Arizona Trust Land and Geocaches - Gillespie Middle School - Illinois 7-3A State Basketball Champs

Breaking news:  Gerry went to Benld High School and I went to Gillespie High School.  A few years after we graduated the two schools merged and the combined middle school mascot adopted Benld's name of the Indians.

The Gillespie Middle school won the Illinois 7-3A basketball championship over Teutopolis in overtime by the score of 38-33 this evening.  They trailed early in the game and were down 13-21 at halftime and then caught fire and won the game.  They finished the season with a 26-2 record.  Congratulations to the team.

GMS Indians waiting for their medals.

NOTE:  If you aren't interested in geocaching or the Arizona Land Trust, then you might want to stop reading today's entry.  

As many of you know Gerry and I are geocachers and try and get out as often as possible.  My two knee replacements last year slowed us down on geocaching and we were looking forward to finding some this season in Tucson.  There were about 500 caches within 5 miles of the RV park and they were on our radar.

Imagine my surprise when I went to download them and the area was free of geocaches.  At first I thought I was having system problems or the geocache site was having problems.  Nope, not to be as they were all removed.  I didn't know why, but do know that the Arizona Trust Land managers have a lot of rules and a permit is needed to even walk on the land.  As you will see in the following letter, the amount of land mass in the Trust is huge.

One of the geocachers telephoned the Trust office and was sent the following letter.  I've omitted his name due to privacy concerns.

QUOTE "
The Department manages approximately 9.2 million acres of State owned Trust land within Arizona. This land was granted to the State of Arizona under the provisions of the federal Arizona New Mexico Enabling Act that provided for Arizona’s statehood in 1912. This land is held in Trust and managed to earn revenues for the State’s public schools (K-12) and 13 other public institutions (see attached).
The Trust’s beneficiaries receive revenue from leasing, selling or using the State’s Trust land and its resources. Pursuant to law, all uses of Trust land must benefit the Trust. The Trust land is not managed for the general public’s use. While public use of the Trust land is not prohibited, use is regulated to comply with the State’s Enabling Act, the Arizona Constitution and state law to protect the land, its resources and to ensure compensation to the beneficiaries.
All recreational uses of State land, other than hunting or fishing with a valid hunting or fishing license must be authorized by a recreational use permit issued by the Department.
A Trust land Recreational Use Permit does not permit target shooting, paintball, airsoft, recreational flying, vehicular rock hopping, geocaching, sand railing, fireworks, or congregating in groups larger than 19 people. Visiting prehistoric and historic cultural or archaeological sites, metal detecting, collecting or removing natural products (rocks, stone, soil, fossils, mineral specimens, cacti, saguaro or cholla skeletons, plants (live or dead), or firewood for home use, are all prohibited. A Recreational Use Permit does not authorize use of non-state lands such as military, federal, tribal, or private lands. Recreational users are asked to take no natural products from the Trust land and leave no foreign objects. Activities involving disturbing the soil/cultural resources and traveling off existing trails and roads are prohibited.
To be clear, per federal and state law, all uses of Trust land must be permitted and must benefit the Trust; a fact that distinguishes Trust land from public land, such as state or county parks or national forests. Parks, National Forests, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are public lands and are managed as such. State Trust lands are not public lands.
May we refer you to those lands where geocaching is permitted, i.e. land administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Arizona State Parks.
We appreciate your concerns and hope this answers your questions.
Sincerely,
John Schneeman, AICP, CFM
Assistant Director
Natural Resources Division
Arizona State Land Department
1616 West Adams
Phoenix, Arizona 85007  
End quote "

To give you an idea as to the size of these holdings converted to sq miles they are 14,375 sq miles.  The state of Maryland covers 12,405 sq miles.

It is estimated that there were between 4,500 & 9,000 caches on the Trust land.  Nobody can agree on the true count but there have been a significant reduction in geocaches in Arizona as a result of the enforcement of the laws.  Many caches have been relocated but many others abandoned.

Most people don't realize how popular geocaching is and how far people travel to look for them.  The French & Germans schedule vacations to travel to the US Southwest to geocache and Arizona is a popular destination for them.  It will be interesting to see how this ruling changes the number of visitors to Arizona in the future.  

The vast majority of the caches aren't on Trust land, so there are still thousands of them out there waiting to be discovered.  Gerry and I found 5 of them yesterday in downtown Tucson.  The rectangles on the map below are geocaches and the smiley faces are caches we've found.  It looks like we have our work cut out for us to fill in more smiley faces.

