So first of all the daytime view from my Tucson hill-side camping site, with breakfast in the foreground. It is kind of amazing to see the forest of cactii covering the hills. Especially near dawn and dusk it looks impressive because of all the long shadows that are cast across the landscape.
The plan for today is to check out Biosphere 2, a 1980's project to create a closed-loop habitat in which humans could self-support. This was intended as an exploration project for future manned interplanetary missions (or for a lunar base). Bert actually reminded me that this even existed, it is something from our childhood, I can remember watching 'the jeugd journaal' when I was little and hearing and seeing about this thing. From my current perspective (engineering-wise and also as a tourist: isn't Burgers Zoo more impressive?) I wasn't to sure yet if I wanted to visit this place. However, when I was there, I explored the exhibits in the hall and decided to go anyway (there's a guided tour, so you have time ask questions and you get a personal story).
Well, a personal story it was indeed. Our guide Bettany seemed to have a burning mission to defend the Biosphere project from all the vile publicity it was getting from the outside world. Well, that's a little charged, but she did have a lot of fire burning inside herself (and little skepticism) with regard to the achievements made in the Biosphere project. However, the achievements at this place were significant. A billionair funded the whole project, and people basically had to guess about what they would make: what plants to put inside? What animals? how much land? They even included an ocean environment, all with the goal of having all the organisms produce and consume in such a way that the system was balanced.
There were two 2-year manned missions (8 people?) inside the station. This is a tremendous achievement indeed. However, during the first mission they did not succeed in creating enough high-caloric food to sustain an average person's diet, so they had to tune down their activities. The second mission was aborted because the billionaire pulled the plug (it was costing too much money). After that the project was without owner (and maintenance?) for about 5 years. Consequently a lot of organisms died. Afterwards Columbia University gained stewardship for a couple of years, in which they used it to perform all kinds of experiments: high CO2 levels in the jungle, very large droughts, etc. They also removed all the large animals because these were too expensive in upkeep. This caused a lot of changes in the way the place looks and feels. Nowadays the University of Arizona has just taken over and has a lot of bright plans for the future. They have opted to make the system an open system, but with all in- and outlets controlled: carefully monitoring CO2, moisture, pressure, etc. Their primary aim is to use the biosphere as a place for large scale experimentation: larger than a lab, but smaller and more controlled than fieldwork. According to them they are doing breakthrough science in a lot of fields. Cool to visit this place and imagine how many people have dedicated their lives to making it a reality, and what a crazy adventure this must have been!
PS Bert: I did some experiments with the GoPro here, but since I needed to tilt it 90 degrees (suction cup mount) it is currently impossible to create viewable video's (GoPro Studio only allows 180 degree or small rotation tilts)
After these southern Arizona visits it was time to head north again to the Camp Verde area. I skipped all the sites I wanted to visit there in favor of the fair and to move south quickly. First on the lists were two smiths: Devin Mace, of whom I learned from some other smiths at the Renaissance fair. He's working at 'Rawhide' a western style theme park town on the outskirts of Phoenix. They run a western show there every night from 5pm till late, with shootouts, cowboys, the like.
However, I was there at 8am, so there was not a soul in town! Pretty funny though, I took the employee entrance, and shouted around a bit if someone was there: in the end someone showed up who said that Devin might or might not be in, and that I should just go and check through the main entryway: so I did. And all of a sudden I'm walking in the middle of a deserted western town, dust blowing, a saloon on the right, a bank on the left... just like in the movies... I was waiting for the first shot, but luckily none came!
I found Devin's place, heard someone on the grinder, but couldn't find the way in. Some shouting and trying to open stuff finally alerted him to my presence. We had a little chat and he showed me around his shop: it was stuffed full of display racks, which he moves out at 4:30pm for the tourists. He was making quite a bit of money by selling lots of stuff to tourists (bear openers, roses, horse-shoes etc.). So much so that he has bought a little place up north and is starting to fill it up as a proper shop: cool. He started out when he was 12, helping his dad who was also a blacksmith, and this shows in the quality of his work. His wife does leather working, and together they've got a nice little business going. He was working on an order of grinding that had to be done by tonight, so no time for a proper demo.
