin out as everyone slows down. You walk up to the edge, and suddenly the concrete world drops away. There is a sturdy, thick steel railing bolted into the limestone beneath your feet—a comforting, solid barrier that keeps the bustling crowd safe from the sheer drop. Leaning against that rail, the noise of the many tourists around you seems to instantly fade into a hush. You are standing on a paved, heavily managed viewing platform, surrounded by strangers taking selfies, yet looking out into that silent, five-thousand-foot drop, the contrast is dizzying. Man-made railings and busy walkways hold you steady on the very brink of an ancient, wild eternity.

We didn’t stay long at the South Rim as it began to rain in earnest. Before we left Phoenix, Tracy bought three large umbrellas for us since we knew that the weather would be unpredictable on the canyon. We were still walking towards the parking lots as Tracy ran to the truck, grabbed the umbrellas and brought them to us before we were soaked to the bone. We climbed into the truck and Tracy made turkey sandwiches for us all, while Kelly handed, from the back seat, soft drinks and chips.

From there, we explored Desert View Drive and the many viewpoints along the South Rim on our way to the Noeth Rim. We stopped at a few places to take in the view, away from the south rim chaos. We saw a huge raven and many places to view the canyon that did not have the railings and the many people  We stopped at Desert View to get a view of the historic Watch Tower. The trails and the restrooms were closed. So we went on our way.

To get to the North Rim, we once again drove on highway 67 to take the long drive south to get to the Kaibab Plateau. At times it felt like we were driving straight up, at times making horseshoe turns, our tires nearing the edges of the road that dropped who knows how many feet? Tracy is an amazing driver, and I trust her implicitly, though I kept saying, “Keep your eyes on the road. Keep your eyes on the road. Don’t look”, as I was exclaiming, “Oh my god! Look at that!” When we reached the plateau, we were at 9000 ft. elevation. We drove through miles and miles and miles of burned out forests. This was the remnants of the huge and devastating fire of 2025.

On our way to the rim, we passed the Kaibab, Lodge where we were going to spend the night. We drove through high elevation meadows with bison (we didn’t see any) but we saw cows, elk and deer. The many diverse evergreen trees were populated with groves of flaming aspen trees. October was the perfect time to go through that area.

We got a map as we passed through the entrance to the park and Tracy chose the route we were going to take to the rim. We weren’t going to go to the Grand Canyon Lodge, where the fire had taken out some 70 buildings, including the Grand Lodge. The forest is burned to a crisp, but the aspen are coming up like crazy as they are meant to do after a fire. There were controlled fires everywhere. At times it was difficult to drive through the thick smoke.

The route that Tracy chose was the Cape Royal road. A 23 mile long asphalt, almost single track road, that twisted and turned through the forest right along the rim. Sometimes our tires were just a foot from the rim. The North Rim is raw and unprotected. The road pulls you closer to the rim that just beyond is a drop off of many thousands of feet. No fences, no guardrails. Driving that road took total focus on Tracy’s part with a tight grip on the wheel. At the end of the road is a large parking lot with bathrooms and a trail going out along the rim.

We parked and took a deep sigh of relief. Any way I did. I know Tracy well enough after visiting with her in Arizona for the last ten years, that she loves these kinds of drives and has no fear. She trusts her truck and she trusts her ability to drive in the most stressful situations. But needless to say, she has a deep respect for these dangerous routes. I had a quick and greatly needed pee before heading out to the rim with Tracy and Kelly. There were just a few cars in the parking lot. This was a completely opposite experience than that of the South Rim.

Let me say once again that there were no railings. There were no cautionary signage that says stay away from the edge. It was raw, it was wild, you are basically on your own to take care of yourself. We walked to an area where there was a rustic bench. Just two or three yards from the edge. I sat there and stared in awe, while Tracy and Kelly walked further to the Angels Window overlook. This window, an eroded archway in the limestone cliff, allows you to sit and look through the window. I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing, i thought that purple smooth looking area, which was the arch, was a large purple rock, when in actuality, I was looking through the window to the other side of the canyon.

I sat there for quite a long time, I eventually started to worry, and I was getting cold. Large black clouds were coming over and I was beginning to feel the spitting rain. I had read that Tropical Storm Rachel was going to come right over the top of us. There weren’t many people there to begin with, but by this time there was hardly anyone there, but us, maybe one or two cars. Eventually, here they came just as the rain began in earnest.

