Etherton Gallery

The Sunday paper had a few pictures of the new bridge over the Colorado river at Hoover Dam. The complete set of pictures is on exhibit at the Etherton Gallery in downtown Tucson.

The first picture is from the Nevada side.

The second shows the two sections nearly complete, but the roadway only extends to the vertical supports at each side.






The third one shows the two parts nearly together. The objects on the ends are transporters that extend outward as each concrete section is poured and set.

The last picture show the roadway being competed. Notice the vertical supports between the arch and the roadway, that weren't in the prior shots.

The gallery has the full set of pictures and it's worth a trip to see them.

El Tour

Saturday was the annual El Tour de Tucson, a renowned bicycle race around the periphery of Tucson. There are actually 4 races, 109 mile, 76 mile, 64 mile and 30 mile. They start at various points around the racecourse and all end at the 109 mile start, downtown. It's a big event and cyclers come from all over to race. This year there were just short of 8,900 racers!

That makes for a crowded race course!
One racer interviewed the night before the race was from Muscle Shoals, AL!






The winner made the 109 miles in 4 hrs 23 min. He was followed closely by the female winner who was only 2 minutes behind!

The course includes two washes, which are dry this time of year. It requires carrying your bike across, because the wash is just dirt and stones. Another thing that makes this race difficult is the up and down nature of the town. We vary from 2,500 elevation to 3,000 ft, but in between these extremes, the streets are hilly all over.

The course goes near our house and it's fun to go see the racers go by. The 109 mile race starts at 7 AM and the leaders pass by our vantage point about 8:45. We missed the leaders, but there were plenty of bikes to see, nevertheless.

There are cheerleaders at many corners along the route. Police man each turn and emphasize the direction of turn by voice and traffic cones.

Phoenix trip 2

The next stop was the Phoenix Museum of Art for the Cowboy Artists of America exhibit. This is a group of very talented artists, working in various media. Probably the best known is Howard Terpning. See, for example, http://www.firstpeople.us/pictures/HowardTerpning/ls/Howard-Terpning-Council-Of-Chiefs.html

This group of 30 or so is based in southwest Texas, near the hill country. They exhibit some of their work from the past year in the spring at their base, then exhibit again in the fall in Phoenix. Most of the art is oil painting, but there are watercolors, pen and ink, bronze sculptures and carvings, among others.

The subject matter is western, which includes horses, nature, Native Americans, soldiers and more.See
http://www.phxart.org/exhibition/exhibitioncowboys45.php for more info and some examples. Pretty exciting stuff for those of us admiring southwestern art.

The final visit was the Heard Museum, to see the exhibit of Preston Singletary's glass art. He is a relatively young artist who has done some marvelous work. The Blue Rain gallery shows his work. We saw him doing glass blowing last summer in Santa Fe at Indian Market.
He makes very interesting forms and shapes and incorporates the northwest coast Tlingit (pronounced klinket) iconography. He works with other artists, as well, such as Tammy Garcia, another Blue Rain artist and a famous Santa Clara potter.
See http://www.blueraingallery.com/artists/_preston_singletary_and_marcus_amerman for some of his art.

And, lastly, a return to our beautiful Tucson!

Phoenix trip

Last weekend we drove to Phoenix for several purposes. The first was the Arizona State Capitol Museum. It is located in the original capitol building, where the legislative bodies, governor and other officeholders had their offices. The facility became outdated and a new, adjacent building was constructed in 1977, which is the current site of the governor's office and the legislative bodies.

The old building was built in 1901, before becoming a state in 1912. It is four stories. The top floor has access to the House chanber. The desks look like school desks! You can click on any picture to see a larger image.

The third floor has a series of displays showing the steps from territory to state, in particular the battle to get the Constitution approved for statehood. One of the first changes was to restore the judge recall provision which prevented approval initially.
This floor also has a very nice Edward Curtis room with many of his photographs.

  It also has several very nice Western Apache  and Tohono O'odham baskets.
The second floor has the various offices held at the time. The next  picture shows Governor Hunt at his desk.




A very interesting exhibit on the second floor is about the Harvey girls.

The next picture shows the Arizona Great Seal.

The first floor has a fascinating exhibit about the USS Arizona. This picture shows all 1100 and some men on board the boat! Be sure to look at a larger image of this one.

Days 13 and 14

The final two days covers the trip from Ogden, UT to Kingman, AZ to home.

Utah has apparently not had much rain, either. As we were driving south, the hills to the west were brown, while those to the east were green. Curious!

The southwestern portion of Utah includes Cedar City and St George. In the latter, there is a Mormon church, sort of like one of the temples, but smaller and less ornate.

A stately building! There's a golden eagle perched on the top of the dome.

This was taken from inside the car, so there are some reflections, but you can see the craggy hills, kind of. They were really high, with narrow canyons here and there. This was north of Las Vegas, descending about 4,000 feet to the flats of LV area.

For those that are not familiar, this is a Joshua tree. There are hundreds along the Joshua Tree Scenic Parkway, which is part of rte 93 from I-40 to Wickenburg.

That's it. Home is always a good place for a return. Hope you enjoyed seeing our trip reports.

Day 12

Today we drove from Pendleton, OR to Ogden, UT. It's nice to have warm weather, for a change, not having to wear a sweatshirt all the time! No rain is nice, too.

Leaving Pendleton, the lack of rain was painfully obvious.

The hills are barren and the fields are brown, except where irrigated.

This is the Snake river, which flows into the Columbia. It's serene at this point, crossing from Oregon to Idaho. Actually, we crossed that way; the river goes the other way!

