Big Band Dancing, Apache Helicopters, and.Superstition Mountains

The Lost Dutchman State Park, east of Mesa AZ, was our site for two weeks. This is the home of the Superstition Mountains in a desert environment, with long billed thrashers and the coolest quail.  We met up here with Jane and Danny and shared our winter experiences as they have been in AZ since Halloween.  The mountains are geologically structured to cast many different shadows, depending on the time of day.  Features resemble faces, praying hands along with others if one lets the imagination wander. The mountains sit on the rim of a caldera which was an opening to a volcano that collapsed and then more mountains pushed up again.  No wonder the area was considered sacred to early inhabitants... it is such a moving place.  The remnants of lava flows, magnificent canyon walls, and jagged peaks, made for interesting hikes that correlated well with a dvd series of lectures I am watching now on geology.

An interesting drive took us from Tuscon to Mesa, down a beautiful two lane road through a vast copper mining area.  I have seen strip mining in IL and KY, but never with this much destruction.  Mountain after mountain, over fifty miles, were totally torn apart by earth moving equipment, the ore extracted, and the rubble piled back up again.  Deep pits ran for miles... the huge mining equipment resembled matchbox toys.  I realized the importance of copper in our daily lives from the penny to all electronics and wiring, medical applications etc, but the destruction mother earth endures to obtain it is unfathomable!  Later in the week I came upon an ant hill being constructed. Ants, much like the earth movers of the mines, were hauling relatively huge boulders out of the ground comparable to me carrying a refrigerator myself.  One ant was carried out of the work site and set aside....I guessed he had been injured, maybe fell from a scaffolding. Their work was all for housing and food storage. I kept thinking of the billions of people on earth, the mining and pollution we inflict, versus the billions of ants and the digging and therefore aeration of the planet they cause.  Mother nature has endured meteors, devastating volcanoes and earthquakes, and periodic giant swings in the climate.  Can she endure mankind?????

We stayed a few days at Poncho Villa State Park near Columbus NM, across the border from Mexico.  During the drive there, we encountered sixty mile per hour winds laced with dust to the point of little visibility.  We figured that over the course of a year of travels, we would encounter all types of weather, guess this was one type. The town of Columbus was hot, dry, dusty, with gravel streets and the site of the only invasion of the US prior to 9/11, by Poncho Villa of Mexico wanting to take back some of their territory.  Interesting that two state highways intersect in town numbered  9  and 11.  In a small town, visitors stand out and the people we encountered were welcoming, especially Jose, the owner of a tiny Mexican restaurant.  He kept bringing us more and more items at no charge, soup, chips, dessert, and visited with us about his family and sons....such a nice guy and he said his family came first!

We were invited to an open house of Boeing in Mesa by my cousin Becky and her husband Clay.  They have been long time employees and were excited to show us their work on the government contract that Boeing has to build the Apache Helicopter...what a piece of military hardware, so complex, high tech, with the latest in metallurgy, electronics, and weaponry..we saw them all being displayed on the assembly line.  Becky has been a supervising parts procurement person and Clay works in a lab conducting test after test on parts not manufactured by Boeing, to ensure they meet specs.  When one considers that the life of the pilots and the ground troops they support depend on 100% functionality of all parts ie the propeller blades and rotors etc, the importance of the work of Becky and Clay is illuminated.  Thank you for your part in the well being of our country!  Seeing thousands of employees and their families and children, eating BBQ and cookies and taking the tour of where their mom or dad worked, made me realize how important government contracts are to the livelihood of so many people!

At the A.Z. Wing Commemorative Air Force Falcon Field is the world famous 40's Big Band Dance and the U.S.O. show, performed by music of a Big Band Orchestra for your dancing enjoyment! Guests who attend come dressed in the styles of the 40's, with a costume contest and a jitterbug contest, all in the shadow of the B-17 plane,"The Sentimental Journey". This was our second year to attend this Big Party commemorating W.W.II. Last year, we were asked to attend by Patrick and Allen's Grandmother, Elizabeth. These are the twins I had helped nanny for when we had first moved out to CO. Anyway Elizabeth remarried a few years ago to an Army guy.....A Colonel in the U.S. Army who had received 5 Purple Hearts in Viet Nam. We had had such a fabulous time with them last year, therefore we wanted to attend this year! Last year, Colonel Jack wore his full military uniform and Elizabeth wore her Red Cross Uniform. They are such a fun and loving couple to be with too! Elizabeth was also a pilot in her earlier years!