We climbed into the truck and once again, Tracy made turkey sandwiches. I still had my leftover fish sandwich, which I ate along with chips and drank sparkling water, again. Since we were only one of one or two cars left in the parking lot, we knew we had the 23 mile long, run down Cape Royal road, hugging the road away from the rim.

In the darkening sky, it began to rain in earnest. It began a deluge in earnest. The wind was blowing and Rachel’s outer bands had reached us. It wasn’t supposed to hit in earnest until 5:30 am after we were already snug in our beds in the cabin at the Lodge. At times we could ride in the middle of the road away from the edges, but at times there was nothing for it, but to ride on the rim. We finally came down to the main road taking us back to the Lodge.

There had been warnings that we should watch for flooding and falling trees. In places the road was flooded and water was coming down off the mountainside in torrents, filling up the ditches and overflowing. Once again, Tracy’s ability to drive was beyond compare. We saw an elk, come out of the woods and onto the road right before we got to the Lodge.

Our cabin was absolutely freezing. And after bringing our luggage in, we were all pretty wet. There were two small space heaters and a wall unit, which never worked. Kelly and I decided we wanted to try the buffet. So we left Tracy in the cabin to take a shower.

While we were gone, all the power went out while Tracy was in the shower. Stark naked. She hollered out, “who is there”? and then thought perhaps there was a ghost. It was nobody, so she called the front desk and a maintenance guy came and said we couldn’t run both space heaters. Since it was near freezing, we were not happy. But in the end, the one space heater did a pretty good job.

The buffet was nice, but wasn’t very good. There were meatballs in gravy, pork chops, kind of a chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, a salad bar, creamed corn and green beans and a plethora of desserts and ice cream. I don’t know if my nerves were on edge, or what? But I hardly slept that night. I was up and down, at least a dozen times. Right on time exactly at 5:30 am, Rachel hit big time. Kelly thought she felt the cabin shake.

Tracy and I got up fairly early, probably about 7:30. I was hungry, but Kelly had advised. Tracy, that the food wasn’t very good, and that we should eat once we came down off the plateau. I agreed and we drank some protein drinks and ate granola bars. We were taking a drink back to Kelly to wake her up so that we could get on the road, not knowing what we would encounter as far as the tropical storm was concerned.

I wanted to use the bathroom before we got on the road. I sat down and was doing my business when the whole bottom of the toilet tank broke off. With my pants down around my ankles, I tried to reach the turn off valve but couldn’t, so water was spewing out full blast. I was up to my ankles in water. Tracy and Kelly heard the tank break. It sounded almost like an explosion. Tracy wanted to come in right away to help. But I had to at least get my pants up around my hips. As soon as I let her in, she got the water turned off immediately.

Tracy went to the front desk and told them about our situation and they said, “no problem, we’ll get to it.” They certainly weren’t in any hurry since hearing that we had the water turned off. We left the Kaibab Lodge a little worse for wear I’m afraid. When we were about to leave, I went into the lodge restroom and the owner seemed more concerned with whether I had been hurt or not. But just to safeguard our innocence, I took pictures of the tank before we left in case there were any insurance issues. I would have needed a sledgehammer to have broken the bottom of the tank. It couldn’t have been my fault.

Sunday

So now it’s Sunday and time to drive home.We hit some pretty rough patches of rain and wind. But mostly it was uneventful. We came off the plateau and back onto highway 89, going back the amazing way that we had come. It was no less amazing to us, on our way back, than, it had been on our way there.

Tracy heard that we should stop at the Cameron Trading Post, and so we did, and was it ever worth it! It’s kind of like a small little shopping area, but the Trading Post is huge with every kind of jewelry, rugs, and art you can imagine. If I’d had a million dollars, I could have easily spent it all.

The main attraction at the Trading Post for us was the restaurant. We hadn’t eaten yet. After a wait of probably 20 minutes, we were seated. Kelly and I had fry bread tacos, and Tracy had a fry bread french dip. These things were enormous, and I brought over half of it home to eat that night. I also loved the lemonade with prickly pear.

Then, it was time to make a beeline to Phoenix. Tracy had to work early in the morning, and so did Kelly. And I needed to leave for the airport by 8:30. I needed to pack everything in the evening so that I didn’t have anything to do in the morning except get up, get dressed and get out. After eating leftovers of fry bread tacos, I headed to bed. We had traveled 900 miles in 3 days. It was time to rest.

