By Suzanne Sparrow Watson
Torreon Golf Course
Twenty years ago, my husband and I ventured up to Show Low, Arizona, to play golf at the Torreon golf club. We made the three-hour trip up and back in the same day. I think we were younger then. Since that trip, our summer vacations have entailed long car rides with overnight stays in roadside hotels. The allure of those trips has faded, right along with my arthritic back, so this year we decided to plan for at least one of our summer trips to be closer to home. We were enticed by the idea of finding a summer getaway that was quick and easy. We remembered Torreon and, as luck would have it, I was able to secure a cute house for rent on Airbnb that was right in the heart of the community. Only after I had rented it did I learn that Torreon had been bought out by the membership and outside play was no longer allowed. I asked the pro at our club if he could wrangle a reciprocal tee time for us, but after he stopped laughing, he reminded me that summer is their “high season”.
Our Little House in the Pines
Undaunted by the prospect of not being able to play bad golf, we decided instead we would use this trip to explore the area. We were hopeful that if we liked it, Show Low might become our “go to” vacation spot. Easy drive, no overnight stays, and a twenty degree drop in temperature from Scottsdale. So off we went, Dash the Wonder Dog in tow, for a week of rest, relaxation and exploration. The house was as advertised – clean, cute and nestled in the pines. What they had not made clear was that they had no cable or satellite television hook-up. So, no live tv, including news or, more critically, sports. We could log into apps to get clips of events, which was better than nothing, but not ideal. You may be wondering why no live television was such a big deal, when the purpose of our trip was to explore the area. Well, there were two good reasons.
Downtown Tahoe city
First, the town of Show Low was a bit of a disappointment. I grew up spending summer weekends in Tahoe City, where we strolled the main street, enjoying the cute shops and restaurants. As an adult, my husband and I have spent time almost every summer in Mammoth Lakes and Sun Valley. Again, quaint mountain towns with charm that provide an escape from big city living. Show Low, on the other hand, was like visiting a suburb of Phoenix. Every big box store imaginable is there – Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, CVS – as well as a plethora of car dealerships. The main street in town is Highway 60, so there were no nice sidewalks to amble down. Instead, it was a series of strip centers followed by one of those ubiquitous “big” stores. The number one rated restaurant in town is Cattlemen’s, which is fine if you’re into eating half a cow “with all the fixin’s”. My husband also observed that some of the people we saw could possibly be distilling their own liquor.
Pinetop
Absent any charm in Show Low, we ventured 20 minutes down the road to Pinetop-Lakeside. Both my niece and a good friend had recommended the town, and they were right. It had much more charm that Show Low, some good hiking trails and a semi-private golf course that looked beautifully kept. However, even Pinetop has suffered the effects of the economic downturn – there were many closed stores and restaurants in town. We would have spent more time checking out some of the lakes and trails except for the second factor that interfered with our vacation: the weather. The temperatures hovered near 90 degrees; a full 10 degrees hotter than normal for July. At an altitude of over 6300′, the sun felt like it was four feet away. Hiking mid-day was out of the question. More importantly, the combination of altitude and heat proved to be too much for Dash. He paced and panted, without relief. We spent as much time as possible indoors (thus the need for some television entertainment) but finally, when the temperature was forecasted to reach 95 degrees, we gave up the ghost on Wednesday and went home.
The old adage is true, there is no place like home. Dash was instantly better when he was returned to his air-conditioned surroundings and his cooling mat with a fan blowing on him. My husband had the golf and hockey channels to watch, and I resumed cleaning out closets and watching Brit Box dramas. Fortunately, the weather at home has been below normal, so we can even venture out for walks every morning and could sit outside in the evenings. It was good to get away for a few days, but sadly, our quest to find a nearby summer escape continues.
We stood in our kitchen, wondering what the sound could have been, when my husband looked out the window and saw what appeared to be contrails in the sky. I captured it with my camera (picture right) and we surmised it was a plane of some sort that may have crashed. But when we turned on the news we discovered that Arizona had experienced an asteroid explosion! Now that’s something you don’t see every day. Sure enough, the sound we heard was a sonic boom when the asteroid fireball broke apart. Later in the day NASA officials confirmed that it was a small asteroid, about 10 feet in diameter, that had entered the Earth’s atmosphere near Payson, Arizona. They estimated that the object was moving at more than 40,000 mph when it sped across the sky. What everyone who was up early saw (and what I captured in my photo) was the smoke trail of the fireball – the winds of the upper atmosphere had caused the trail to twist and turn. I learned a lot about asteroids on Thursday, mainly that they happen all the time. They are considered to be “space debris,” or leftover fragments from the formation of the solar system. Kind of like the spare parts left over from the bed you bought at Ikea. There are millions of asteroids orbiting the sun, 750,000 of which are found in the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This week scientists have been scrambling to find the scattered bits of the asteroid so they can examine them more closely. Their fear is that amateurs with their metal-detectors will find them first and they’ll end up on someone’s nook so the finder can say at the next neighborhood BBQ, “Hey, want to come see my asteroid?”. In any event, these remnants tell scientists about the formation of the solar system so hopefully NASA will find them and we’ll know once and for all whether there are little green men on Mars.