Jane and Danny took pictures that evening for us!! Jane and I walked around and met several veterans and spoke with them. One 91 year old Pearl Harbor Survivor (we finally caught up with him, he was rather busy on the dance floor with a few very young, beautiful women)! We also spoke with some men who had served in the Air Force, named "Red Tails Airmen";a segregated black servicemen outfit.The men we spoke to were not W.W.II veterans, but served in other years. Marilyn Monroe is always there and the famous sailor and nurse who was on the cover of the newspapers after the war ended were in the dance contest, Betty Grable in her blue iconic swimsuit, her picture is on the B-17! We got a great photo of Colonel Jack and her! There were plenty of uniforms and costumes, even a man dressed in a bright blue zoot suit! During the meal, a couple of old planes would fly over the hanger!

Dance photos by Danny Smith


Some history of the "Red Tails": The Tuskegee, Ala. airmen; popular name of a group of African-American pilots who fought during W.W.II. During W.W.II, African-Americans in many U.S. states still were subject to the Jim Crow laws. The American military was racially segregated as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to racial discrimination within and outside of the Army. Five Tuskegee Airmen were of Haitian descent. When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Groups painted the tails of their P-47s and later P-51s red, they were called the "Red Tail Angels". Danny told us there was a movie about their service!

Their combat record speaks for itself:
Over l5,000 combat stories (incl. 6,000 plus for the 99th prior to l944)
111 German airplanes destroyed in the air; l50 on the ground
950 rail cars, trucks, and other vehicles
1 destroyer sunk
66 pilots killed in action
32 pilots down and captured as P.O.W.s
150 Distinguished Flying Crosses earned
744 Air Medals
8 Purple Hearts
l4 Bronze Stars

Distinguished Heroes of W.W.II who suffered from discrimination in our country and fought for freedom of it; who we thank for their service!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funnies:   A t-shirt we saw in Tombstone AZ depicted an old cowboy slumped over in the saddle of his horse after a night of carousing at the local saloon.  Sitting in  front of him holding the reins in his mouth was his trusty old dog the "designated driver".

Well, we have now completed four months of our year long trip! We head home in a few days for some hugs from the family in Lafayette and  hope to do the same later in the summer with the Chicago family.  A recent review of the blogs illustrates for us a record of a trip thus far that has been a wonder!  We have gotten along quite well in the confines of Silver, especially since Janet seems to order me to the outdoors often except when it is time to clean, do the dishes, or take a turn cooking!  I manage to sneak into the frig about happy  hour time for a cold one though.  Janet has battled her auto-immune disorder over the past few weeks, but with her Creason women toughness, she carries on much like the WWII soldiers she so frequently writes about.  Keep her in your thoughts and prayers.The next third of the journey will take us to Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Wyoming. We will see Arches, Bryce, Zion, Las Vegas, Yosemite, Creator, San Francisco, Olympia, Redwoods, Mt Rainer, and Glacier!

Thoughts by Janet:
We have a quote posted upon entering Silver, "The Greatest of all the arts is the art of living together!" We have a cross right above it signifying our deep devotion to our faith. This faith has given us the sustenance to sustain daily trials in today's world. Ty and I have been measuring our blessings over our trials along our path in our life together and feel so so blessed to have our family! On this trip I have transcribed my Mother's words from the tapes of Jenna's interviews with her. The strength is not in her voice but in her words, her memories of her brothers and how she survived so many difficulties, always counting her many blessings and saying, "the peace which passes all understanding", referring to her faith in our God.
See you soon and May God Always Bless America!