Monday

Time to go home. I always leave reluctantly knowing that i’m going to miss these girls and Arizona and besides, their dogs, Bug and Babaduke. I was leaving with a suitcase full of Kelly’s amazing polished rocks and geodes and more books. I was carrying my Cosanti bell in my backpack. I couldn’t leave that thing out of my sight. But more than anything else, I was taking my memories of this trip with me in my mind, and in my heart and the changes it made in my soul.

There are no words to express my gratitude for the love, care and experiences that I get from Tracy and Kelly.

The House Fire that Took Everything

It was autumn and coming on Thanksgiving. I don’t remember why, but we had to move from our house on the bluff overlooking Camano Island on the Puget Sound.

I loved that house. It was an old two-story, faded red from being buffeted by many storms. It sat on a bluff, two hundred feet above the water’s edge. Along the front was a wide covered porch. I’ll never forget the day, when during a tremendous storm, a bolt of lightning came down and struck the porch. A burned hole in the wood bore witness.

Once, one of our steers decided it would go down the path to the water’s edge, but then couldn’t come back up alone. Our two steers were always breaching the pasture’s fences, seemingly looking for greener pastures. We tried to coax it up the path, but were unsuccessful. We finally resorted to tying our horse, Coquill, to a rope around the steer’s neck, to drag it up the steep path. The steer was panicked, its eyes bulging almost out of its head as it bellowed its protest. The steer wouldn’t stand, so Coquill dragged that dead weight all the way back to its pasture.

The floors of the house were made of wood, soft fir boards, also faded from many years of use. Even the walls were made of wood. The stairs to the second floor creaked and groaned, as if it was an old man with painful joints.

The conjoined living room and dining area had windows that stretched completely across the front of the house. This is where we could sit on the window bench and watch orcas surfacing out on the water, surrounding small fishing boats. It was lovely, just lovely.

I kept a vegetable garden. The drive was long and on one side were long barns for chickens and other animals. Altogether, we had two horses, two steers, a bunch of chickens, and our wonderful dog, Skokie. When we were asked to leave this house, we were forced to sell the horses, we killed the steers and the chickens, and searched for a new home. We were sad.

Then, as I said in the beginning, right before Thanksgiving, we found an old, almost but not actually, dilapidated house on low-lying ground. It was much smaller than the house on the bluff, and I didn’t have the wonderful views of the Sound or room for animals.

If my memory serves me, it was probably 1975–76. Jesse was still sleeping in a crib. We were planning on having company for Thanksgiving and I’m sure my mom was going to come up to the Island for the holidays. I had just purchased some warm yellow Chantal pottery for the occasion.On the weekend, I was getting everything unpacked and put away. Jack was napping on the couch, Jesse was napping in his crib, and Hannah was puttering around. I needed to get to the store to prepare for the week coming up and to come up with something for dinner. I wanted Jack to come along. He suggested that he and Jesse stay home and continue their naps, but I convinced him to come with me. So we woke Jesse, and we all took off in Jack’s truck.

On the Island, unless you lived right in one of the tiny villages, everything was some distance away from everything else. There was no reason to hurry. And so we meandered on the back roads, enjoying the fall colors, until we reached Sebo’s, which was the only large grocery store nearby.We drove home slowly, enjoying the fall colors.

As we approached our house, we saw smoke and lots of cars and trucks in our driveway and on the road in front of the house. The house was fully engulfed in flames. All of the vehicles, we found out, were those of the volunteer fire department.We sat in the truck for a moment, stunned. We couldn’t move.

From there my memory is faulty. I saw some of our furniture out in front of the house. And then I couldn’t see anything more. We were told that we couldn’t come up to the house or go into the house, and we would need to find some place to go. I don’t remember where we went. Thank goodness, Skokie had either gone with us or had been outside because we still had him with us.

I know that Jack would remember fine details about our lives after the fire. But I know that we stayed with others, from house to house, until we found another place to live. We had very little left.

We weren’t allowed back into our house until after three days, I believe. When it was certain that the fire was completely out and there weren’t any smoldering coals, we went back to see what we could see. We had our antique iron bed frames, we had a carved wooden commode that the firemen had thrown out onto the lawn, and our sofa, also thrown out onto the lawn. Thieves had gone into the outside shed and stolen Jack’s tools for his trade as a stone mason and for gardening.

