BUCHART GARDENS – A feast for the eyes

One goal of the trip to Victoria was to revisit nearby Buchart Gardens, 55 acres of glorious shrubs, trees and flowers developed in 1904 on grounds of an old limestone quarry. It had been years since we’d enjoyed the gardens. As beautiful as ever, they must be one of the premier gardens in the world no matter the season. Happily for us, fellow garden lovers were few and tour buses not in evidence this post-Labor Day time when the gardens are beginning to be readied for fall.… Read more

Victoria – waterborne city of flowers

Covid was waning and the U.S. – Canadian border was finally open again. The weather was good and the Black Ball Ferry Line from Port Angeles to Victoria was finally back in operation. So, we decided to head out for a change of scene to refresh our thoughts after the seemingly endless months of contagion concern.

I like some really old-fashioned expressions such as “sea-girt” a term that perfectly describes the city of Victoria, British Columbia perched on the rocky shores of the southern tip of Vancouver Island reached by sea or air.… Read more

ARIZONA – Excursion to Tumacacori and Tubac

What is it about ruins that many, including me, find so compelling? The melancholy half-fallen buildings make me try to visualize the labors of those who built them. What were their lives like and why were the buildings abandoned? What does a tiny graveyard say about the injury and disease that must have wracked the local people? My attempts to imagine what their lives were really like is doomed to failure because of the passage of time and mostly unbridgeable cultural differences.… Read more

Bisbee – From Mining to Tourism

“Rumors are they’ve found a big vein of gold.” We were huddled under blankets on a freezing morning when Dorothy, our golf-cart driver and guide set the brake at the top of a hill to respond to my question about the fate of long-abandoned mines near the town.

We, and two friends were on an early-morning tour of Bisbee, a town in southeastern Arizona with houses clinging to steep barren hills above the commercial area down in a gulch watered by a clear stream.… Read more

Arizona Borderlands

Wanting a taste of the Old West, we headed for the Slaughter Ranch and its restored 1880’s home in the far southeast corner of Cochise County on the Mexican border. The ranch is named for the “legendary” Texas John Slaughter, a lawman with a violent name who kept the peace in the old-fashioned way with pistols and rifles. I’d never heard of him, but it turned out he was a famous character with quite a history: Confederate War veteran, long-horn cattle driver on the famous Chisholm Trail, and then owner of the enormous cattle ranch in the then Arizona Territory.… Read more