We have been taking it easy the past few days and Gerry has been working on making her Valentine cards to be sent out.  I've been completing some small chores around the RV and just enjoying the nice weather we've had the past week or so.

Tubac Festival of the Arts

56th Annual Festival of the Arts

February 4 – 8, 2015 – 10 am – 5 pm daily

The 56^th annual Tubac Festival of the Arts, Arizona’s longest running festival, will be held on February 4 – 8, 2015 from 10 am to 5 pm each day; admission is free.
A juried show, the Tubac Festival of the Arts features 175 art booths with artists from around the country. The festival features a range of artwork from fine painting and sculpture to fun and functional ceramics, skillfully crafted wood and leatherworks and shimmering glass. Visitors will also see photography, unique jewelry, artful clothing and mixed media works.


Yesterday friends Ron & Dee asked us if we wanted to go to the Tubac Arts Festival today and we both readily agreed that would be great.  They picked us up around 10:00AM and we were on our way to Tubac.  It was a quick 45 mile trip down backroads and then I-19 south to Tubac.  As soon as we arrived I knew I was in trouble.  The close in parking lots were full and we snagged a spot on a ballfield 6-7 blocks from the beginning of the exhibits.  Thankfully there were numerous spots for me to rest my weary old body.

We managed to see most of the booths and Gerry picked up a couple gifts and also a ceramic soap dish.  She did manage to check out every jewelry booth along the way and there were a lot of them.

Not all the booths were jewelry spots and one of the nicer ones had  paintings on copper sheets.  They would look great in a house but wouldn't fit very well in our motorhome.

There were a lot of people at the Festival, but not as many as there will be Friday-Sunday.  It will be a zoo then with most likely twice as many people there.  Not us though!

We all saw what we came to see and decided to have lunch at Manuel's in Green Valley.  It is one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and we weren't disappointed today.  Rather than bore you with meal pictures I am only including Gerry and Dee's meals.  Yes, those are adult drinks on the table.  I had my usual beer and the others had margaritas. (plural for each).

It was very hot out there today and it was nice to find some shady spots to take a break.  As usual, there weren't any water fountains available.  We had a bottle of water and stopped for some soda and that helped a lot.

Thanks again Ron & Dee for the ride and company.  We had a great time.

KGUN 9, Tucson, Arizona

Not much to blog about tonight but thought I'd share a Facebook posting I ran across this evening.  KGUN 9 is the local ABC affiliate in Tucson and Erin Christiansen is the Meteorologist for the station.  The picture says it all.

It looks like some great "Happy Hours" outside are in store for us and we started tonight. 

Honor Prison Camp

Sunday we took a trip up to Mt. Lemmon and stopped at the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site on Catalina Highway.

What can I say, Gerry loves rocks.

Ruins at the site

More ruins

Soldier Canyon Creek runs through the Honor Camp site.

Catalina Federal Honor Camp, Arizona

The Catalina Federal Honor Camp is located in the Santa Catalina Mountains, northeast of Tucson, Arizona. The camp was established in 1939 within the Coronado National Forest to provide prison labor to build a highway that would allow Tucson residents easier access to the cooler elevations of the mountain. In the 1940s the Honor Camp included four barracks, a mess hall, a laundry, a powerhouse, a storeroom, a garage, a vocational shop, and a classroom. In addition, there was an administration building, ten masonry and five frame cottages for the prison personnel, and water supply and sewage disposal systems. Other facilities included a chicken and turkey farm and a baseball field. The inmates played the University of Arizona baseball team each year at the site.  On a 10-acre farm below the mountain the inmates raised vegetables.

Baseball Field

Catalina Federal Honor Camp, ca. 1945. (photograph courtesy of the Coronado National Forest)

Catalina Federal Honor Camp, ca. 1945. (photograph courtesy of the Coronado National Forest)

During World War II many of the prisoners at the Honor Camp were draft resisters and conscientious objectors. After the Supreme Court upheld his convictions for disobeying curfew and relocation orders, Gordon Hirabayashi completed his sentence there. Some 45 Japanese American draft resisters were also sent to the Honor Camp to serve their sentences. The majority of the resisters were from the Granada Relocation Center in Colorado; others came from Poston and Topaz. In contrast to Gordon Hirabayashi, who had to hitchhike from Seattle to Tucson to serve his sentence, the resisters were transferred to the Honor Camp in leg irons and under armed guard. Ironically, security at the Honor Camp was far less stringent than it was in the Relocation Centers: instead of fences and guard towers, the perimeter of the Honor Camp was marked by white painted boulders. The inmates broke rocks with sledge hammers, cleared trees, and drilled holes for dynamite for the road work, as well as worked to maintain the camp and grow food and cook for the prison population.