The new yellow dishes were chopped into bits as the firemen fought the fires in the walls and the cupboards in the kitchen. The handheld receiver of the phone on the wall had melted so that it almost reached the ground. I owned a lot of Tupperware, and it had melted like a plastic waterfall, except for the colors that, of course, I recognized.Our clothes were either burned or smoke-damaged to such a degree that they just fell into dust. There was nothing left of bed or bathroom linens. There were some books that were salvageable, having been pressed tightly together on their shelves, but they were smoke-damaged and mostly not worth keeping. We salvaged a few.

Not the actual house (Photo might be covered by copyright)

We often take for granted all the things that we need in our daily lives, like toothbrushes, safety pins, barrettes, hairbrushes, not to mention big things like dishes, silverware, pots and pans, and thousands of other things big and small. After some 7 years of accumulating everything one would need for a home, we had none of these.

We didn’t yet have renters insurance, and so we had no recourse to replace any of these items except the generosity of well-wishers. Mostly people donated clothes, which were, I would say, generally not useful to us except in the short term. Of course, we had a certain style, an aesthetic that everyone develops over the course of their lives, and to wear others’ hand-me-downs was difficult, even humiliating.

Besides wearing others’ castaways, we didn’t even have a home of our own, if I remember right, for at least a couple of months. Please forgive me if I don’t sound grateful because I certainly was, but I had never had to rely on other people’s charity up until this time in my life.

Eventually, we found another home to rent, which was better than the last. It was determined that the fire had started in faulty wiring in the kitchen. I often think what would have happened if Jack and Jesse hadn’t woken up from their naps to go with me to the store. The fire department reported that the fire burned slow and hot, and they might have died of smoke inhalation before they even realized there was a fire. It took a long time for the fire to break through the roof and for the fire department to be called.

You’d think that probably we would have been depressed or negatively affected. This was traumatic, losing everything that we had built, but we just began to rebuild. Jack was back working almost immediately, and I continued as a stay-at-home mom, happily cooking, cleaning, and raising the children on that beautiful Island.

Grandpa’s Hands

Growing up on Kellogg Street in St johns, my world felt small, safe, and beautifully anchored by the people I loved most. Just around the block on Jersey Street stood my grandparents’ small house, and just as the house I grew up in, Grandma and Grandpa’s house always felt safe and full of love.

Location of the Western Cooperage Co.

Grandpa would leave every morning from his house, with his metal lunchbox in hand, He would walk to the bluffs above the Willamertte River on the well worn paths, leading to the Western Cooperage Co. It wasn’t many blocks from the house.

Work at the cooperage, as I was told, was hard, relentless work—the kind of labor that demanded everything a man had to give. The cooperage was a place of heavy timber, iron hoops, and deafening machinery, a site of true sacrifice where workers like my grandfather traded their physical strength, and sometimes even their fingers, to provide for their families. Grandpa had very few full fingers. As a young child his hands were fascinating to me.

When the workday was over and the heavy labor was done, Grandpa came home, and I’m sure, eagerly anticipating what good food Grandma had made for dinner. He must have been exhausted and famished after a day at the cooperage.

Evenings at their house were simple and comforting. The fortunate days that I found myself at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, when Grandpa came in, he was carrying his metal lunchbox, and I would look inside and invariably, he had left a treat for us kids.


I can still picture the living room, Grandpa sitting in his favorite chair, almost always with his bible draped across his knees. I know that grandpa was a believer, but it wasn’t that he lived a quiet life. He raised black labradors for hunting fowl, and he was an extraordinary hunter of other animals and he was a quintessential fisherman. I’ve heard tell of his drinking days, and I think my father took after him in every way except the bible.

I can’t even imagine the days that Grandpa had lost a partial finger or a complete finger at work. What kind of pain must he have suffered. What kind of healing had to take place for those hands to still work. What kind of courage did it take for him to get up every day after losing part of his hand and to go back to that dangerous place to work.These are things I never thought of as a child.

The machinery at the cooperage was dangerous and noisy and had no safety mechanisms. The men fed these boards into the saws to create the staves for barrels. There was the formation of the heavy metal hoops and the formation of the barrels themselves. I cannot even imagine. See the postscript for some historical notes.

Though Grandpa was very loving, I don’t really remember having conversations with him. But climbing up into his lap in his comfortable chair was a favorite place of mine. I would hold his broken hands in mine, but never ask a question about them. And he never offered an explanation. I didn’t really know what had happened to his handa until I was almost grown.

Grandpa and Grandma’s house was ffilled with familiar sounds and sights.

