Nicole and Austin live in an amazing place. About a 28 minute drive from her house, and five minutes from Scottsdale (technically at Bell and 104th St.) there is a trail head into the Sonoran Preserve. There are dozens of miles of trails there ranging from really-really-hard to just-plain-old-hard.
Starting at 5:00 a.m. (if you know Nicole you will confirm this is 100% accurate) we began a wonderful 14.5 mile hike. Parts of it were very challenging as we were climbing up one side of the range and coming down the other. At the pinnacle of our hike was (Big) Tom's Thumb. It is a rather large collection of boulders standing just as tall as you please.
You can see the Thumb in the first picture and there is a close up in the second. There Tom's pebbles joined many, many, other rocks and sand and promptly blew the lightest particles into my face (shades of The Big Lebowski).
We made it back to Nicole and Austin's home by 11 am where I promptly "napped" for a solid three hours. It was a deep sleep with good dreams.
4 comments:
um...well I'm not really sure how to say this but, I checked out a book (technically a graphic novel) from the Austin Public Library yesterday. The book in question is the third volume of Buddha by Osamu Tezuka. As I was reading I found a bookmark that was left in the book. On one side is a photo of man on a plain or desert somewhere with mountains in the distance. On the far right it says 'In Remembrance of "Big Tom" Thomas James Lawrence October 10, 1956 - Eternity'. On the other side are several pictures of, i assume, Thomas along with what seems to be a Journal entry reading '6:00 AM The Idea that Keith Richards could survive me in death is so ironic to me - A bit twisted yes - but so sublime in the perfection of it all - humor me with this one - it's really funny -' and is cut off. One of the photos looks like the one you have with you at the thumb. I tried Googling Thomas name and a search for Big Tom actually got me to the http://tlcare-ts.blogspot.com/2009/02/toms-next-obituary.html page. Thought I'd leave this comment here and see if you knew about the missing bookmark.
Ah! I just re-read the obit page and noticed the link at the bottom to the Keith Richards joke, and saw about the bookmark being giving out to those who attended the service received the book mark, so That certainly both narrows down and yet opens up the possibilities of whose bookmark this is. I could leave it at the library branch i checked out the book, or if you'd like I could send it to you, or maybe you have a better Idea.
On a side note, Both My father and Sister were born in Tucson, Arizona, and I must say that I just love the land there in Arizona.
Aaron, I would so love to communicate with you directly. If you are intersted can yuou please write me at theresa.strong@gmail.com?
What a lovely place to extend Tom's loving being-into the wild blue yonder. I climbed Tom's Thumb many years ago on my first out-of-state rock climbing trip. It has very fond memories to me for sure. It is wonderful to ponder how our paths cross each other's in different times such as with you at Tom's Thumb and with Aaron at the library book. Incidentally, it sounds like the bookmark is home right there in the third volume.
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