Mesa Canals 7: Val Vista Road to Granite Reef Dam on the Southern Canal

In a way, this is the big one: 4.9 miles from the junction of the Southern Canal and Val Vista Road to a bridge at the spillway of the dam. From the bridge to the Bush Highway on Granite Reef Dam Road is a further .8 mile. The 5.7 total miles recorded on my odometer track perfectly with the 5.66 miles of the Google Earth Route. It seemed longer. Wait. That didn't sound right--the surface is often rough on the north side of the canal (which you want to use, for reasons that will become clear later), but there is great scenery and no major road crossing.

Early in the ride, which I undertook in the early morning, the canal crosses under the 202 freeway. A bobcat was ambling down the path, coming out from an orange grove where he'd almost certainly spent the night. Past the orange grove on the north side of the 202, the canal goes through Pima reservation land on one side. On the other side are other isolated homesteads (including one fenced one with interesting signs) and a gravel operation. When the path gets close to the dam, the south side of the canal is cut down through the rock of some slopes, and there's no trail on that side. At the dam spillway, I saw cows grazing; a bridge allowed me to cross the canal to Granite Reef Dam Road, which leads out to the Bush Highway (coming the other direction last week, there are a number of Keep Out signs on Granite Reef Dam Road, but the road itself is not blocked).

The Bush Highway climbs steeply back up to McDowell Road, which is a good route back west to Mesa.

Mesa Canals 6: Connecting the Dots

This is a bit out of place, but I wanted to connect a couple of routes that I've previously described. In Mesa Canals 5, I pointed out that I'd wanted to go North on the Roosevelt Canal past McDowell, but that the path didn't look open. However, it actually was (see the picture below). On (apparently) August 13, I set out to complete the mile of canal path that I hadn't done.



First, the total route is approximately .8 of a mile (by my odometer). The first portion of the path goes past orange groves and some kind of industrial yard. After a while, one comes upon some relatively rural property east of Val Vista Road. On the road there are subdivision gates, but on the canal path, there seem to be a couple of dirt roads in, with some ranches essentially fronting onto the path. Here's the water tower of one.



At .6 of a mile, there's a fence, which can also be gotten through. It leads down a road to an octagonal pumping station at the junction between the Roosevelt and Southern Canals. About 200 yards west, the trail meets Val Vista Road. Here's the Google Earth picture of the path. By the way, this route connects up with other route described in Mesa Canals 5, and Mesa Canals 7.



Last week, I tried to connect one other route. About 3 weeks ago, I'd ridden the Southern Canal all the way out to Granite Reef Dam. That is documented in Mesa Canals 7. But I'd started that trip at the Val Vista intersection of the Southern Canal. I wanted to document the Southern Canal connector between my Mesa Canals 2 description to McDowell Road, and the big Granite Reef Dam trip. Anyhow, the north side of the canal is open to traffic. It runs just below the works of an industrial gravel operation, the Val Vista water treatment plant, and some subdivisions north of McDowell. The scenery looking north (from near the top of the mesa) is interesting, across orange groves and incoming subdivision sites south of the 202, with the McDowell Mountains, Red Mountain, and even Four Peaks in the distance. The road has little elevation change, and is well-graded.

The End of Borders

Last Saturday, Chris and I went to a dollar theater at Superstition Springs mall in Mesa Arizona. As we were leaving the theater, we noticed that the Borders Bookstore in the mall was still open. Most of the other Borders in town are shuttered, so we went in.

Signs everywhere--fixtures being sold, but shelves and shelves of books, most 30% off. We wandered the aisles doing a last check of a store that at one time or another had been a big part of both of our lives. I read that Borders was founded in 1971, in Ann Arbor Michigan. When I arrived in Ann Arbor for graduate school in 1979, I found the store immediately. In a town full of bookstores (new and used), Borders was the best. Wikipedia says that the company tailored its inventory system to fit the needs of the particular communities in which the stores were located (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_Group). Certainly, my ex-wife's employer, the Christian book distributor Spring Arbor, envied their inventory system. But that's beside the point. Over my decade in Ann Arbor, I must have spent several thousand graduate student dollars at that store, and hundreds of hours just roaming the shelves. I think I've said somewhere else on this blog that I had the idea of melding coffee and books while browsing at bookstores in A-squared (as we used to call it). But I'm lazy, and it took Borders itself to actually do it in the 1990's.

