Heading Uphill into the Forest, AZ

I awoke this morning to the news of a friend's passing. He was somebody I knew from the days that I spent doing art shows, and I had the chance to visit him on my road trip in 2018. I was in disbelief, as I said my goodbyes to Holly and headed out towards the town of McNary. I am on the Apache Indian Reservation. I stopped at a small lake. There are Canadian geese and cows nearby with a lot of cattails and some algae. But the most disheartening thing of all is the amount of garbage that was at the edge, and in the tall grasses, near the parking area. Unfortunately, I'm seeing plenty of alcohol bottles, beer cans, and glass among other trash.

This is the reservation, and although you will see this junk everywhere, from time to time, it's just awful to drive through this very, poor boarded up, dilapidated community, and see the trash in what would otherwise be a pretty, and natural place. It seemed like a good spot to stop and prepare myself a second round of coffee. The weather is actually quite pleasant and I'm enjoying the dragonflies.

I continued east until I got to an area called Green's Peak. The fire road started out as green fields, as far as the I could see. There is a ski mountain nearby. There is also with a sign saying "wolf recovery area."  I probably drove about 15 minutes climbing steadily to the top until I found a spot to stop. This area was really filled up with white bark aspen, so many of them, with fewer pine trees. The roads were cinder red along with varying shades of green. It was incredibly beautiful. I am up in very high elevation, near 9,200 feet. At this point I felt myself breathing a little harder, and doing very little and feeling a little light-headed. I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the day.




























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