Jessie Foster Womack and
Edward Corliss Anderson

Sunday nights, without fail, Lawrence Welk and Oral Roberts, the televangelist, came on the television. After I contracted polio, it was a heavy weight on our family, yet Grandpa’s faith and love never wavered. When Oral Roberts would admonish those watching from the comfort of their homes, the television watchers, to lay their hands on those that they wanted to see healed, Grandpa would call me from my place on the couch with Grandma and he would have me sit between his slippered feet. He would place his worn, hardworking hands on my head and pray. In those moments, the hands that labored so fiercely at the cooperage became the ultimate source of tenderness, healing, and safety. Their home was a haven. Grandma and Grandpa prayed for my healing with all of their hearts with Grandpa’s hands on my head.

Postscript
The history of the Western Cooperage Company is a story of incredible industrial triumph, but it was built on the severe physical sacrifices of the men who worked the line. To achieve a massive output of 3,000 barrels a day, the factory relied on heavy, high-speed woodworking machinery that operated with completely unguarded gears, blades, and chains.
In the early 20th century, the factory floor was a landscape of immense physical risk:

* The Jointer and Stave-Bucking Machines: These used rapidly rotating, exposed steel blades to shave heavy Douglas Fir down to precise curves. A split second of fatigue while feeding the wood meant fingers could instantly catch the blades.
* Hoop-Driving Presses: These powerful mechanical winches forced the iron hoops around the wood under crushing pressure, creating notorious pinch points that could easily sever a hand.
* Exposed Belts and Pulleys: Centralized steam engines turned heavy leather belts dangling over every workstation. Without modern automatic emergency stops, a caught sleeve or stray hand would drag a worker directly into the gears.

In an era before modern safety regulations, factory owners routinely prioritized the blistering speed of the assembly line over basic physical safeguards. For the workers, losing a finger or part of a hand was a tragic, everyday risk of the trade—making the quiet endurance of men like Grandpa all the more profound.

Corrections to Grandma’s Nanny Story and Tales of Slavery in the Womack Lineage

    
In my last post, I shared a brief memory of my grandmother and the woman she always referred to as her “nanny.” I was inspired to write it after reading a troubling post on Facebook where someone recounted a family using the N-word for their household caregiver. It shook me, because in my very large family, I have absolutely no memory of anyone ever using that word. My grandmother never used it. She spoke of her nanny with fondness and respect, and that was the standard of decency she passed down to us.

However, as a professional archivist, I know that oral family histories are beautiful but imperfect things. They have a way of compressing time, blending generations together until the timelines blur.

Shortly after publishing that post, I received a note from my dad’s cousin, Carolyn. She is the oldest living relative of that generation, and she is wonderful at keeping our history straight. Carolyn gently pointed out a major flaw in my timeline: because slavery was abolished in 1865, and my grandmother was born well after that, she could not have had an enslaved nanny.

Carolyn was entirely right about the timeline. The woman my grandmother remembered so fondly from her childhood in Kentucky was undoubtedly a hired domestic servant or worker.

But Carolyn’s correction got my archivist wheels turning. While the nanny of my grandmother’s youth was free, I knew the stories I grew up hearing about our ancestorstoal tales of vast tobacco crops and prized racehorses in Greenup County, Kentucky. My historical intuition told me that an operation of that scale required a massive amount of manual labor. I decided to dig into the archival records to see exactly what kind of world my grandmother’s people came from.

What I found was a heavy, complex history.

The Womack line in Kentucky was established by my great-great-great-grandfather, James Tignal Womack, who moved his family and his wealth from Prince Edward County, Virginia, to the Little Sandy River around 1812. When he passed away in 1827, his will divided twenty-three enslaved individuals among his heirs.

His son, Archer Tignal Womack, settled in Oldtown, Greenup County. The federal slave schedules show that he held eleven enslaved people in 1850 and seven in 1860. In the hilly terrain of eastern Kentucky, owning that many people made him a substantial slaveholder. This labor force directly matched the stories of large-scale tobacco farming and horse breeding.

Because Greenup County sat right on the Ohio border, it was a hotbed for the Underground Railroad. Local newspapers from January 1859 even document a “panic among the slaveholders” after two young enslaved men successfully escaped from Archer Womack’s farm, prompting him to sell others further south for security.

My great-great-grandfather, William Archer Womack, grew up directly inside this environment. When the Civil War broke out, he held intense Southern secessionist sympathies. He was eventually arrested by Union forces, treated as a prisoner of war, and sent north to Camp Chase, a notorious military prison in Columbus, Ohio, before returning home to Oldtown as a businessman after the war.