When I got to Tempe Arizona in 1990, the alternative bookstore Changing Hands was still on Mill Avenue, and still collected and posted bookmarks from quality bookstores across the country. They had an old Borders bookmark up (as the developers got to Mill Avenue and a Borders moved in down the street, Changing Hands was forced off the street and into South Tempe In an interesting irony, though the Mill Avenue Borders has been closed for over a year, the Changing Hands has flourished, as have other independent bookstores).

Anyhow, the tour through the aisles of the Superstition Springs Borders prompted a wave of nostalgia that left me verclempt. Chris and I had spent many happy hours in the Borders near Fiesta Mall in Mesa, and had bought several gallons of coffee there. As we wandered, we bought a C.S. Lewis Bible (apologies to Lou Markos), two books of travel writing, a video, and (for me) a book of Arizona bicycle tours. Interestingly, the prices still weren't that low. And that got me thinking--the first time I'd ever bought something on Amazon was about 1999, when it wasn't clear that online retailing would even survivie. But even then, one could hear the faint tolling of the death knell. You could find anything, new or used, on Amazon or their partners. Now, I buy almost all of my books on Amazon, bypassing even the publishers. Chris just bought me a Kindle for Father's Day, and I've been buying $10 books for it, and have been looking for PDFs for it too. We've still got shelves and shelves of books in our house, but I see the world changing ("I can feel it in the air"--Galadriel, LOTR movie, Fellowship of the Ring). I don't know what will happen over the next few years, but I'm also assembling electronic anthologies for our literature classes offered online.

Mesa Canals 5: Roosevelt Canal and Maricopa Floodway, University to McDowell

I certainly picked an interesting day to do this ride--the middle of the monsoon, just after the big Phoenix haboob (don't you love that word?). Anyway, it's not too bad at 5:30 a.m., but after about 6:30 it gets a bit sticky. Google Earth says this is the Roosevelt Canal, but I probably should check that. It's between Greenfield and Higley (East-West) and I cycled (trending northwest) from University Drive to McDowell Road Here's the University Drive entrance to what is both the canal right-of-way and a Maricopa County Floodway park and trail.



I entered the canal/floodway route at 8th Street/Adobe, the great all-purpose Mesa east-west connector as far as about Ellsworth Road. At that point, the canal itself was severely restricted (impassible fences), but the adjoining bank of the floodway, across from the paved path, was open. Interestingly, the floodway trail continues southeast from where I started (this will be a future bicycling project, when I have a little more time). To the right is a picture facing southeast from University Drive.



The route itself as described and pictured is 3.3 miles (by my odometer) from University to McDowell Road. The first mile and a half (to north of Brown Road) is specifically the floodway trail, on the east side of the canal-floodway complex. The current trail is a slightly macadamized gravel (a change from the past, when it was merely gravel) with brick accents at road crossings. The trail uses restrictive fencing (relatively narrowly-spaced fencepoles) to keep out vehicular traffic. With care, mountain or road bicycle handlebars can fit through these narrow openings. More problematic is the fact that some of the brickwork is raised from the trail level at these restrictive entrances, so that an unsprung bicycle might be stopped in places. I usually unclip one foot.

About a quarter to a half mile north of Brown Road, the floodway ends, and the trail continues on the side of the canal. To this point, the trail has been landscaped, contoured and scenic. I saw a number of people running, cycling, and exercising their dogs, some in the floodway itself. Past the crossing of Greenfield Road, the canal bank is generally unimproved coarse gravel, and even more restrictive gates block the street crossings. Often, the entrances to the canal path are even hidden from general view; the explorer will have to look closely. Past Greenfield Road, the canal bank takes on a familiar character--generally a little unkempt, an alley between the back walls of subdivisions. However, between Brown and McDowell, there are still a few orange groves, along with what appear to be roads into gated communities, inaccessible from the public paved roads in the area.