Sign at the site of the Catalina Federal Honor Camp.

After the highway was completed in 1951, the camp was used for juvenile offenders; inmates ran a logging and sawmill operation and a sign shop. In 1967 the camp was turned over to the state of Arizona, which used the camp as a youth rehabilitation center until 1973. All of the buildings were razed in the mid-1970s, but over 100 features, including concrete foundation slabs and rock walls, remain. The Coronado National Forest  developed the old prison site into the "Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site" named in honor of its most famous prisoner. The site serves as a campground and trail head, and includes interpretive signs which focus on prisoners' experiences and the Constitutional issues raised by the internment during World War II.

The above was taken from the National Park Service website.

There aren't any buildings left at the site anymore. The remaining  foundations give you a good idea how large the camp was.  They have picnic tables there along the Soldier Canyon Creek and a number of shade trees.  It looks like a nice place to have a picnic on a hot summer day in Tucson and should be cooler there since it is located at 4900ft of altitude.

Honor Camp today taken from Google Earth Photo

We weren't able to spend a lot of time there but have it on our list to return and explore the area around it even more before we leave this Spring.

There are little gems out there in the most unexpected places.  All you have to do is keep your eyes open and look for them.

That was our day, how was yours?

NOTE:  Marsha asked why there were so many cars from Sonora, Mexico on the mountain.  I think it was because so many Mexican children never see or get a chance to play in the snow and Mt. Lemmon is within driving distance of their homes.  Sonora license plates are common in the Tucson area and many come here to shop and visit relatives throughout the year.

Water in the Desert

It's been raining hard the last couple days in the Tucson area and all the streams are flowing for a change.  We've only seen this a couple times in the past 9 years we have spent the winter here.  I always have enjoyed seeing streams, brooks, washes, creeks and rivers at or near flood stage.

One year when I was about 10-11 my father, brother and I went fishing on the Illinois river during flood stage.  We piled into an 18ft open wooden boat and started across the flooded river about 25-30 ft above flood stage.  There we saw chicken coops, logs, barrels and all kinds of debris floating down the river and we were in the middle of it.  I was a "little" nervous and asked my father what would happen if the boat tipped over.  His answer was that he was going to drown since he couldn't swim and I should swim with the current to the shore.  HUH?  That sure was reassuring since none of us had life jackets.

Back to the present.  We decided to take a ride up to the top of Mt. Lemmon and check out the mountainside streams.  Most of the time they are bone dry and not that interesting but today was different with many of them flowing quite freely.  I will let the photos tell the story of how pretty it was up there on the drive.

Henry, who poses like this all the time?

7 cataracts

Pretty wildflowers along side of the road.

On top of the world

More falls

Somebody missed the turn.

 The van above was over 300 yards down the side of a steep hill.  I can't imagine anyone living through a fall down that steep hill with all the big rocks around the area.  It looks like it's been there a long time and is all rusted out.

We drove up to the snow ski area and were surprised to see people parking along both sides of the road for the last 1/4 mile or so.  The parking lot was a zoo and impossible to drive around in the area.  I pulled into the parking lot exit and turned around and headed out of there.  We were amazed to see hundreds of cars with Sonora, Mexico license plates.  They outnumbered the U.S. cars by 20 to 1 and families were walking down the middle of the road and causing quite a mess.  

Others were parked along side of the road in other areas taking advantage of the snow on the ground.  They were having snowball fights, sledding and just having a good time.  Once again, the majority of the cars were from Sonora, Mexico. 

One of the many snowmen along side of the road.

  A favorite pastime in the Tucson area is to load the car or truck with snow and drive back down the mountain.  Snowball fights would then take place.  Many cars had small snowmen on top of them and filling the hood of the car seemed to be popular also.  

We made a few stops on the way up to the top of Mt. Lemmon.  I will write more about that in another blog.  I will give you a hint; it's about a prison on the mountain.

It was time to head back to the motorhome to watch the Superbowl.  I didn't have any interest in either team and finally rooted for the Patriots.  They pulled off a stunner and won the game in the 4th quarter.  Hopefully, we won't be hearing ( not hearing ) from Lynch of the Seahawks for a while.  

That was our day, how was yours?