Discovering this census and military data didn’t change the timeline Carolyn corrected, but it gave the story a much deeper meaning.

My grandmother was raised by people who had actively participated in, profited from, and fought to defend the slaveholding South. Yet, somewhere along the way, she made a choice. She broke the cycle of prejudice. She refused to carry the dehumanizing language of that era into the ears of her children and grandchildren.

“From dust we came, and to dust we will go”, she oft-repeated. and perhaps it is in recognizing our shared dust that my grandmother found her grace. The woman she loved as a child may have been a hired servant rather than an enslaved nanny, but the true miracle of the story is that my grandmother chose to look backward at her family’s history, and then chose to walk forward with love.

I will be bringing a great deal more history in subsequent posts. Stay tuned if you dare.

In bringing this historical documentation to light, I have gratefully utilized AI as a digital tool and editorial assistant to help research, structure, and refine the narrative. However, the intellectual framework, the emotional weight, and the driving motivation behind this work are entirely my own. This remains, above all, a direct reflection of my own voice and my deeply personal desire to ensure this history is remembered.

Grandma’s Nanny and her Twelve Children

I listened to a story on Facebook, I think it was, that was much like this story but also was different. And I’ll tell you why. But it reminded me that I should probably write this down because I’ve already forgotten so much of it.

My grandmother told me this story countless times. I never tired of hearing it because it was so strange and so different from anything that I knew as a white girl, living in the Pacific Northwest. I would picture, in my child’s mind, their nanny, washing clothes outdoors in a wash tub, on a washboard. I don’t even know if that’s an accurate picture.

I believe it was her great-grand parents who  owned slaves in Kentucky on a plantation they built themselves. According to Grandma, Grandpa was infamous for “being as kind to his slaves as he was to his race horses”. They grew sugar and tobacco. And I don’t know what else.

There were nine kids in Grandma’s family, but their house slave had twelve children. Grandma grew up with this house slave. She knew her house slave’s, name, and all twelve of her children’s names. This is where the story I read on Facebook differs from my own. They called their nanny the “N” word but not thinking they were saying anything wrong. (Translate: racist).

Grandma and her siblings would dance around their nanny singing, “tell us the name of your children, “nanny”, but using her real name. I guess it was because her children’s names sounded strange to them.

The nanny would go along with grandma and her brothers and sisters until she tired of it. She then shood them away, saying that she would “soap them all up with a bar of soap and swallow them whole”.  Then, they would all run away, screaming as though their nanny had turned into a monster.

Grandma told this story to me over and over again. Among other stories, never, I don’t think, realizing the racism of having only black people working for them. Grandma thought of this nanny as one of the family.

But after her work was done, scrubbing their clothes, cooking, cleaning their house, watching after all the children, she went home to her own home, which was more than likely a “house” on the plantation grounds and do all the same things for her children.

I don’t ever remember her talking about any of the other slaves. Her grandfather’s father had come to Kentucky from England. He moved to Kentucky with a black man, either slave or friend, I do not know. They first built a small cabin. Then grandfather or both   built a home and then built the plantation. This black man had a name. And it’s written down in history, but right now, I don’t remember it. Grandpa became a wealthy man on the backs of his slaves.

Still, our family is the wealthiest family in that countyl. I must say that wealthy is a relative term in this day and age. When grandma’s father and mother decided they wanted to move west to Rainier. Oregon, Grandma would tell the story of leaving their nanny and all nine children gathered around her, crying and tearing at her apron and trying to hold on to her. Say what you may, they believed they loved her. And they believed that she loved them.

When Grandma would tell me this story, tears would always come to her eyes. She never ever used the “N” word nor did any of her brothers and sisters speak of their nanny in any negative way. But the story of dancing around her and pulling at her apron strings and chanting “tell us the name of all your children” she didn’t see as racist.

At one time, I wrote this story down. But I can’t find that story any more, and my memory does not serve me as it should. I forgot the nanny’s name long time ago. The only one of the children’s names that I can remember is, Ethelial”… her oldest boy and the name that she would tell them first.

This is by no means the story of my grandma and her ancestors. It’s just a thought I had when I heard the story of this other person who used the “N’ word to talk about their black nanny, and I remembered grandma never doing that ever. I’m not saying that she was any less racist. I’m just saying they didn’t use the “N” word.

I still have a living relative, my dad’s cousin, who reads my blog. She has a wonderful memory for these things. And she might read this blog post and make corrections. I welcome them.

