On December 8 and 9, Petrified Forest National Park east of Flagstaff, on the high bunchgrass plains of northern Arizona, will celebrate its 102^nd birthday.  

This strange sweep of muted pastel dirt-humps, littered with swirling-color petrified wood, became a national monument 102 years ago on December 8, 1906, and was promoted to a national park on December 9, 1962.   The monument suffered from nearly too much love and interest when it was a natural and favorite stop for roadtrippers along Route 66.  The land was nearly picked clean of its signature remains, the ancient left-overs of the primordial swamps that once held sway in what some Arizonans call the “dinosaur belt” in the northeastern corner of the state.  When you visit the park today—a must on any itinerary—the warnings are strict and many about not taking any of the petrified wood, but you can buy it at dilapidated tourists traps on the park’s boundaries. 

According to the Park Service, a Holiday Open House is scheduled for December 8 and will include hot drinks, cookies, and “holiday cheer” at the Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark from 10 am to 4 pm.  The inn, which was redesigned by architect Mary Jane Colter in the late 1940s for the Fred Harvey Company, has several wall murals painted by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie that are definitely worth seeing.

Petrified Forest National park is awash with a kind of commercial nostalgia for the golden age of the Fred Harvey Company and high-style southwest tourism.  To really do it right, stay overnight at Winslow’s La Posada , a short drive west on Interstate 40 from the park.  Also designed by Colter for Fred Harvey, La Posada has in recent years been totally refurbished and is a romantic and enchanting place to be.

Saturday event will celebrate Padre Kino’s legacy

More than 300 years after he first rode into this valley, the name Eusebio Francisco Kino still has meaning here.

The pious, intellectual, and exceedingly tough padre who, among many other accomplishments, established this region’s world-renowned mission system and introduced cattle ranching to the Santa Cruz Valley, is a unifying figure in this culturally mixed locale.

This Saturday Nov. 15, a group dedicated to keeping Kino’s legacy alive will present “La Entrada de Kino” in Tucson, an all-day event featuring reenactments, lectures, and ceremonies in honor of the would-be saint of the Arizona borderlands.

“At a time when there is so much violence on both sides of the border, let this man of peace bring us together; let us remember a higher calling, and find it in Kino,” said event organizer Gloria Alvillar, who recently returned from a visit to the padre’s hometown of Segno, Italy.

Alvillar is part of the nonprofit group Patronato de Kino, one of the stated goals of which is to “promote Padre Kino to beatification,” or sainthood—a process they hope to conclude by 2011 on the 300^th anniversary of Kino’s death, said Raul Ramirez, the Patronato’s secretary.

“We think about him as a symbol of hope,” Ramirez said. “In the Catholic tradition you pray to saints for intercession with God, and we think that Kino would be a good symbol of unity; he tried to unite the tribes of Primeria Alta, and we are looking at him as source of unity again.”

The road to beatification, however, is likely to be even longer and more difficult than the thousands of arid and dangerous miles the padre traveled in the latter 1600s to arrive in what is now Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, where he not only attempted to convert the native people to his way of thinking but also introduced new lifeways that survive to this day.

The Patronato’s main goal, Ramirez said, is to educate people about Kino’s legacy, and the schedule of events for this weekend certainly bears that out.

Those attending will have the chance to hear a lecture by anthropologist and writer Tom Sheridan, who will speak about touring Kino’s missions throughout the border region. Historian Michael Weber will speak about the “world at the time of Kino’s time here”, and Alvillar will talk about her visit to the Segno, and Kino’s relatives there. Diana Hadley, Associate Curator of Ethohistory at the Arizona State Museum, will give a lecture entitled “What Kino Found When He Arrived.” Other events include Ballet Folklorico, poetry readings, reenactments, and blessings.

The event is scheduled to get under way at 9 a.m. at the Rio Nuevo Site (west of Interstate 10 on the south side of West Congress at Avenida del Convento and West Congress), with a reenactment of the padre’s horseback entrance into Tucson, using horses that are descended from the original bunch brought here by Kino himself, Ramirez said.

The lectures and other events are set to get started about 2 p.m. at 340 N. Commerce Park Loop. For more information and a schedule of events, go to www.patronatodekino.org.

