Tag: Pinal County

Ecclesiastical Oddities: The drive up old Highway 88 to the Lost Dutchman State Park in central Arizona passes this little carpenter Gothic church on the grounds of the Superstition Mountain Museum. Old wooden structures are exceedingly rare in this treeless place, and despite its remarkable detail, this chapel is a complete sham. It was originally part of the elaborate set for the 1969 Elvis Presley western, Charro. The steeple was blown to bits in the movie, but carefully restored when the remaining building was dismantled and then reassembled at the museum. It can be rented for weddings – the only religious use it has ever seen. 

You can watch a scene from Charro by clicking here. The clip shows a very fit and rugged Elvis roping a horse in a pretty desert wash, with background views of the Superstitions. It also features a suitably rousing score by Hugo Montenegro, but no cowboy singing. I think it captures something of the landscape here very well. 

Ecclesiastical Oddities: The drive up old Highway 88 to the Lost Dutchman State Park in central Arizona passes this little carpenter Gothic church on the grounds of the Superstition Mountain Museum. Old wooden structures are exceedingly rare in this treeless place, and despite its remarkable detail, this chapel is a complete sham. It was originally part of the elaborate set for the 1969 Elvis Presley western, Charro. The steeple was blown to bits in the movie, but carefully restored when the remaining building was dismantled and then reassembled at the museum. It can be rented for weddings – the only religious use it has ever seen. 

You can watch a scene from Charro by clicking here. The clip shows a very fit and rugged Elvis roping a horse in a pretty desert wash, with background views of the Superstitions. It also features a suitably rousing score by Hugo Montenegro, but no cowboy singing. I think it captures something of the landscape here very well. 

As I neared the end of my walk I saw this homely little ball of fluff (top photo) perched on the rim of his nest in a cholla. I took a single step closer, and Mother Thrasher immediately swooped in, knocked Junior back into the nest, sat on him*, and glared angrily** at me. When you look up stink eye in the dictionary*** this is the picture they use as illustration. 

Curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre), mother and child. At Lost Dutchman State Park in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. Please click photos for enlarged views.

* An essential parenting skill, not practiced widely enough in these permissive times. 

** With apologies to my ethologist friend, Professor Tom Jenssen at Virginia Tech, for ascribing such patently human traits to this poor mama bird. The fact is, curve-bills always look angry. 

*** In olden times this is how we found out things we didn’t know. Usually we found the effort too great, and chose instead to remain ignorant. 

As I neared the end of my walk I saw this homely little ball of fluff (top photo) perched on the rim of his nest in a cholla. I took a single step closer, and Mother Thrasher immediately swooped in, knocked Junior back into the nest, sat on him*, and glared angrily** at me. When you look up stink eye in the dictionary*** this is the picture they use as illustration. 

Curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre), mother and child. At Lost Dutchman State Park in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. Please click photos for enlarged views.

* An essential parenting skill, not practiced widely enough in these permissive times. 

** With apologies to my ethologist friend, Professor Tom Jenssen at Virginia Tech, for ascribing such patently human traits to this poor mama bird. The fact is, curve-bills always look angry. 

*** In olden times this is how we found out things we didn’t know. Usually we found the effort too great, and chose instead to remain ignorant.