Not so sunny Arizona

Tuesday - our flight connection in San Francisco, coming from Reno, was tight, but we made it on to Phoenix, even with our luggage, on a pretty bumpy flight. A rain front was going through Arizona, and still is now. Arizona shows its cold shoulder. For the last days we had a lot of rain and temps went down to 40 deg. F, roads were flooded. 

Each time the sun came out for a little bit, we went out, so, these first photos were taken on an evening walk with our friends in the Scottsdale area, when the rain had stopped and a rainbow showed:

 

Wednesday we went on a shopping spree to the Phoenix Premium Outlet Mall in Chandler (left), and, lateron prepared German potato salad and Greek tzatziki for dinner to go with chicken thighs. When the rain stopped in the evening, we still drove out to Fountain Hills, another wealthy neighborhood in the Phoenix metro area, famous for its fountain in a lake (surrounded by a park), which is one of the world's tallest man-made fountain, the second tallest in the U.S., and fourth tallest in the world. Sunset was nice there!

 

On Thursday we drove into Phoenix to visit the Phoenix Art Museum (right/below) and the Heard Museum (further below). We especially love the Heard Museum with all its fantastic beadwork, baskets, weavings, Hopi katsinas (photo below, right), jewelry, paintings. Especially interesting and very instructive is the permanent exhibition "Native People in the Southwest", about the different tribes in the Southwest, and another one about Indian Boarding Schools.

 

 In the evening we ate in a nice Mexican restaurant, "La Pinata", in Phoenix before we visited Old Scottsdale for the weekly "Art Walk".

Friday - the weather has improved (at least it didn't rain anymore!), though temps were only in the 45/10 deg. F/C range. We drove for a 4-mi hike to the McDowell Mountains, and had lunch afterwards in one of the many bars/saloons in Cave Creek - a little Western town on the northern edge of Paradise Valley. 

 

 

From Sears Kay Ruin, our next stop, we saw the snow-covered peaks of the White Mountains.  The area was home to the Hohokam culture, ancestors of the O'odham tribes.  The prehistoric Hohokam built villages and fortifications like this one, called Sears-Kay Ruin (photos below), located atop a desert foothill in the Tonto National Forest. It was built around 1050 AD and abandoned around 1200 AD.

At sunset we drove to Spur Cross Ranch, a historic ranch property. Still, many horse farms there and wonderful old Saguaros.

And, after having hiked about 8 miles, we called it a day with some house-made pizza:

Saturday: after more rain all night long, we explored the Uptown Farmers Market (huge!) and drove on to Cosanti. This is an interesting gallery/store, built by Paolo Soleri (1919-2013), an Italian-born architect, urban designer, and philosopher, with a foundry and a pottery and famous for its wind chimes.

"The Biggest Little City in the World"

Reno - the snowfall had stopped in the evening, and, this morning the sun was out and it sort of looked beautiful (if you like the cold and the snow!). On the left, the view from our hotel window towards an enormous dome structure, part of the adjacent Silver Legacy Casino.  It houses a silver mining derrick.

In the morning we went out in the deep, slippery snow slush (at least on the walkways!) to revisit our favorite book store, Sundance Books, and, to check out a couple more things in town. Didn't want to hit more snow and skipped the thought to go for another car excursion. Reno is located only about 22 miles (35 km) north from Lake Tahoe, which is located on the border to California. 

 

Reno is known as "The Biggest Little City in the World" with about 1/4 mio. population. It seems that recently (after Covid?) downtown has suffered economically: some large casino hotels were closed (e.g. the one on the photo below, right) but in the suburbs many new apartment buildings came up, and, midtown is florishing. It has changed since our last visits in 2017 and 2022.

Truckee River Promenade in the snow

One of our favorite bookstores in the U.S.A.

 

 

 

In the afternoon, we picked up the car and drove into midtown to check out the new Reno Public Market, which opened in 2023 in an old shopping mall and containing many food vendors of all kinds, a bar and common sitting area, a stage, a soon-to-come microbrewery, and, much more. Part of it is the organic supermarket Sprout's and the Junkee Clothing Exchange. This store moved from another location in a huge hall here, selling costumes, vintage, furniture, antiques, and jaw-dropping displays (see pic below). Since we had skipped breakfast, we had a BBQ pulled-pork sandwich with fries before we drove to the airport, returning the car (only 640 mi/1000 km driven this time) and heading back to downtown by hotel shuttle. 

Called it a day in the microbrewery of the hotel at Happy Hour, packed and cleaned up for tomorrow's early flight to Arizona.

Farewell to Elko

Sunday morning ... up at sunset (photo on the right). Not too cold, no remarkable snowfall, just fine conditions for our drive back to Reno. 

