We recently arrived in the Southwest determined not to encounter show. Our original plans were to head to Prescott, but the weather forecast was for 6-13 inches of snow. NO! So we headed down I-10 to Tucson instead. This city is a college town, and has that feeling. Tucson does not possess any particular “Indian” feeling. One local informed me that in the last decade alone, the city went from more than twenty places that sell Indian arts to just a handful. We’ll report on those remaining venues in the weeks ahead.
Sunday, however, we and all of Tucson woke up to a rare event — snow in the air, mantling the Santa Catalina Mountains and general amazement. One young woman in a coffee shop said she’d lived in Tucson all her life and had seen snow only a couple of times. During the afternoon, we toured Tohono Chul Park nature preserve while soft white flakes drifted around us.
Fort Worth, Texas, quite a bit southeast of the Four Corners, contains several memorable Art Deco buildings, including the Sinclair Building (1930) and the Kress Building (1936).
And on one side of Sundance Square is the wonderful Chisholm Trail mural, painted by Richard Haas in 1983. The mural is a nice piece of “trompe l’oeil” — it’s on a completely flat wall but looks like it’s a stone monument jutting out from the building. The mural commemorates the 1867-1875 cattle drives that went through Fort Worth.
Durango, Colorado, is a wonderful destination, a gateway from the High Rockies to the riches of the Four Corners — prime Indian Country. Note the superb architectural details in the buildings around town before driving south to Ignacio or Mesa Verde National Monument.
