ARIZONA MONSTER POST!

Arriving in Ash Fork, we were introduced to a very different style of living. Elisa at the Lavender Sky ranch relied on energy solely provided by the sun, drank water solely provided by rain catchment. Needless to say, that’s a pretty big deal, and it took some big steps to achieve. Water was recycled everywhere! The same drop that rinsed one plate served to wash off another, and all of it went to a tree or a garden somewhere. Dogs were the garbage disposal. Solar power came pretty easily, being in the desert like we were, but even with that, there was a constant conscientiousness to what was being used. It was a real eye opener, especially the 5 gallon buckets put under the sinks to collect water; that much water can get used in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful. It was very surprising.

We spent our time at the first stop in Ash Fork weeding, shoveling gravel, watching movies, and playing with the plethora of animals. 4 cats, 3 dogs, and they all had their own personalities. Pictured above are the two frisbee-crazed outside dogs and the inside dog, who has eyes to melt your heart and more loose fur than I’ve ever seen. The cats were all very sweet, though they didn’t pose for pictures very well!

Our next stop was AlAnn Alpaca Ranch….(to be continued!)

Also, sorry we’ve been super lazy about posting :( Ash Fork, Phoenix, and now San Diego will soon be up!

-K

First impression of California: 3.40 for gas…

Second impression: holy crap it is cold!! I love you, double digit thermometer.

nmstarr asked: Karl & Ainsley!!! Awesome people...realy enjoyed you both at our humble Summerfest Celebrations. Hope to see you again in the future!!!

"Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart,and you will find your way." Carlos Barrios

Thank you for your message! Twas lovely to meet you, Starr. :-) Thank you for the quote. It is so true! best wishes.

On our way to Jerome, AZ at a gas station in Ash Fork. That’s the West, for ya.

3,125 miles, and counting! The road goes ever on.

-K

Verything happens for a reason… Right? Yeah right, you say. And usually I’d agree. But it’s hard to believe on nights like this. If we hadn’t worked so hard today we wouldn’t have been tempted to laze about in a coffee shop. If the closest coffee shop hadn’t been 23 miles away, we wouldn’t have ended up in Williams. If we hadn’t ended up in Williams we wouldn’t have stumbled across a cowboy gundown in the middle of the streets. If we hadn’t come across a bunch of cowboys, well first of all we wouldn’t have gotten a doZen awesome pictures, but second and more importantly wouldn’t have ended up in the perfect place at the perfect time for a perfect sunset. And if we hadn’t been so inspired by the sunset, we wouldn’t have been inspired to spend the 40 minute drive back listening to the Beatles on shuffle. And if that hadn’t happened, I never would have realized how much I am moved by the song Golden Slumbers. Oh and did I mention the timing of driving back into the sunset JUST AS the sun was far enough down to not blind us but still left behind brilliant orange marigold Hues? Follow all that with hearty laughs, marinated chicken, and a glass of blackberry wine on the front porch watching the moon rise and you’ve got yourself a perfect sequence of events. It’s days, evenings, nights that I feel so blessed to be who and where I am. To be alive. To have had enough faith and guts to have made it this far; All the sudden, everything is worth it.

I love you.

-A

We drove out of Sedona around 2 and headed north then west to WIlliams, AZ to wait out a few hours. Sometimes just playing a board game is so much more relaxing then all the tranquil majestic vistas and quietly bubbling creeks we come across on the road…even when I lose by only like 13 points! Williams is definitely a town to check out; it’s Route 66 at its finest, and quite proud of the fact.

Anyway, after a few hours hanging out at the local coffee shop we headed westward just past Ash Fork, a mysterious little town which I suspect might be a glorified RV park…but I’m not sure just yet. We decided to follow Elissa into the ranch…great decision. It’s very very big, I think 40,000 acres. The owners have broken that into 40 acre parcels, and Elissa lives on one of the most remote ones. 4 or 5 twisting dirt (Ains: it’s gravel…) roads we made it! The place is pretty cool: all water is provided by what rain falls throughout the year, and there’s a big solar panel for charging the house. Water from the sinks falls into 5 gallon buckets which are then dumped onto trees on the property, and almost all of the water gets used several times before getting dumped. There’s also buckets for toilets! Which is fun. There are 3 dogs and 3 cats on the property, and they all have interesting personalities…there’s a cat who likes being stepped on by Ainsley, a dog who tackles me with a frisbee everytime I’m outside, and another dog that just sheds everywhere. But more on them (Including pictures!) later. I’m here to talk about one particular hole in the ground.