The second stop was Gordon Williams School of Blacksmithing in Camp Verde. We missed out on meeting a couple of times, but today after first visiting his place to no avail, he mailed me that he was in while I was at starbucks, so I turned right around and went back. This was a good decision. He showed me his shop (gas furnaces, and even an induction heater: very nice equipment). We were discussing smithing a bit, and well, ofcourse he had to fire up the furnace and get us to make something.
We started working on some leaves (because that's the level I'm at ;-)). And since I was talking about birds he heated a second length of steel as well. Not until the very end did I learn what he was making (he started off by splitting a square end into 4 about 1" long). Anyway, a lot of you probably don't care much about smithing, nor understand what I'm talking about, so let's suffice to say that Gordon learned (and reminded) me quite a few things in just under an hour.
We also spent some time discussing his business: he's also doing very well, and actually working at three schools at the same time, while making custom ordered work, and also a lot of large tool orders for Pieh Too, the largest blacksmithing hardware store in the country. All in all I had the impression that both these guys were doing pretty well for themselves!
It was quite late (and raining) when we finished smithing, so I had to go and find a good camping spot. The guy at the local tourist info had told me to go to forest road 525, so that is what I did. This was quite a bumpy unpaved road, and when I got there I could see that there were also a lot of other people who had had the same plan: all camping spots up to the first crossing were already occupied. By the time I got to the crossing it was pitch black, so since the crossing had a very large area of flat land attached to it, I just drove the van in a corner and camped there. (cooking dinner in the headlights, dashing outside quickly to check on temperature and burning, dashing back inside etc: fun!).
When I woke up there were two people on horseback riding down the hill near where I camped. They were already gone when I got outside, but there I did find out why I was cold yesterday, even while in a sleeping bag under a blanket: there was frost on the grass! Well, some extra layers of clothing fixed that, and with some hot coffee and a fried egg the world looks a lot warmer :-). On the horizon I could see a beautiful red hill, probably one of the Sedona hills, I thought.
Before visiting Sedona however, the Camp Verde attractions were on the list: remnants of Indian settlements from the 1100-1400 era. These were dubbed 'Montezuma's castle' and 'Montezuma's Well' by 18th century explorers, but they have got nothing to do with Montezuma whatever. Not much is known about the tribes that settled this area, but they are probably ancestors to the Hopi and Pueblo Nation Indians. They share similar stories, and some elements of crafts and architecture are also similar.
Montezuma's castle is a series of settlements high up on a cliff, inside a natural cave. They housed about 50 people. The cliffs are covered with various store rooms across the Oasis like river valley in which these people lived. Comparing it to the surrounding desert you can completely understand how they chose this place to settle in. Around 1400 they left the settlement and it is a mystery why. Hopi people tell the story that in their culture and tradition they should not stay in one place too long, until the gods made clear that they had reached the one place where they should stay. This might have been the reason why the people left: 300 years was enough: time for a change of scenery!
Montezuma's Well has as similar Oasis like quality: it is a natural spring on the bottom of a round pond amidst desert valleys. The water actually contains a strange mix of minerals: only 5 species of organisms survive in it (amongst others leeches) and it contains too much of a poisonous mineral to make it suitable for human consumption. Around the well ancient irrigation canals were made, which are impressive to see, and again, it is perfectly clear how the people have chosen this unique place in the middle of the desert to make their place of living.
After these historic sites it was time to check out the Geographic splendour of Sedona. I skipped out on all the New Age aura surrounding it (there's all kind of powerful energy vortexes here according to various hippies). I'll leave you with a few pictures of its splendour, and one cultural visit I made: a church designed by Frank Lloyd Webber.
This time I took of early for Forest road 525, and got one of the campsites near to the highway. As I still had some time before dinner should be ready I thought it might be a good plan to hike up the hill next to my van, so make a nice timelapse of the sunset from there. This was quite an ambitious plan as there were no trails, and it is rattlesnake country. I was very careful on the way up, checking for sounds, checking for snakelike objects, stopping often etc. All the time keeping the time as well, because going down the hill in complete darkness would not be a good idea (I was skipping between cactii, rocks, and prickly shrubs).
The plan turned out well: I reached the top before sunset (too bad it was not a true peak, but just a 'local maximum'), and it offered splendid views of Sedona. Since it was not the highest place around it was challenging to put the GoPro somewhere where it would actually see far. This also worked out.
Picasa albums:
Day 11, 12: Biosphere, smithing
Day 13: Sedona
In the next post: the Grand Canyon!
