Catalina State Park

Catalina Mountains

December 16-22, 2024

I had a wonderful week at Catalina State Park in Oro Valley, Arizona. I arrived Monday after an easy drive from Usery Mountains. It was not short, about two and a half hours, but it was comfortable with very little traffic. My first stop was the Oro Valley Library. They have a used bookstore within the building, right next to the magazines section. Yes, there are still print-version magazines! There were a few books that interested me, but I ended up buying only one, Siddhartha. I read it before, long ago in a college course at Western Connecticut State University (Westconn): Cultures of India. The instructor of Dr. Jerry Banister. It is interesting and fun to read it again.

I know I am going tangentially here, about courses at Westconn, but in addition to Dr. Bannister’s Cultures of India, I took several other classes in the Non-Western Cultures area. I think there was actually a Non-Western Cultures department, though it might have been a part of the History Department. I took Japanese Culture with Dr. Truman Warner. Truman was a jovial individual with a kind face that seemed to always have a smile. He was a world traveler, too, having artifacts from a variety of countries in his office in addition to books about or relevant to “foreign” places. Visits and conversations with him were energizing. A new building constructed on campus was named after him in 1999, Warner Hall.

I took Chinese Culture and Southeast Asian Culture with Dr. Ken Young and Middle Eastern History with Dr. George Linabury. I also took a geography course, Geography of the USSR, with Dr. Georgi Bilecky. He came from Ukraine. These professors knew so much about the history, culture, religions, social structures, financial aspects, and more. I was amazed by their lectures.

So, I am enjoying Siddhartha.

On Tuesday, I went visited with a Connecticut friend, Janet Lemay, and her husband, Matt. Janet and I worked at Chuck’s back some time ago. She moved out here and met Matt. They live right here in Oro Valley, about five miles from the campground. Janet made a fantastic lime chicken cooked on the grill with onions, peppers, yellow squash, and zucchini, which she mixed in with coos-coos. It was a real treat. It was fun catching up and talking about life out here in Arizona.

Tucson turns out to be quite a cycling destination. The Tour de Tucson is an annual event that draws around 10,000 riders. It has options to ride 100, 62, or 31 miles. There is also a paved bike trail that surrounds Tucson. It is called The Loop, and it has several spur trails as well, one of which comes north about eleven miles right into the campground! (Oro Valley is a town north of Tucson.) The total cumulative mileage of The Loop is listed at 137 miles. I have ridden 200 miles in five days on the trail.

On my ride Tuesday, I met a couple, Cindy and Rob, from Indiana. I stopped on the trail to ask them directions. They were stopped on the trail, too, as they were talking with a construction worker. They were curious as to his activities, and it turns out he was working on some footings for new signs along the bike path. Well, I stopped to ask the right people for directions. Cindy pulled out a map of the entire Loop, and she told me I could have it! It seems she carried spare maps. They ride the path often, too. We talked about libraries, the changes in them with the coming of online resources, as well as how I came to be a librarian in the first place. I mentioned having worked in restaurants for over thirty years before that, and told me about their son’s restaurant, Tolon. They spend six months “wintering” here in Tucson, six months back home. She is a retired children’s librarian.

On my ride Wednesday, I met another couple. I was riding faster than them, but I did not pass right away because the trail was taking some turns, and it seemed better to wait. Well, surprisingly, it seemed the trail came to an end. We found ourselves standing at an intersection with a busy road (Ina Road.) We found our way withing a short time, but the interesting thing is, I asked where they were from, and they said “Connecticut.” They were in Tucson for a week. They have a couple rental properties here and come out to check on them and spend a week on a mini-vacation. They picked a good week! The weather has been sunny and temperatures near 80 every day. They gave me information and the website for their apartments. Both are in the Catalina Foothills, and I may end up using one of them some day. You never know. And if I had sped by them, I would never have met and had a conversation with them.