I stopped at McDowell: at first glance, it looked as though the canal north was completely closed off. Since the floodway had ended, SRP had signed all street crossings relatively threateningly for "trespassers" and vehicular traffic. The last two pictures here show the McDowell canal crossing looking south (with the sign) and looking north. Notice the picture on the right. If one looks straight on, there seems to be no entrance to the canal. However, when one looks closely travelling west on McDowell, there is a way in. I will have to re-examine some other canal routes that seemed to be closed. The Roosevelt Canal north of McDowell is also a project for another day.

Ode: Intimations of Mortality

As I sit in a relatively uncomfortable chair in an 8th floor hospital waiting room, I consider that this is a relatively different challenge than the one I was expecting to face today. I was visiting my parents preparatory to attending a martial arts camp in Missouri, when my dad had a heart attack. Now he has a history of heart disease going back 34 years, to his first massive heart attack, and his continued survival (he's almost 80) is a miracle. In the event, it was providential that I was here, to call 911 and ferry my mother to and from the hospital. My parents were, in fact, well prepared for this eventuality, with detailed lists of my dad's medical history and medications. The first responders were impressed. But that's not my topic at the moment.

I find myself in my high school hometown, a 55-year-old with a CPAP machine and cholesterol medication. I'm surrounded by pictures of my grandparents in various venues, many of which (the venues, that is) I recognize. I remember my grandparents as old, but I now see that, for one set of them at least, when these pictures were taken, they were the same age as I am now.

I look at my sister, two years younger. She shows some specific signs of middle age (far be it from me to list them here.) I've been fighting this sense that I am now among the old, but being surrounded by so much of my past, it is difficult to escape the sense that I am aging. I still feel 30 or so, despite a few aches, pains, and pounds. But everyone else has worn down. How did that happen? I know (intellectually) that it all wears to an end at last, that things slow down, that the center does not hold, but I'm having to confront this young image of myself. I think-- "All I need to do is exercise some, lose a few pounds, and the clock will turn back." But it ain't necessarily so. One of my brothers-in-law, a few years older, has always seemed young, and has never had heart problems. Until three months ago.

Surrounded by aging and illness certainly points the issue of mortality. Someone said "Old age isn't for sissies," and I have a new appreciation for that, revisiting my old hometown and watching over my dad.

Time, Education, and the Liturgical Year

I got back from our church's Easter early-morning (not sunrise at 7:30) service a couple of hours ago. The theme was "Scarred," a carry-over from a sermon series which will continue next week. The service was held in the darkened sanctuary, and the activities, which included liturgical dance (a sinner and the devil) and a sermon on the scars of "Good" Friday, did not end in light (physically in the sanctuary), though the Resurrection was, of course, invoked.

As we exited, Chris pointed out that she would have preferred to have a joyful Easter service on Easter, instead of an amalgam of Good Friday and Easter on Sunday morning. That continued some thoughts that I've had over the past few years concerning the importance of time and rhythm as an element of education. I now understand the importance of the traditional liturgical year in this way as well.

One of the things contemporary American culture seems to value is compression--compression of activities, compression of our awareness into a continuous active present of stimulation (consider Tweeting, Smart Phones, and connectivity in this regard). We've become accustomed to that in our church activities as well: I have not done a survey, but it does seem that fewer churches offer a differentiated round of services during Holy Week (Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday). Instead, we worship as though Easter comes out of nowhere (and, yes, in a sense it does) and has no context in Palm Sunday, Passover, and Good Friday. Certainly our church has moved in that direction over the last couple of years. I miss the rhythm of the liturgical year, which mirrors the rhythm of the natural year that we also tend to ignore.

So what does this have to do with education? I believe we ignore the rhythms of real education in the same way. Over a decade ago, I advanced the idea (at GCU) that there was a rhythm to higher education, which I defined as "knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, and reflection on knowledge." Of these three elements, we concentrate on acquisition, and occasionally on application (in internships), but have given little to no attention to reflection. That pattern has only intensified at the university, and in higher education in general over the last decade. I believe that we miss important elements of the educational experience, and important elements of the rhythm of life when we ignore reflection, especially.

