Nevok’s Keep

After yesterdays Grand Canyon disappointment, we were not prepared for today’s scenic trip. Lots of red (and other rock), blue Lake Powell, a group of young colts on a hilltop next to the road, only missing their Indian warparty. Alternatively, if I could rename this piece the „sound commentary“, I’d write about the police car we heard… and saw about 20 minutes later, because its echo hurried far ahead through the canyons. But back to business: colorwise, I’ve picked turquoise, after we’ve seen and bought real native American jewelery at Blair’s Training Post. Not like the tourist “junk” we’ve seen in Sedona, but a selection of fine (and expensive) pieces of different tribes with knowledable information about the symbols, the making and the artist.

I was planning to save red rock-red for today, but well, the Grand Canyon is just… grand. Grand as in if the light is not perfect (which it wasn’t) and the air is a litlle bit hazy (which it was), you don’t really see much of the bottom or the other side, even with binoculars. So all the colors I collected today were brownish-greyish-blueish-greenish views of something grand ? too grand to inspire awe or fasciniation in me. Quite disappointing actually…

Today was a difficult day to pick a color. I was considering the dark green of the ponderosa pines we passed on our way to Sedona ? too boring. Or the garish pink of the pink jeep tours ? already had hot-pink. Or the turquoise in the Indian Jewelery boutique where one piece of turquoise-silver jewellery was uglier than the next (which led to a pretty high ugliness-rating for the 5.258.237th bracelet in the showcases…). But I finally decided to go with red. Not the red of our first red-rock we’ve encountered on this trip ? I’ll be saving that color for later when we will see much more of that. I’m talking about the bright red used in a water-color drawing by Sarah Roger of “Willow”, a silhouette of a cat of exactly the same build and pose as my favourite fuzzball Jana. This painting struck my eye when we entered the art mall and if they’d had a unframed version, I would have bought it on the spot. So I guess I’ll mail-order it from home.

After Colin whined so much about the temperature drop between the desert below and and mountains around Flagstaff, I am not going to pick "white as snow" as today’s color. I’ll pick the blue-grey of the American Kestrel’s wings instead. When we entered the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, this beautiful bird of prey was presented by a handler in the "meet an animal" ramada next to the entrance. A Kestrel is a relatively small hunter, just a little bigger than the average city dove. The male is extremely beautifully colored - you really need to look at the picture gallery of today. 

I’ll make it short and painless: today’s color is cactus green. What else do you expect when we spend a day in the desert, looking at dozens of different kind of pricklies living there in the wild. But cactus green does not equal cactus green. Like with all living things, there are myriades of shades to it. I’ll offset that with the unpaved sandy roads of the Tucson Mountain District of the Saguaro National Park, which were quite "interesting" to navigate with a non-offroader - despite what the travel guides said.

Colin already mentioned our shopping trip to the AF Country Store. For all German readers: that’s the local equivalent of a Raiffeisenmarkt. We went there to do some horse shopping, show blankets and such. But I forgot that we are in Roping and Barrel Racing country. So seeing two 5yd racks full of rainbow colored lariats, the ones I only know in used and yellowish-brown was something very Frederick. Therefore the color of the day is pastel colored hot pink, lemon yellow and acid green. 

I wonder if they are glow-in-the-dark…..

We visited the Desert Botanical Garden today, which is featuring a special exhibition by the famous glass artist Chiuly. So you’d guess that I’d pick one of the vibrant colors he’s using in his glass installations. Well, no… there was something more impressive. The color of the day is greenish-silvery-grey… something very camouflagy if you happen to be an Anne’s hummingbird. We saw dozens of them - very cute and very interesting, considering that Colin never saw a live hummingbird in his life and the last one I’ve seen was when I was a kid at a zoo behind inches of glass.

Color of the Day:
All the colors of the rainbow, hidden away underneath the windy city at a very unlikely place.
When you have to change Terminals at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, it might just happen that you have to go from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3. To do so, you would have to cross one of the landing strips and in order to save some hapless tourists, the architects devised an underground tunnel. This tunnel is fitted with huge glass pannels on both sides with frosted glass, which is illuminated from behind in all colors of the rainbow, creating a real nice, just slightly psychedelic atmosphere.

There’s a children’s book in Germany about a mouse called Frederick. He is living with his family of mice on a field somewhere. It’s fall and all the other mice are out and about to collect food for the winter, while Frederick just sits on a stone and collects colors. The green of grass, the blue of the sky, the red of strawberries… you get the picture. Unappreciated as many "weirdos" are, his mice family is making fun of him. In the middle of the winter, when supplies got scarce and all the mice are freezing and getting depressed, Frederick shares his stock: he tells the other mice about the greens, blues and reds and although that doesn’t really increase the amount of available food, the other mice feel much better and all of them emerge from their den in spring.

Now, I am a Frederick. Always have been and it’s a shame that I cannot draw or paint. But I will try anyway. So, for this trip, aside from Colin’s daily blog, I will write a short piece about the "Color of the Day". In our scrap book about the trip, I plan to complement that with a little watercolor / drawing… let’s see how that works out.