This morning, before my ride, I met a couple walking in the campground. I was dressed in cycling cloths, and they asked where I was riding. We talked about The Loop, which they said they were going to ride later today. I left on my ride about an hour later. I rode 45 minutes south on the trail and turned around at about the 12.5 mile mark on my odometer. One of the great things about the Loop is that it is free of car traffic. In nearly every instance where roads and the path might meet, the trail goes under or over the road. Bridges are everywhere. On the 12.5 stretch of road today, there was only one spot where the trail crossed a road. It has stop signs, and riders can push a button to stop traffic and cross the road. Well, on my way back, as I approached this crossing, now about two hours since our morning talk, the couple approached the same intersection from the other direction. The guy was reaching for the push button on one side of the road, me on the other, when I recognized it was them. It just amazes me how I meet people like this, have a conversation and then run into them later in a situation like this.

Anyway, concerning this park …

It was forty years ago, in October 1984, I came to Catalina State Park for the first time. I was driving my 1975 Chevy Malibu, a two-door sedan, white with a blue-tinted vinyl roof. The Malibu had been Nan and Pop’s car. Pop passed away in 1979, Nana in 1983. After Nana died, Mom made arrangements with Aunt Mame in distributing their belongings such that I could have the car, since I did not have one at the time. Mom was always so thoughtful.

In 1984, I was 29 years old. Marilyn and I split that year, divorced in June. I left Danbury in late August for California. I was in no hurry, I did not have a very specific plan, and I did not take a very direct route. I left driving south, down Route 81 through Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee. I was camping. I stopped at a state park near Hershey the first night. I stayed in Shenandoah National Park the next few nights, then I went to Great Smokey Mountain National Park and stayed there a few nights, too.

While heading to the Smokies, I stopped in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. They have outlets there, and I went into a Mikasa store. I bought a four-place setting of Mikasa China, a pattern called Charisma Black. I still have it. In fact, it is still in the box, along with a second four-piece set and an accessory set I bought on another stop there a few years later. I do not know what prompted me to buy China.

From the Smokies, I drove west through Tennessee and up through Kentucky. I stayed at a campground near Paducah. The next morning, as I was driving along a state highway, a two-lane road, I came across a calf standing on the side of the road. I was very surprised. I had no idea about open range at this point. Looking back, I just thought it was a calf who had escaped a farm. I went down a driveway close by and knocked on the door. A guy answered, I told him about the calf, and he muttered something about that dang animal. He thanked me, said he’d go down and bring it back. He thanked me. In drove on.

I continued into Missouri, where I hopped on I-70. I took I-70 across the Missouri and Kansas. Kansas was an amazing eye-opener. There were farms and fields as far as they eye could see over mostly flat lands. I had been warned, by friends in Connecticut, about driving across Kansas. “It will be boring,” they said. “It goes on forever, nothing but farms and fields.” Well, I did not find it boring at all. I found it to be inspiring. I thought it to be beautiful, majestic. I felt something very strong and good, something touching my soul. I felt the expansive land mirrored within my spirit. I stayed at a state park in Central Kansas, Wilson Lake, for a couple nights.

When I reached the Denver area, I stopped at a rest area and made a phone call. It was lifetime pivotal. I called Sue Patella, who lived in Boulder. Sue, who grew up in Redding, had worked at the Sesame Seed Restaurant in Danbury. I may have met here when she worked there, but I do not recall it to be the case. The Seed’s owner, Dee, had given me her phone number, telling me if I was in the area give her a call. I had worked at the Seed from 1980 up until the time I started driving west, though my time at the Seed did not overlap with Sue’s. I reached Sue, and she invited me up to Boulder to visit. Off I went to Boulder.

Sue lived with her cousin Denise and Denise’s husband, Dave. Sue had a boyfriend, also named Dave, who was from Connecticut as well. Sue’s Dave was around the apartment often, though he did not live there. We all hit it off well, became fast friends, and they invited me to stay with them in a spare room at the back of the house. I stayed with them for about a month. It was a great experience. I became a little familiar with the area in terms of nature and the landscape, the pace of life, and alternate perspectives. By alternate perspectives, I mean looking at lifestyle and coming to understand that the way things were done in the northeast are not necessarily done elsewhere. Colorado seemed to have a slower pace. Coloradoans seemed more in touch with nature and doing things outdoors. There seemed to be a spiritual-emotional aspect prevalent in Boulder that I had not experienced less in Danbury. At the time, I was also reading Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled, and I am sure that had an influence in my perceptions. I did not know it at the time, but Boulder would become an important part of my life in the future.