Mesa Canals 4: Eastern Canal, University to Gilbert

This segment connects to the ending segment of the Eastern Canal, that I wrote about in Mesa Canals 2.


On March 13, 2011, I did a quick ride, just to get rid of the cobwebs imposed by three weeks of sickness out of the previous eight, and to try (unsuccessfully) to condition for the MS 150 out in Florence. In the event, I had a great ride in the morning from essentially the intersection of the Eastern Canal at University Avenue to where the canal almost intersects Gilbert Road. In this 3.8-mile segment, the rider can get a sense of the range of canal riding experience in Mesa. The segment ranges from paved path to unimproved right-of-way. One passes the back yards of all kinds of Mesa residences, from upscale subdivisions to historic trailer parks.

From University to 8th Street/Adobe, the canal right-of way is essentially unimproved; just north of University on the west bank of the canal is a small ROPES course for a youth facility. High-tension electrical lines also run along the eastern bank of the canal before turning off at a catchment basin and park south of Adobe.



The picture on the left was taken at the University end of the route. Notice that the 8th Street/Adobe cross street is an excellent paved connector for a number of canals in this area.

Once past 8th/Adobe, the rider can find an SRP reservoir (hidden by high berms) on the west bank, near the property of Central Christian Church. On the east bank are the back yards of an upscale development. At the crossing of Brown Road, both sides of the canal make for good riding through further subdivisions. The canal crosses Lindsey Road just north of Mountain View High School, where the east bank pavement begins. The area north and west from Lindsey gives a great cross-section of Mesa's history--on the southwest bank are new subdivisions, some with horse property. But the real horse property is on the northeast bank. There, as well, are some interesting small ranchettes and trailer parks. I've encountered people fishing the canal on this stretch. Occasionally the canal is not walled off from the surrounding streets. Joggers, dog walkers and bicyclists use this stretch on a regular basis, especially the last stretch, north of McKellips Road. It's a nice ride, and if one continues beyond the Gilbert Road curve, there are some great views of Red Mountain, North Loop 202, the McDowells, and even the Superstitions and Four Peaks.

Tolkien and Borders

On September second, 1973, the day J.R.R. Tolkien died, I was "sitting here on a mountain top in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I can hear the wind sighing through the trees, sounding like the distant ocean as it breaks upon a sandy beach. The clouds are red with the light of the sun, which has not risen above them yet, and the carpet of green trees spreads out in a rolling expanse that looks like an endless sea of forest. The light fog has lifted just enough to show the blue streak of distant mountains on the southwestern horizon. This lichen-covered rock on a half-bluff rising from the Ontonagon River is part of a large grey rock face that stretches brokenly from east to west. The ferns, grasses and delicate purple blossoms wave gently in the breeze, giving the impression of the last wavelets of a breaking sea of forest foliage which has dashed itself against this lonely outcropping of rock. I feel insignificant here, but I feel good."

I was beginning my freshman year of college, on the seventh day of an ultimately-16-day Outward Bound style experience. I'd been introduced to The Hobbit as a fourth-grader, when an otherwise-hated teacher read the story aloud; I must have been taken with the story, since my mother has saved a picture I drew at the time, of the dwarves and hobbit being led in chains by goblins. In 1970, a friend introduced 9th-grade me to The Lord of the Rings. By the time of this program, I'd probably read the trilogy through four times, en route to the more than 20 times I must have read it through now. Eight or nine years later (1980 or 81, I can't remember which), I taught Tolkien to undergraduates for the first time, as a teaching assistant in a large class led by a linguistics professor at the University of Michigan. In it I met people more immersed in Tolkien than I was--I received essays written in Elvish, and got a glimpse into the (then new) world of Dungeons and Dragons.

In the meantime, during my undergraduate experience, I would meet Clyde Kilby, who had attempted to help Tolkien arrange his Silmarillion material close to the end of his life, and who would help establish the Wade Collection at Wheaton College.

