The Three Horses

(Write about a character arriving in a place unlike anywhere they’ve ever been.)

Marcie truly loves her home area for reasons too numerous to mention, She was so very surprised, no, actually amazed, to discover a place that also reached her heart.

Marcie had been born and raised in the Midwest. Her whole adult life was lived in a state bordered by two of the Great Lakes so the memories were plentiful and the best times involved days in the sun and on the water. Here where we enjoy changing seasons, lush green farm fields, forests and lakes, it was inconceivable to her that she could possibly enjoy the arid landscapes of mesas, arroyos and high desert plateaus in the southwest United States.

She was about to find out how her best friend Nancy, from college, could ever have agreed to move to Arizona of all places. She and Nancy shared a love of the water, swimming, boating, anything in, on or under the water. How could she move to the dessert?

Marcie packed up her fully restored and refurbished Volksbus and set off to find what was west of the middle America food belt. What was out there beyond the farm fields, the rippling fields of wheat. What happened when the fertile ground gave way to rocky soil too hard and dry to grow stuff? It is not at all surprising that she was amazed by the National Parks and all of the varied and glorious landscapes they represent. But she could never have imagined and certainly was not at all prepared to fall in love with just the scope of the vistas, the colors, the dry warmth and cool nights of many places she visited.

Marcy was a woodcarver and currently she was totally taken with Native American Art. She was excited to go in search of kachina carvings, woven baskets and all of the Native American handwork. It was all especially interesting to her as she was busy attempting to carve them in her home studio. She was hungry to see the real things, carved by members of the remaining Hopi tribe. Everywhere she went she tried to visit galleries and museums but also small artists studios where much was still done in the old ways.

Very quickly her interest grew to include a broader interest of the whole area. She visited little known, to her anyway, natural areas and historic sites she found as she explored. Her appreciation for the area was a total surprise.

Sitting in one of her campsites in the early morning, a cup of steaming sweet tea warming her hands, she sat deep in shadow, and watched the sun hit the the mountain peak and then gradually slide down the mountain side till it reached where she sat with her breakfast, is it any wonder she became enamored.   

While camping along the Colorado River, very near Moab, UT, she found huge driftwood piles of Cottonwood, root mostly. She climbed through the tangled wood pulling out a few large twisted pieces to tie onto the camper to bring home. She felt foolish later on discovering how prevalent rattle snakes were in the area. When she stopped at a wayside park, a large display identifying snakes of the area let her know, in fact, how foolish she had been, but, after the fact she smiled brightly, she did have the cottonwood.  

Her time in the western states was a beautiful adventure. She loved Moab when coming from that direction, through Canyonlands, down to Flagstaff , camping in Oak Creek Canyon and then the amazing beauty of Sedona, and finally to the Tucson area where she would finally visit her friend Nancy. It was a continuous journey of pleasure. And by now, she understood that there are many more kinds of beauty than just her precious Great Lakes.

It would be difficult to choose only one favorite place from among the many favorite places but for sure high on her list would be Madeira Canyon, AZ. Nancy was now her guide to many lesser known places, like this lovely Madeira Canyon. It is a gathering place for Hummingbird lovers, they camp there setting up cameras and microphones totally focused on these tiny beauties. The area, lovely hilly and green, it was love at first sight for Marcie and she marked her map to revisit it after the visit with Nancy was over.

They spent a lovely but terrifying day driving the treacherous mountain road to see Jerome, AZ. It is high on a mountain side and it is chuck full of galleries and artist studios, great food and spectacular scenery. Looking out over a valley so far away, when you look down there are a sea of rooftops, the tier upon tier of houses and buildings roofs. Everything just seems to cling to the mountainside defying gravity.

Beauty comes in many different forms and these places stirred Marcie's imagination. As her visit came to an end, she no longer had any questions in her mind about Nancy’s decision. If you want to swim, every good motel or health club has a pool but nowhere else can you find a Jerome, or a Santa Fe.

Marcie did stop again in Madeira Canyon to camp one night going East toward home. She dragged out a timber of butternut and strapped it to a picnic table and using a mallet and chisels, she carved a relief of three horses. She thought the work just flowed like it was inspired by native spirits or just meant to be. She feels it is such a pleasure to connect the memory of the place with this carving.   

On another night a few hours further East but still in the mountains, Marcie had a great experience while camping in a place called Cochise Stronghold. She had walked a dry creek bed that afternoon looking for walking stick material. Wood she could carve into decorated walking or hiking sticks. Later that evening, a rain storm provided her with a full and raging water course where she had just walked in dust, while up on the mountain side water was spurting from rocks and cracks in the rocks. Water over the ages had done much to sculpt the rocks of the area.  

This area was just so interesting and now to her, she felt excitement . She had truly come to love it. One short visit but she knew she would return many times.

On her last trip out West, visiting Arizona and her long time college friend, Nancy, a fall on day three of her trip cut short her visit. She fell and broke her humerus while camping in the Chiricahua National Forest. After a drive of fifty miles to the nearest emergency room, the next day, an orthopedic surgeon in Sierra Vista, AZ, sent her home for treatment. This ended her almost yearly trips to a place where a good bit of her heart still resides.

Marcie is so delighted, so very delighted to have the memories and the carvings she did in the mountains and canyons. A few have inquired about purchasing the carving of the three horses but Marcie will never sell it. Just a glance at it and she is back with the hummingbirds and kachinas of Arizona.