One of the outcomes of these recent experiences, driving the open road cross-country, visiting in Boulder, and reading that book, was a revamped perspective on life. I called it The Four Banks. Much of my day-to-day activity in Connecticut had to do with work. Before I worked at Sesame Seed, I worked for a local insulation company, New England Building Products. I worked as many hours as I could, there was lots of overtime, as I wanted to save money. Saving money had somehow become important. I think it was a given, something my family had stressed and was just ingrained in me. For much of our marriage, Marilyn was in college at Westconn in Danbury. She worked part-time, and she did not act as if saving money was all that important. One end result was the financial aspects of our life were mostly my responsibility. Thus, the concept of banks. I put a great deal of time and energy into work and trying to save money for the future.

On this trip, I came to the realization there were other “banks” in life, other areas of value that were important, other human needs. One of these was personal relationships, family and friends. Another was physical health and well-being, supported by nutrition and physical activities. The fourth was a combination of mental-emotional-spiritual health.

I had an awakening, in a sense, to these other banks. I had been aware of them, yes, but I was not focused on them like I was on work and financial aspects. I had been putting an inordinate amount of time and effort into the financial banks, while not paying much attention to the others. My “deposits” in them were lacking, so to speak.

This time period, 1984, is when I started writing in a journal.

After about a month in Boulder, I headed to Grand Canyon. I took I-25 south to Albuquerque, where I picked up I-40 west. I stopped along the way at Petrified Forest National Park. I drove through the park, stopping at the Painted Desert overlook, but I did not do any hikes. It was a cloudy day on the cool side.

At Grand Canyon, I pulled up at an overlook, walking a short distance to the rim for the first time. It was amazing. Unbelievable. Mind-blowing and heart wrenching. Unexpectedly, I began crying, overwhelmed by what I was seeing and feeling. I suppose I could dissect things, the combination of experiences over the past several months leading to this experience, it somehow being a culminating event. I cannot explain it.

I did not stay at Grand Canyon long, two or three nights. One morning it was a very cold, like 22 degrees, the water in a pan I had left out was frozen, and I decided to leave and head south.

I arrived at Catalina State Park that evening, well past sunset, and set up my tent. That night, I heard coyotes howling and screaming for the first time. They scared me. They were so loud that I did not doubt they were right outside my tent. They might even be coming towards my tent! I was scared, apprehensive of them, but I fell asleep. I later learned the sounds I heard were normal and there was no danger.

I met a woman walking in the campground. She was coming back from a hike in the mountains, easily accessible from the campground. We talked for a while. Her name was Traci Furman. She was from Bristol, Connecticut, taking buses, like Greyhound, across the country. She would go from one area to another, hitchhiking from the bus station to parks such as Catalina. She had a backpack, tent, and sleeping bag. We talked a couple times at length.

When it was time for her to go back to the bus station in Tucson, I gave her a ride. It was about 10-15 miles or so. There was very little in the area in terms of commercial activity for miles around Catalina State Park. When I was back in Danbury, summer 1985, she came to visit me.

I came back to Catalina in 2002. I had been in Texas, at Padre Island National Seashore and Big Bend National Park. I was wandering with no set destination point, just wandering. I had decided to go see Grand Canyon again, and Tucson and Oro Valley were on the way. The area had changed, had been developed somewhat.

After 2002, I did not return again until 2022, when Laura Butterworth and I stopped here during our Fall-Winter traveling together. By 2022, Oro Valley had been fully developed. I was shocked more than simply surprised. There’s a shopping center right across the street from the campground with an In-n-Out Burger place on the corner and a Walmart as a featured store. The two-lane road has been transformed into a six-lane highway littered with commercial activities and residential developments.

Things change. But the park itself is still wonderful, and it is probably needed as much now as ever. There are miles and miles of great hiking trails into the Catalina Mountains.