In Death. The Sisterhood of Motherhood

I just read a facebook post from Angie, sister of my son in law. Yesterday was the “anniversary” of her son, Shawndre’s, death. He was just twenty six. Covid took him.

I wanted to write back. I wanted to write something profound that would take away her pain that is still so raw. But I couldn’t think of any words to say that made any sense or would have any power, whatsoever. It still hurts so bad. Her grief tears my heart out.

Her message was so profound, and yet the pain is still so real. Even though Shawndre was not a relative of mine, except in that he was cousin of Nori and Ancel, my grandchildren, it feels like family. I knew him.

For some reason, somebody as close as family, close to my heart, passed away. Why Angie’s grief has such an impact on me, I don’t know. Her daily posts of her grief at that time, hurt like daggers… and still does. I will never forget them. Nor will I ever forget him.

The sisterhood of motherhood.

A Christmas Eve Vision

Enora and I were up late on Christmas Eve talking about astrology and philosophy. She was explaining my birth chart.

I began shaking internally, and I began to see but not really see with my eyes. But see with my spirit, the structure of my spiritual self and it looked like a human shape but at each extremity, including like the top of the head and the knees, elbows shoulders, I guess maybe at all the joints, there was a glowing globe like a point of light,  like the planets in the night sky or stars or something.

Kind of what I “saw”

You know how scientists even say that we’re made up mostly of stardust, or of the same material as stardust; I felt this and like I said, it seemed like I could see this entity which was my spiritual being. Not really surrounding me, but all around me… inside of my consciousness.

Like I said, this is really hard to explain. It felt very protective and comforting. And as though it had always been there throughout my life, but I was just now able to “see” it or sense it’s presence. But in essence it was also me.

The intense shaking went on for probably 15 to 30 minutes. I didn’t count or pay that much attention to time, but it was really, really intense. I felt like I was vibrating inside and out. Eventually it slowed down some until I went to bed. That was about 1:30 when we stopped talking.

Nori knew exactly what I was talking about. You know how meditation instructors say that we don’t have to look hard or work hard to get to that place of peace and knowing because it’s right here, it’s right here with us . I’ve never really known where that was, but I understood through meditation that yes, I could access that place of peace and calmness, and I want to say knowledge, but I don’t think that’s exactly what I mean.

But during this experience, while I was up with Nori, I felt that I now know what it is. And that our spirit, that light source is right here with us all the time. And it is in this shape of a human form that is right here with us, around us, in us at all times. I’m going to try to draw what I “saw” or felt I saw. Like I said, it wasn’t really with my eyes. It was just a knowing. But it definitely was a being of light and each point of light corresponded with the planets in my chart.


I know this might sound crazy. And I know that I’m not doing a good job of explaining it, but maybe I can draw something that will make more sense. All I know is that now I feel that “it”, which also isn’t the right word, has been with me since I was born, even through all of my close calls with death, and in all of my joys, my ups and down in life.

What kind of a person would I be to leave you now?

My old friend, Arman, came over this morning and brought some fresh lentil dal. It was still warm. It’s loaded with chunks of fresh ginger and jalapen̈o, which makes it pretty fiery. It’s really delicious. I wish I had some fresh veggies, but all I’ve got is some lettuce. That will have to do.

I’ve been down now for 11 days with a hip flexor injury. Arman has been very present for this while he is having some terrible health issues of his own. I have determined off and on for the last, more than 20 years, to kick him to the curb, and I have occasionally. Once I did for more than five years. But then he always came back into my life but at different levels. In the beginning, as a lover. Now like an old friend.

When I had cancer back in 2004/2005, he was there for me the entire time, but then as a lover. He was there while I lost my hair, threw up and peed and pooped with little control… He was there through weekly chemo treatments, with a bloody wound, that went from my netherlands all the way up to my boobs and a sore and irritated port in my chest.

He would sit with me at home and take naps with me for hours, and take me for rides for entertainment, since I couldn’t even walk. He took me sometimes to a nude beach on the Columbia to bask in the sun to dry out my wounds. Once I could finally keep liquids down, we’d stop at a Mcminamin’s and I would drink coffee with cream and a shot of brandy.

He never once said a negative word about my bruised, punctured and battered body. He never complained once about me losing my waist length golden hair. He celebrated with me when my hair began to come in, rubbing it gently with the palms of his hands.