South Rim’s Hermit Road set to reopen

Sunset viewing on the Grand Canyon’s South Rim will get a bit easier come Saturday, November. 15, when the historic Hermit Road reopens after nearly a year of being off-limits.

A Park Service release announced that the popular route to the nine overlooks at the western end of Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim will reopen to the public next Saturday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for that day at 1 p.m.

The refurbishing project started in February this year to “address safety issues and to preserve the historic integrity of the road,” the Park Service said.

Nearly a million visitors every year head up the Hermit Road, which ends at the Mary Jane Colter-designed gift shop and rest station called Hermit’s Rest, one of several romantic stacked-rock structures designed by Colter for the park. Hermit’s Rest, Colter said, was meant to appear as if built by hand by the titular hermit using native stone and wood beams. It’s definitely worth driving, walking, or taking one of the park’s free shuttles along the Hermit Road, especially around sunset. The western lookouts are some of the best in the park for viewing that sun-dipping show, for obvious reasons.

The Santa Fe Railroad built the original Hermit Road between 1911 and 1913. In the mid-1930s the road was reworked by the Park Service to handle automobiles, but it was never meant to handle the volume of traffic it has been subjected to these last 80 years or so.

“Even with periodic maintenance over the years, the road had deteriorated to the point where it was unsafe for various user groups, such as bicyclists and pedestrians,” the Park Service said, adding that a good deal of work and consideration went into preserving the road’s “historical integrity.”

“The original metal hand railings at each of the overlooks and the rustic-style stone masonry culvert headwalls and retaining walls were retained,” the Park Service said.

Despite the reopening, after Nov. 15^th shuttle bus trips along the road will shut down for the winter, as is customary. They’ll begin again, riding smoothly along the new black ribbon along the rim, on March 1, 2009. Until then, private cars, and of course walking and bike riding, are allowed on the Hermit Road through February 28, 2009.

Dispatch: The Day of the Dead in Arizona

The Day of the Dead is nearly upon us here in Arizona.

Officially the Day of the Dead, El Dia de los Muertos, is Nov. 2. It's sometimes difficult to get into the spirit of a cult of the dead observance when it's 85 degrees in the shade; the cool, leaf-crunching weather of Autumn seems more appropriate, but you won't find that here at Arizonaroamer HQ in the Sonoran Desert.

Anthropologists believe the holiday developed some 3,000 years ago in Mexico with the Olmec culture, and was passed down through the milenia to the Toltecs, Maya, Zapotecs, Aztecs, Mexicans, and, finally, to the Anglo populations of the American Southwest.

"The continuity of life and memories of ancestors are celebrated and invitations are made to departed souls to return," according to the Museum of Northern Arizona, one of the best natural history museums in the region and the site last weekend of the Celebraciones de la Gente, the celebration of the people, an annual Day of the Dead event in Flagstaff. "This is not a time of mourning. Instead, candles and marigolds, sugar skulls and colorful paper banners, and dancing and music" abound. Head south into Mexico, and you'll likely see parades, religious ceremonies, and family picnics in cemeteries in pretty much every town.

The folk art of the Mexican cult of the dead has become very popular around Arizona and the Southwest over the last decade or so. It's difficult to find a boutique, gift shop, or gallery these days that doesn't sell calavera (skeletons doing human things) statues, paintings, T-shirts, and all manner of other consumer goods featuring the Day of the Dead aesthetic. Generally these art objects recreate the work, or the at least the spirit of the work, of Jose Posada, a late 19^th century Mexican engraver and illustrator who influenced Diego Rivera and many others.

Here are just a few of the Day of the Dead events going on in Arizona:

In the Vally of the Sun:

Nov. 1-2 the Mesa Art Center (1 E. Main St. Mesa) will celebrate Dia De los Muetos with "Rosita's Day of the Dead", a one-woman show featuring cooking and story telling by Ruby Nelda Perez. Also at the arts center they'll be arts and crafts from local artisans, live music and dance, food, a community altar and a procession.

In Tucson:

--Through Nov. 15 there will be an altar at Tolteca Tlacuilo in the Old Town Artisans complex (186 N. Meyer, 623-5787) from 9: 30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

--On Oct. 29 Colossal Cave Mountain Park (647-7121) will celebrate the Day of the Dead with story-telling, crafts, music, a buffet lunch, and a traditional altar presentation.