I always told Ainsley in a very smug tone that no matter how high one’s expectations were, the Grand Canyon would still surpass them. Not that I, the veteran sightseer, would ever be surprised, of course! To me, the Canyon was old news. Been there, done that.

…Yeah, I really ate my words. The thing is still absolutely astounding in every way possible. The narrator on the IMAX movie (which is pretty cool, by the way) stated that any attempt to capture the Canyon, whether it’s on a canvas or a photograph or even a 4 story high movie screen, will inevitably fail. The best we can do is record man’s smallness in comparison to it, compare how it effortlessly dwarfs anything that challenges it.

We were on the South Rim, and Mather Point (which I think is the most touristy spot you can end up in the entire canyon) was closed due to construction. Instead, we ended up one viewpoint west. At this point, in addition to the great view, there was a tiny trail that led out onto a rock outcropping. We decided to take it all in from there. It is amazing; the rocks are so huge, and so distant, that the mind cannot make a third dimension out of them. It is simply like staring at a painting that covers the whole world in front of you. Only the shadows cast by lumbering clouds overhead give any sense of perspective.

It did spawn an interesting conversation, though! I commented to Ainsley on how pathetic humankind seemed against such a huge force, about how all our pride and our puffing up seems a little silly when nature is carving out canyons and, on an even greater scale, birthing stars and planets and things we can’t even begin to comprehend yet. She agreed, noting that our 200,000 years in existence really is small change in the grand scheme of things. She’s right, though it isn’t the condemnation to inferiority I first thought of it as. We really are out of the starting gate; we are just beginning to evolve into our full potential. Sure, there’s plenty of sore spots, and we’ve messed up quite a few times. But that is the way with growing fast. My knees still hurt sometimes because I gained 2 feet in like 3 years! But I am growing; physically and mentally first, now something more. Nobody can deny that I have completely changed in just a blink of an eye. The same follows with humanity; in just a blink of history’s eye, we have rose from the mud, we have created astounding things. One day, these things really will grow to take their place among the great wonders of our universe.

So please, don’t fall into complacency and inaction by focusing on the sore spots. I see it all too often, and it breaks my heart to see people reciting old lines once more instead of moving to fix what they claim is so wrong with the world. If you truly care, if you are filled with passion and rage at the injustices of the world, let your actions follow suit. It’s often said that a little bit of change from every person will fix all these problems. Who knows, maybe donating that 5 dollars to the charity will save the world; maybe recycling your soda can help clean up the environment. Or, maybe that’s all a wonderful way for those of us in privileged situations to clear our guilt for not doing shit for the world, the environment, or any of those other causes. Everybody can give a lot more. For us to have all the things that we want (i.e. enough food to go around and for our grandchildren to not be fried out of existence by the sun), we are gong to have to give a lot more of ourselves than we are. I don’t think a recycled napkin is going to save the earth. Not while we’re buying big ol’ boats, not while we’re buying everything we do… that dollar donated is not enough. It just isn’t enough. And it never will be.

-K

Epic salad! Mixed berries + chicken (and candied walnuts!) From Canyon Breeze food court/ restaurant in Sedona. Future reference: split an entree there!! They’re HUGE! But I don’t recommend the roast beef sammich. Karl definitely doesn’t recommend it. Ha. Sedona is so expensive. On to Askhfork! You may not hear from us for awhile. :) <3, A

Flagstaff fire. :( Some a-hole left his campfire unattended. Karl: “I wonder if that guy knows that he did it.” Me: “I wonder if they tracked him down and shot him in a ditch.” -A