We were exhausted from our previous busy days at the NCPG, with our brains spinning and filled with new ideas and inspirations. It's been great again, and, we were already thinking of attending the 40th edition of the festival next year again. 

 On the way out of town we stopped at the California Trail Interpretive Center, a fantastic museum, talking about the early settlers' trails to the west. Between 1841 and 1869, up to 250,000 people sold their belongings, packed wagons, and set out for the west to establish a better life there. 

With interactive exhibitions (pic above), full-size scenes and films this museum gives a good idea about the unforgettable histories of those who endured this 2,000 mile trek. Also, the outside exhibitions with quotes and old relicts are very interesting.

After our visit we headed out - due to snow in the forecast, we took Interstate 80 again instead of an alternate route. 

Until we reached Winnemucca, all was fine, roads dry, views great, few traffic. Starting further west towards Reno, the second half of the trip, it started snowing, first only a bit, then more and more, and, the closer we got to Reno the more it snowed. In the outskirts of Reno even main streets were snow-covered and slickery. Fortunately, it was not too cold yet, so it didn't freeze, but became slushy and slippery and we were glad about our heavy car.

Out of necessity, we decided to not go for any car excursions anymore, stopped at Walmart, got us dinner provisions, and called it a day after check-in into the Eldorado in downtown Reno. Pic above shows view from the bridge between parking garage and our hotel in downtown Reno.

Right where we belong,,,

 

 ,,, that was the motto of the 39th National Cowboy Gathering (here the original poster in the Western Folklife Center's Gallery by Teal Blake). Young and old artists, poets and musicians (about 1/2 and 1/2), men and women of different ethnicities from all over the U.S.A. (including Hawaii) and Canada were performing at different venues, on several stages, in Elko/Nevada. Over 50 artists, plus specialists, orators, horse trainers, chefs, and hands-on people of all kinds were present.

 From Thursday to Saturday different "panels" and other sessions took place all day long simultanously, some with three or four artists alternatingly reciting poems or singing songs, some consisting of a single artist, all under different topics. In addition, there were four (!) evening concerts (photos below) in two venues - the large Convention Center Theater and the smaller G Three Bar Theater each night.

Also, highly interesting and enlightening talks and discussions (left) took place. Scientists, ranchers, activists and conservationalists, people from WWF and The Nature Conservancy, talked about land management, sustainable ranching, regenerating agriculture, climate change, holistic management, natural horsemanship, etc. 

Films, demonstrations and workshops (all kinds of leatherwork, poetry writing, storytelling, and, many children's programs, Open Mics, dance courses and gallery talks were offered as well and there was the Western Mercantile (below), food vendors, a bar and much, much more. 

From Thursday to Saturday - the main festival days – we spent 13+ hours at the event, moving inbetween the Convention/Conference Center, the G Three Bar Theater and other subsidary venues to listen to superb presentations of all kinds. Don't think that there is a similar versatile and artistically top-notch event on Western lifestyle, music, culture anywhere in the U.S.A. 

Some photos from poetry panels below:

Jarle Kvale, Doris Daley and Terry Nash

Annie Mackenzie, Olivia Romo, Dana Wirth (an opera singer!) and Darrell Holden

Inbetween shows we explored downtown Elko a bit - first two days were gorgeous, warm and sunny, the other two colder with rain –, a town with many "classical/retro" motels with fancy neon signs (below), with many murals and "old-west atmosphere". Although distances between venues are short, nothing is really walkable, but there is plenty of parking and even after shows, there was no hustle and bustle.

 

Below, photos from the Keynote Address (the official opening of the event) on Thursday morning with Indian Drums (Painted Horse) and Indian dancers (there are Indian tribes in the area!). Ranch manager Jeff Mundell from California (first photo) delivered the speech about modern-day problems on ranches, the archetype of a cowboy and sustainable ranching and stewardship of the land.

 

On Friday we had the honor to be invited to a casual dinner with the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada, Stavros Anthony (with family roots on Cyprus!), and his wife Bernadette, very nice down-to-earth, sociable people. We had great conversation and a good Italian meal before we attended another evening show in the G Three Bar Theater.

Below now some random photos of musicians and poets - some, like Lara Manzanares, Andy Hedges, Geno Delafose or Ismay are real favs of us - at the NCPG this year :

Mike Beck

Margo Cilker

Great Lara Manzanares

 

The Quebe Sisters

Ismay

Geno Delafose from Louisiana (below)

Forrest VanTuyl

Carin Mari

Brenn Hill

Singer-poet Andy Hedges

Cowboy poet Deanna Dickinson McCall