I'm not sure where this is going, except to say that I'm teaching the works of Tolkien again, and am now reading up on Tolkien and the Inklings, having just finished Colin Duriez's Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. It's a nice, readable piece of popular literary history and criticism, with some interesting insights about influence and the importance of literary groups. It's also got me thinking about my connections (indirect) with Tolkien the human being.

I remember when we hiked out of the woods after 16 days away from any media but print and handwriting. At some point almost immediately upon reaching civilization, I heard of Tolkien's death. I (with apparently every other hippie in the world) had been eagerly awaiting the Silmarillion. Now it would never appear (I thought). The disappointment of that realization is one that has been mirrored a number of times since, in much the same way--whenever one hears of the death of a favorite author (one that a person reads over more than once), the first thought is--"Now there's no more about . . ." (The death of Tony Hillerman also hit me this way.) But I reckoned not with Christopher Tolkien, and now we have a plethora of continuing Tolkien material. The flow has almost stopped now, 10 volumes into the history of Middle earth, and The Children of Hurin later. This will be a literary conundrum for the next century: how to deal with this close posthumous collaboration of father and son.

Also today (and somewhat related), in the Arizona Republic, Laura Trujillo published a poignant look back at Borders Bookstore, most locations of which are closing soon. She remembers it as a gathering place, though a huge chain. During my time in Arizona, I also remember it this way (Chris and I being the bookworms we are), but I remember it as something more.

When I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1979, Borders had maybe three total locations in the Detroit metro area, the flagship being on State Street in Ann Arbor. At the time, it was unique--a spacious bookstore, with a good booklist inventory in almost every area, and benches. At the time, expresso drinks were just catching on (Cafe Expresso was just opening [early 1980s] on State Street just south of Borders), and I remember thinking that the pairing of books and coffee would be perfect--prescience without action. But I'm certain to have spent several thousand graduate-student dollars and weeks of hours in that store, just perusing books over lunch hours, and in the intervals between and after classes. When I got to Tempe, AZ in 1990, Changing Hands bookstore was still on Mill Avenue, and still collecting bookmarks from specialty bookstores, which they mounted on their walls. There was an Ann Arbor Borders one up.

But that counter-cultural graduate school version of literary bliss was gone by 1995, after Borders went corporate. That booklist and inventory-shipping system served them well for as long as distribution remained physical, but I heard the death knell when I bought my first book on Amazon in the late 1990s. Amazon always had any book in stock, and even had a rare and used volume search. My book-buying habits changed. Now, my reading and buying habits look to change again--as soon as there's a color screen I can read in daylight (and there is--Pixel Qi) on a tablet, I'm reading electronically. But there are still yards and yards of bookshelves in my home.

Mesa Canals 3: Hohokam Stadium to Park of the Canals

Well, it's taken long enough. I've ridden the route from Hohokam Park (Center Street just north of Brown) to Horne and Park of the Canals often. It's one of my favorite rides. So these are pictures of the ride I took on February 17. Now, this is one of my favorite rides, but I haven't been on my bike (for various reasons) since the middle of December. So, this was just enough.


A quick description of the marked stretch in the map below: it's 1.5 miles long, and begins on a paved path next to Hohokam Park. After a bit over a mile (crossing Mesa Drive), the Crosscut Canal intersects with the Consolidated Canal. At that point, I take the dirt verge of the canal (on either side) northeast. The canal path passes the Park of the Canals, a real unsung Mesa gem. It's an archeological park, in that it has the remains of Hohokam canal excavations still visible, and if you look hard enough in various places in the park, you can find potsherds. There's also a great cactus garden, and what look like some modern and some historic outbuildings.

Be careful, however. I still see signs of people sleeping the night and partying in the park. But this is a great ride, flat on top of the actual mesa of Mesa, with some great views (the one at the top is the McDowells in the distance). It's impossible to fully convey the effect of morning light. As you ride or walk farther, you face more east, and can see Red Mountain, and Four Peaks.