The plan for today is to check out Biosphere 2, a 1980's project to create a closed-loop habitat in which humans could self-support. This was intended as an exploration project for future manned interplanetary missions (or for a lunar base). Bert actually reminded me that this even existed, it is something from our childhood, I can remember watching 'the jeugd journaal' when I was little and hearing and seeing about this thing. From my current perspective (engineering-wise and also as a tourist: isn't Burgers Zoo more impressive?) I wasn't to sure yet if I wanted to visit this place. However, when I was there, I explored the exhibits in the hall and decided to go anyway (there's a guided tour, so you have time ask questions and you get a personal story).
Well, a personal story it was indeed. Our guide Bettany seemed to have a burning mission to defend the Biosphere project from all the vile publicity it was getting from the outside world. Well, that's a little charged, but she did have a lot of fire burning inside herself (and little skepticism) with regard to the achievements made in the Biosphere project. However, the achievements at this place were significant. A billionair funded the whole project, and people basically had to guess about what they would make: what plants to put inside? What animals? how much land? They even included an ocean environment, all with the goal of having all the organisms produce and consume in such a way that the system was balanced.
There were two 2-year manned missions (8 people?) inside the station. This is a tremendous achievement indeed. However, during the first mission they did not succeed in creating enough high-caloric food to sustain an average person's diet, so they had to tune down their activities. The second mission was aborted because the billionaire pulled the plug (it was costing too much money). After that the project was without owner (and maintenance?) for about 5 years. Consequently a lot of organisms died. Afterwards Columbia University gained stewardship for a couple of years, in which they used it to perform all kinds of experiments: high CO2 levels in the jungle, very large droughts, etc. They also removed all the large animals because these were too expensive in upkeep. This caused a lot of changes in the way the place looks and feels. Nowadays the University of Arizona has just taken over and has a lot of bright plans for the future. They have opted to make the system an open system, but with all in- and outlets controlled: carefully monitoring CO2, moisture, pressure, etc. Their primary aim is to use the biosphere as a place for large scale experimentation: larger than a lab, but smaller and more controlled than fieldwork. According to them they are doing breakthrough science in a lot of fields. Cool to visit this place and imagine how many people have dedicated their lives to making it a reality, and what a crazy adventure this must have been!
PS Bert: I did some experiments with the GoPro here, but since I needed to tilt it 90 degrees (suction cup mount) it is currently impossible to create viewable video's (GoPro Studio only allows 180 degree or small rotation tilts)
After these southern Arizona visits it was time to head north again to the Camp Verde area. I skipped all the sites I wanted to visit there in favor of the fair and to move south quickly. First on the lists were two smiths: Devin Mace, of whom I learned from some other smiths at the Renaissance fair. He's working at 'Rawhide' a western style theme park town on the outskirts of Phoenix. They run a western show there every night from 5pm till late, with shootouts, cowboys, the like.
However, I was there at 8am, so there was not a soul in town! Pretty funny though, I took the employee entrance, and shouted around a bit if someone was there: in the end someone showed up who said that Devin might or might not be in, and that I should just go and check through the main entryway: so I did. And all of a sudden I'm walking in the middle of a deserted western town, dust blowing, a saloon on the right, a bank on the left... just like in the movies... I was waiting for the first shot, but luckily none came!
I found Devin's place, heard someone on the grinder, but couldn't find the way in. Some shouting and trying to open stuff finally alerted him to my presence. We had a little chat and he showed me around his shop: it was stuffed full of display racks, which he moves out at 4:30pm for the tourists. He was making quite a bit of money by selling lots of stuff to tourists (bear openers, roses, horse-shoes etc.). So much so that he has bought a little place up north and is starting to fill it up as a proper shop: cool. He started out when he was 12, helping his dad who was also a blacksmith, and this shows in the quality of his work. His wife does leather working, and together they've got a nice little business going. He was working on an order of grinding that had to be done by tonight, so no time for a proper demo.
The second stop was Gordon Williams School of Blacksmithing in Camp Verde. We missed out on meeting a couple of times, but today after first visiting his place to no avail, he mailed me that he was in while I was at starbucks, so I turned right around and went back. This was a good decision. He showed me his shop (gas furnaces, and even an induction heater: very nice equipment). We were discussing smithing a bit, and well, ofcourse he had to fire up the furnace and get us to make something.
