Echoes of the Southwest

Stella before becoming a zombie letting her hair down and not wearing her pearls. BEFORE THE APOCALYPES: Stella's house before the apocalypes. She was a typical 1950’s housewife who kept a meticulous home.  On the outside the lawn was manicured as well as the bushes.  Her house must have the perfect curb appeal.  Inside there was no place for dust and her floors were so clean you could eat off them.  She always had her hair done just right, not a hair out of place with a bow made out of ribbon on top.  Her dress was ironed with not a wrinkle in site and pearls adorned her neck.  Her husband was a hard worker affording Stella and the children a wonderful life.  Keeping her children cleaned as well as the house, doing laundry and making a luxurious dinner every night was a full time job for Stella but she loved her life.  Her only complaint was living next door to her lush of a sister-in-law Liz.  She put up with Liz and her antics for her husband who loved his little s

My family (hubby, daughter, granddaughter) and I went to a campground near Payson, AZ in Forest Lakes.  It was my husband's company's annual campout.  My hubby caught the most fish and won a trophy.  We had a great time and it was nice to get out of the heat. My hubby's tent. (The girls stayed at the nearest hotel.) The camps port-a-potty. This critter and its friends were caught by the kids. The campsite. A nice fire for the evening. hum... Getting dark... My daughter and granddaughter walking to camp.

One of my favorite minings towns to visit in Arizona is Bisbee.  The old section and main street of town is set down below the highway.  Many old buildings which line the street are filled with antique, new age stores and other businesses.  Along the main drag are hotels with interesting pasts and several claims of ghostly activity.  I stayed at the Copper Queen Hotel a couple of times and experienced some paranormal activity.  The town's residents homes are high above dotting the landscape, some having over 100 cements steps leading to their front doors.  At night time when you walk the streets, not only are they pitch black but on some occasions, a ghost or two just might be seen wander the streets as well.  In 1877, a civilian tracker named Jack Dunn lead army scouts into the Mule Mountains to look for rebellious Apaches.   They found instead signs of mineral deposits consisting of lead, copper and even silver.   The first mine to be staked, later became Bisbee.   Many claims

On December 28, 1872, around 75 Yavapai men, women, and children were massacred while trapped in a cave north of Salt River Canyon now known as Canyon Lake. It was General George Crooks who lead the charge against the Kwevkepaya, southeastern Yavapai people, who were attacking white settlers. He used an Apache scout named Nantaje and the union of Captain Burns and Major Brown’s 5th Calvary. Collectively there were 100 Pima scouts, and around 120 of General Crooks’ men. It was the morning of the 28th when they open fired on approximately 110 Kwevkepaya people confined inside the cave. They shot at the cave’s roof, causing an avalanche of rocks to tumble down on the unsuspecting families. They panicked and ran to the mouth of the cave where they were met by gun fire and huge boulders being pushed on top of them. By mid-morning when the dust finally settled, there were only a few survivors. These scattered few were taken to Camp Grant as prisoners. The dead bodies were just left ther

There once were two cousins who lived in Cottingley, England. Their names were Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths. The two of them loved to take pictures in the gardens where apparently fairies seem to exist. At least this is what 16 year old Elsie and 10 year old Frances saw in their photos. In 1917, the girls’ photos became famous and known as the Cottingley Fairies. The series of five photographs first caught the interest of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He was writing an article for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazines and wanted to use the girls’ pictures for his article on fairies. As a spiritualist, he felt the photos were solid proof of psychic phenomena. Some people viewed the pictures as real but others were not as easily convinced. The skeptics said the pictures were a hoax. By 1921 the appeal of the Cottingley Fairies had weakened to the point where most didn’t care. Elsie and Frances both married and moved away from England. The girls moved on but the p

I just love Photoshop CS2.  Everyday I mess around with it and find different ways to alter my pictures.  I usually shoot all my photos in color and desaturated some of them in Photoshop.  I figured out how to add some color to some of my desaturated photos and used that method on our zombie pictures.  I also adjust some of the photos using Photo Filter.  It takes a modern day picture and makes it look like it was taken many years ago.  Some have just a hint of the photo filter changes, others are more obvious.  Here are some I was playing with: Assay Office, Vulture Mine The Domes Rub-a-dub-dub, Vulture Mine cabinet, Vulture Mine School house, Fairbank AZ Birdcage Theatre, Tombstone Birdcage Theatre, Tombstone Poker Room, Birdcage Theatre, Tombstone Bee Apartments, Miami AZ abandoned trailor, Morristown AZ If you have any cool Photoshop effects to share, I would love to hear about them.

Hiding in the Superstition Mountains and located about 35 miles southeast of Phoenix, is Arizona’s mysterious Lost Dutchman gold mine.   For more than a century, this wonder has been attracting those who believe in the stories of riches and are looking for the mine. Many have met with tragedy having their lives claimed by the barren desert.   The Dutchman himself was actually a German miner named Jacob Waltz.   Born in Germany in 1808, he set out for America in 1839 looking to strike it rich.   In 1848 he became a US citizen while in Mississippi.   After not having much luck there, he decided to head west to California.   He ended up in the Bradshaw Mountains, a mountain range in the Sonoran Desert in central Arizona, and was determined to find gold.   In 1968, having made a homestead claim of 160 acres near the Salt River, Waltz would mine the nearby Superstition Mountains.   For about 20 years he would head out every winter searching for gold.   The story goes that on one of hi

The Hohokam people existed as far back as 200 B.C. until around 1450 in the south-central area of the Arizona. The name Hohokam derives from the word Hoohoogum, a moniker given to those living in that region of the southwest desert. History tells us that this tribe migrated north from Mexico and settled in southern Arizona. From the Hohokam ruins we can see they were a skilled group of farmers who built elaborate canals that went on for miles. They grew corn, beans, squash, agave, and cotton for clothing and other uses to protect themselves from the harsh environment. The Hohokam were hunters and feasted on deer, rabbit, quail, and various types of fish. They used their stone tools for cooking and building while living in their mud houses created from the desert’s materials. Not much was know about this tribe nor written about their demise. We are able to study them through the well engineered canals, ruins, and written stories on rocks known as petroglyhps that were left behind.