I had only known him for 6 months when I was diagnosed with a killer cancer. I knew I was going to be extremely sick and that I might not even make it. I told him that he didn’t need to stick around for this. He just answered gently in his melodic Indian accent, “What kind of a person would I be to leave you now?” And so he stayed and loved me through it all.

For 24 years, he has never stopped calling me, even when I would be so angry with him that I would beg him to stop. No one in this world has made me more angry and more frustrated than Arman. Part of it has been the incompatibility of our two cultures. Other issues such as personal style, educational and economic levels, his culture’s attitude towards women, all presented huge obstacles to our relationship. But he never gave up. He is still a part of my life, as frustrated as I still get with him.

So now it’s my turn. At 72, he has developed serious health issues. This once healthy and robust man seems to be falling apart. As a restaurant owner, he never once missed a day of work in 27 years. He was a long distance bike enthusiast. He was a runner. But now disease is racking his body. From day-to-day, it’s one thing after another with doctors visits, hospital stays and handfuls of prescription drugs. Yet, he just keeps going. He still makes me delicious indian food. This morning, he brought me the lentil dal. On other days, he might show up with ice cream or other Indian dishes.

He is a Sikh who believes that god is in control of everything, therefore he doesn’t complain. Whatever happens in his life, be it good or bad, he gives god thanks. He has tried fervently to get me to believe in god, and is mildly frustrated with me that I can’t seem to find a reason to believe that there even is a god. Not only does he believe in his religion, he attends temple regularly. As well, he’s a believer in the traditions of his culture. Though he has been in the United States for over 30 years, his language skills are just barely sufficient. He has relied heavily on other people (mostly women) to help him through business dealings and health issues.

That has been my role in his life for decades. There have been times when I’ve been glad to assist and other times when I have resented his reliance on me and other times when I rejected this role and stepped away from him. When legal issues came up, I helped him, but I helped him in unveiled great anger. For one egregious violation, I even charged him hourly for my work, claiming I was done with free assistance. I lost all trust and respect for him.

Arman has a lot of street smarts, to the point where he could run a successful business for over twenty years. And yet so stupid in other ways. We were and always had been unequally yoked. I, an educated, career-oriented woman, who never had even a scrape with the law, and he having had, to date, 6 ugly charges against him. All of these charges were warranted because of his volition. The last time in court with him, I was embarrassed, in front of the judge, the lawyers and the district attorney, that I was even associated with him. I told myself then, that I would never again involve myself in any of his legal battles. But, as they say, money talks. It was aggravating to me that, though he was guilty on all counts, that his high powered lawyers helped him to walk away Scott free. I thought that if he could only suffer the consequences of his actions once, that he might change. Arman is not a bad person, just ignorant in some ways.

But maybe there is something real about karma. Now he’s suffering. Really suffering. But not to his mind. God is in charge, and his god knows what he’s doing.

It’s not that I feel responsible or obligated to help him through this difficult time in his life. But I cannot forget all of the years that I’ve known him and his incredible kindness when I was going through my cancer journey. He’s a selfish man. And yet, in some ways, he’s incredibly generous. He’s a stubborn man and set in his ways and yet, has never given up on me. You might accuse me of the many times I acquiesced when I should have walked away. But I didn’t, and here we are now. He’s sick.

And I will say, like he did to me so many years ago, “What kind of a person would I be to leave you now?”

PS: i have changed the name to protect the innocent or shall we say the guilty?. To those who know me and have been with me throughout this journey, will know who i’m talking about. But for those who don’t, know that I am talking about a real person.

Let’s Not Walk Softly

You Tracy and Me

Let’s not walk softly as though on hallowed ground.

Let’s walk boldly and talk of love.

Love, so young, careless, unbound.

Love, so foolish. Yet love that brought forth life.

A tiny seed began to grow secretly, quietly in a dark and lonely room.

This seed became… begun in love, reckless, foolish, and too soon.

A spark of passion warm and light, a seed burst forth,

And out of love came you.

How easy it is for children at play to make another life.

It took no thought, just passion.

Then a spark, barely visible,

Became a fire when you came so sudden.

It was you dear child, a heart, joined to mine… forever.
.

Because Death in Quarter Time

A long last breath,

To find solace,

Heavy river rocks.

Murmurs of life’s last breath,

Looking for solace,

Smooth river rocks.

Whispers in life’s long, last breath,

Finding solace,

Heavy and smooth river rocks.

Life’s long, last breathing,

Solace’ quiet sigh,

Heavy, smooth, mourns the river rocks.