We started working on some leaves (because that's the level I'm at ;-)). And since I was talking about birds he heated a second length of steel as well. Not until the very end did I learn what he was making (he started off by splitting a square end into 4 about 1" long). Anyway, a lot of you probably don't care much about smithing, nor understand what I'm talking about, so let's suffice to say that Gordon learned (and reminded) me quite a few things in just under an hour.
We also spent some time discussing his business: he's also doing very well, and actually working at three schools at the same time, while making custom ordered work, and also a lot of large tool orders for Pieh Too, the largest blacksmithing hardware store in the country. All in all I had the impression that both these guys were doing pretty well for themselves!
Gordon amidst his tools
Gordon's nifty little hummingbird
It was quite late (and raining) when we finished smithing, so I had to go and find a good camping spot. The guy at the local tourist info had told me to go to forest road 525, so that is what I did. This was quite a bumpy unpaved road, and when I got there I could see that there were also a lot of other people who had had the same plan: all camping spots up to the first crossing were already occupied. By the time I got to the crossing it was pitch black, so since the crossing had a very large area of flat land attached to it, I just drove the van in a corner and camped there. (cooking dinner in the headlights, dashing outside quickly to check on temperature and burning, dashing back inside etc: fun!).
When I woke up there were two people on horseback riding down the hill near where I camped. They were already gone when I got outside, but there I did find out why I was cold yesterday, even while in a sleeping bag under a blanket: there was frost on the grass! Well, some extra layers of clothing fixed that, and with some hot coffee and a fried egg the world looks a lot warmer :-). On the horizon I could see a beautiful red hill, probably one of the Sedona hills, I thought.
Before visiting Sedona however, the Camp Verde attractions were on the list: remnants of Indian settlements from the 1100-1400 era. These were dubbed 'Montezuma's castle' and 'Montezuma's Well' by 18th century explorers, but they have got nothing to do with Montezuma whatever. Not much is known about the tribes that settled this area, but they are probably ancestors to the Hopi and Pueblo Nation Indians. They share similar stories, and some elements of crafts and architecture are also similar.
Montezuma's castle is a series of settlements high up on a cliff, inside a natural cave. They housed about 50 people. The cliffs are covered with various store rooms across the Oasis like river valley in which these people lived. Comparing it to the surrounding desert you can completely understand how they chose this place to settle in. Around 1400 they left the settlement and it is a mystery why. Hopi people tell the story that in their culture and tradition they should not stay in one place too long, until the gods made clear that they had reached the one place where they should stay. This might have been the reason why the people left: 300 years was enough: time for a change of scenery!
Montezuma's Well has as similar Oasis like quality: it is a natural spring on the bottom of a round pond amidst desert valleys. The water actually contains a strange mix of minerals: only 5 species of organisms survive in it (amongst others leeches) and it contains too much of a poisonous mineral to make it suitable for human consumption. Around the well ancient irrigation canals were made, which are impressive to see, and again, it is perfectly clear how the people have chosen this unique place in the middle of the desert to make their place of living.
After these historic sites it was time to check out the Geographic splendour of Sedona. I skipped out on all the New Age aura surrounding it (there's all kind of powerful energy vortexes here according to various hippies). I'll leave you with a few pictures of its splendour, and one cultural visit I made: a church designed by Frank Lloyd Webber.
Youtube link: http://youtu.be/mzIhu8irRqI
This time I took of early for Forest road 525, and got one of the campsites near to the highway. As I still had some time before dinner should be ready I thought it might be a good plan to hike up the hill next to my van, so make a nice timelapse of the sunset from there. This was quite an ambitious plan as there were no trails, and it is rattlesnake country. I was very careful on the way up, checking for sounds, checking for snakelike objects, stopping often etc. All the time keeping the time as well, because going down the hill in complete darkness would not be a good idea (I was skipping between cactii, rocks, and prickly shrubs).
The plan turned out well: I reached the top before sunset (too bad it was not a true peak, but just a 'local maximum'), and it offered splendid views of Sedona. Since it was not the highest place around it was challenging to put the GoPro somewhere where it would actually see far. This also worked out.
Youtube link: http://youtu.be/Z7dgyzrW6Xs
Picasa albums:
Day 11, 12: Biosphere, smithing
Day 13: Sedona
In the next post: the Grand Canyon!
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