Daves-Not-Here

My daughter has played soccer for Red Mountain High School for the past two years. I long considered not putting up photos from soccer games I shot through the year, but these photos took a lot of time to prepare for the end of season dinner, and I’m sufficiently far behind on my Photo365 project that I only think it’s fair for me to use anything I took in 2010 as a product for the project.

That said, I’m not going to completely flood the site with crappy shots just to catch up. I believe these represent some of the best photos I took during the games, and sports photography was completely new to me.

I’ve been waiting for this shot for over a year.

Fire Dancer at Burning Bush Drum Circle

The fire dancers at Burning Bush Drum Circle have always both impressed and disappointed me at the same time. Shouldn’t they be in some kind of costume? That would be better for the photography, no?

Playing with Fire at Burning Bush Drum Circle - Click for full size

A little more than two years ago a drum circle was born at the corners of Montecito and 7th Avenue in downtown Phoenix. The Burning Bush Drum Circle continues to meet on the First Friday of every month, rain or shine, holiday or not.

The event attracts many different people from all walks of life, from doctors and nurses to mechanics and hippies. I’m sure if you were to ask the crowd there would even be a wide variety of political and religious views contained within the groups that form every First Friday.

Week to week no two groups are the same, though often you’ll see some of the same people in attendance. Every month brings new people, and sees a different set of regulars as well.

The event organizer is a gentleman named Frank Thompson, a musician, author, and music teacher. He runs Arizona Rythym Connection, hosts the monthly circle, and provides a supply of extra drums for people who are interested in getting their groove on, but don’t have a drum of their own.

Don’t attend if you aren’t interested in participating in one form or another. You will have fun. It’s almost mandatory.

NOTE: I have several Project 2010 photos from these circles, so expect to see some more as the days pass this week.

Somewhere along County Road 3 - Click image to enlarge

UPDATE NOTE: The original post was made in haste, and not what I really wanted, so I’ve updated the post with the real intended content.

Let me take you along on a drive through some of Arizona’s back country.

We started by leaving the Phoenix area, specifically northeast Mesa, with a final destination of Flagstaff in mind and the plan being to take photos and develop a bit of a travelogue.

We began our trip with the Bush Hwy through Tonto National Forest. The low elevation of the Mesa Ranger District keeps much of this portion of Arizona snow free through most years with only the tips of the mountains sometimes getting snow. Following a beautiful meandering drive through along Bush Hwy. the road connects with SR-87.

SR-87, also known as the Beeline Highway is a wonderful drive which takes you through the town of Rye (blink and you’ll miss it) and finally leads you to Payson, AZ, the “Heart of Arizona.” I’ll cover Payson more in future posts, but for the moment, it’s an important landmark along the road. In fact, the town of Payson is so important that many travel articles in periodicals such as Arizona Highways and the Travel section of the Arizona Republic begin their travel directions with “From Payson…” Payson is a wooded and very scenic little town – obviously at odds with Arizona’s incorrect reputation for being a sand dune and saguaro covered desert.

In Payson, SR-87 becomes concurrent with SR-260 and the road passes through the scenic and historic towns of Pine and Strawberry. Following the drive through Strawberry, the road rapidly ascends the side of the Moggollon Rim and brings us above an elevation of 7,000 feet.

From Payson, and continuing along SR-87/260, the road takes you to the junction of County Road 3, or CR-3. However, before we get to the junction we must stop at Long Valley Cafe, in Happy Jack, AZ and have lunch. I’ve eaten here several times, and we simply have to stop for lunch. Everyone from the patrons to the wait staff and cook are very friendly and the short-order food is very good. I wouldn’t say good for you, but it’s definitely a great stop for eating.

Following lunch we’ll turn onto County 3 through Coconino County and start the last part of our trip to Flagstaff. This leg of the trip gets a little dicey as the roads are no longer well maintained by snowplows. At this time of year, the road winds through Coconino National Forest and takes you past beautiful snow-covered meadows bordered by fir and spruce trees with snow and ice covered branches. We’ll pass by romantic little forest cottages and remote snow-covered lodges and ranch-houses as we make our way to the resort town of Mormon Lake.

From Mormon Lake the cottages, cabins, lodges and ranches thin out as the Lake Mary Recreation Area takes over the scenery. The road also widens and the snowplows have clearly been doing their work here. I dare say that while the drive is still very scenic, the wider roadway has taken away the intimate sense of our travel and is now just another road to drive.

Flagstaff lays a few unremarkable miles ahead, but this journey is in every way more enjoyable than the usual run straight up I-17 from Phoenix. And, oddly enough, it takes about the same amount of time if your starting point is east of Country Club Drive in the East Valley.

Try it. Like me, you may just find a new way to get to Flagstaff.

The other day when Timmy went for a Snow Day, he built this snowman. I just found the picture on his camera.