This is the Capitol building at Boise, Idaho. It's mostly of marble.

This is the rotunda dome.

This is the Senate chamber of the capitol. The gallery is oriented in back of the Speaker's platform, somewhat different from other Capitol buildings.

And this is the Assembly chamber.

This the state seal of Idaho. It's made of 9,750 tiles!

The ride to Odgen was not interesting. The fields are as brown as those in Oregon, except those being irrigated. The difference is that Utah has many more fields being watered, giving the appearance of green everywhere.

Tomorrow, Las Vegas or more.

Day 11

Not much to talk about today. It was all driving from Surrey, BC to Pendleton, OR.

The border crossing was uneventful, although the time it took was 45 minutes or more. It was about the same going north as going south. I thought the Canada Immigration would be more lax than the US, but that wasn't so.

It was good to get back to mph and US dollars. Canada is really oriented to charge cards. We used VISA for almost everything. The bus from the ferry terminal to downtown Victoria required exact change, so we had to have the $5 in Canadian coins available for both the to downtown and from downtown trips.

We entered the US with a dollar Canadian coin and 9 Canadian pennies. About as close as you can cut it!

About the only interesting thing was seeing Mt. Ranier off in the western sky. It was pretty much obscured by clouds, but you could see it. It's in this photo, but you may not be able to make it out. Those are the Cascade mountains in the distance and Ranier is beyond them.

Pendleton, OR is the home of Pendleton Blanket Works, but we won't be able to tour their factory. The company offers a 90 minute guided tour through service tunnels, card rooms, a meat market, Chinese living quarters, jails and more. Sounds interesting! They also have a more traditional tour showing how woolen products are created.

Tomorrow through a corner of Idaho and on into Utah.

Day 10

Today we visited Victoria city on Vancouver Island. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia. The only access to the island is by ferry. We caught the 9 AM ferry, spent 1 1/2 hours on the water, then caught a bus downtown.
The first stop was the Parliament building. It was built in 1897 after several smaller buildings served the various functions of government. Each of the smaller buildings was built according to the style and interest of the time, which produced a hodge-podge called Bird Cages!

The legislative chamber is being remodeled, so this is the best I could do for a picture.

There is only one chamber, the Representatives. The desks were situated two sword lengths apart so that injuries wouldn't occur during contentious debates!

There are some stained glass windows in the building. This one commemorates the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign

This was our lunch spot, the Sticky Wicket. I had bangers and mash, Carol had steak and mushroom pie, and both of us had a nice glass of ale. Yum!

Next was the Royal BC Museum. It is amazingly extensive. The Human History floor had numerous First Peoples items, totems, house posts, masks, and more. Unfortunately it was too dark to take non-flash pictures, the only sort allowed.

This is a replica of Mungo Martin's house in his coast tribe location. Martin was, I think, Charles Edenshaw's grandson. Both were famous carvers and artists.

These hanging baskets were on just about every street light downtown. They are colorful and vivid!

Tomorrow starts the return trip to Tucson.

Day 9

Today was a visit to the Winter Olympics site of Whistler, about 60 miles north of Vancouver.

The town is very much a resort, with many shops and restaurants. There is a wide walkway that goes through it east-west.

Note how low the clouds are. It was rainy and foggy most of the day. The altitude is not very high, about 2,500 feet.

This is an area where you can rent a mountain bike, go to the top of the hill by lift, then have an exciting ride down.

Bike rental is big business here.

A few miles down the mountain is Olympic Park, where, ski-jumping, cross-country ski, biathlon events were held.

This is the Normal and High hill runs.The landing area looks much smaller than it did on TV.

The Inukshuk was the logo for the Vancouver Olympics. There were opportunities for anyone to make a simple Inukshuk just about anywhere. This was at the Biathon range; a whole row of them sit atop the rail.

This is the Biathlon range. You could try your luck with one of the rifles for $10. I was too cheap, but watched someone else do it. She missed every shot!

Tomorrow is Victoria Island.

Day 8

 Still Vancouver, BC.

This morning we visited the Museum of Anthropology, at the University of BC. This is the most extensive and well-done museum I've ever seen! Their design principle was to exhibit nearly all their collection, rather than keep 90% in storage..
The First Nation People exhibits were extensive. It's hard to conceive the number of masks, bentwood boxes, totem poles, baskets and so on that are on display. I've never seen anything like it.

The central hall had numerous bentwood boxes and totems. These are quite old, as you can see. The color has pretty much faded or worn off.

 There were a number of totems so old the wood had partially rotted. This next carving is by Bill Reid, a very famous artist. 

Once out of the central hall, there was room after room of NW Coast items.

Masks, masks and more masks!

And more!

Baskets, too. Shelves and more shelves of them.

Note the cabinet to the right. These are wide drawers that pull out with more stuff. Might be small baskets, might be basket material, might be other stuff.

Masks and hats.

This afternoon, we went to the Bill Reid gallery. I recommend the web site, www.billreidgallery.ca

There are several examples of Chilkat and Ravenstail weavings in the gallery. This one is by Evelyn Vanderhoop.

This hat is by Dolores Churchill. There is a video of Holly Churchill demonstrating how to harvest cedar bark from a tree, without harming the tree.

These three women were part of the NW Coast exhibit at the Eiteljorg and we (the guides) got to know them well.

This is one of Bill Reid's most famous pieces, Eagle discovering First Man emerging from a clam shell. This is cedar, but he has also made this same sculpture in yellow cedar, gold and silver. Amazing!

I couldn't show you the many jewelry pieces because photographs of them is not allowed in the gallery.

Tomorrow to Whistler.