RonnieAdventure #0467 - Strawberry and Walnut Canyon, Arizona

 

Web Picture - Unknown Photographer

One of my goals during the COVID-19 pandemic was to sort my many boxes of slides and prints; but, unfortunately, I procrastinated too long. Therefore, I decided that rather than trying to do all of the boxes at the same time, I need to brake the process down into baby steps. I calculated that if I sorted just one packet of pictures each day, in one year I will have sorted 365 packets. More importantly, in ten years I will have sorted 3,653 packets. Since I am going to keep track of the sorted packets on an annual basis, I decided I would wait and start on January 1, 2022, because that way it will be easier to keep track of the number of packets sorted each year.

I did, however, sort many of my digital pictures. I received my first digital camera as a Christmas present in 2002 and have owned several different digital cameras since that time. Between 2001 and Christmas of 2002, I used a webcam on my computer to take digital pictures, but the pictures were of really poor quality.  

While sorting my digital files I discovered some pictures that were taken several years ago on a trip to see our friends in Strawberry, Arizona. Strawberry is a great place to visit during the summer months because it is located just below the Mogollon Rim, about an hour's drive south of Flagstaff.

Strawberry is most famously known as the location where in 1931 the Bureau of Prohibition destroyed a large whiskey mill and 700 gallons of "mountain whiskey." The whiskey had an estimated value of $20,000 at the time, which is a little less than $500,000 in today's dollars.

The oldest standing one-room schoolhouse in Arizona is also located in Strawberry. In 1884 the residents living in the Strawberry valley petitioned the County for a school and the County created District #33. After the school district was formed the residents could not agree on a location for the school, so the dispute was settled by some cowboys using a lariat and counting the number of lengths between the east and west sides of the valley. Based on the cowboy's measurements, the school was built at the Valley's mid-point.  

There are a number of hiking trails around Strawberry, so we spent some time walking the trails and taking pictures of the many different verities of flowers and other forest plants found in the area. 

View east of Strawberry Valley. 

Eagle carving at the top of dead tree.

In the afternoons during the summer months, large white thunderheads (cumulonimbus clouds) move in over the Mogollon Rim. 

Then, after the sun goes down, it is time to play cards and WHAT! Look at quilts!

BONUS PICTURES

Web Picture - Unknown Photographer

A number of years ago we were in the Flagstaff (Arizona) during the summer and decided to visit Walnut Creek National Monument. 

The 600-foot-deep canyon features a series of Sinagua Indian cliff dwellings that were built under natural occurring alcoves in the canyon walls. Archeologists have dated the ruins to have been built during the 12th and 13th centuries. It is believed that the canyon was carved by Walnut creek that flows at the bottom of the canyon and eventually joins the Little Colorado River, which joins the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. 

There are a number of hiking trails in the canyon, but my favorite trail is the 0.9 mile Island Trail Loop that descends 240-steps down the canyon wall and then follows a ledge around a U-shaped peninsula that sticks out into the canyon. For people not accustomed to hiking at 7,000 feet elevation, the 240-steep steps back out of the canyon to the visitor's center can be a little challenging. One entry in the guest book stated that the Park Service should provide bottled oxygen on the way up!