Author Archives: sammozart

Above is my photo of Mammoth Creek.

I worked for a commuter airline in the late 1980s and early ’90s that flew out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in the Eastern High Sierra Mountains, so, making the most of my good fortune, I spent as much time as I could exploring Mammoth Lakes, elevation 8,000 feet, and nearby Mammoth Mountain world class ski resort, elevation just over 11,000 feet.

Even before I worked for the airline, the airline crew invited me to fly for free with them to Mammoth — and to the Grand Canyon, their other destination, where they flew mostly Japanese tourists. The airline personnel were among my customers on an Executive Lunch Route I ran for a catering company, selling sandwiches and salads to office workers. I ran the only route that had flight benefits. When the owner of the airline, who resembled Woody Allen, hired me, he said he did so because I wore shorts.

Looking down on Mount Whitney from 15,000 feet. Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States, elevation 14,505 feet.

Mammoth Airport.  No, this isn’t our airline’s airplane. To Mammoth and the Grand Canyon they flew a Beechcraft 1900C, 19-passenger turbo prop, and a seven-seat Cessna 421 (piston engine). For the system of weights and balances, the Cessna could safely fly seven Japanese or five Germans to the Grand Canyon. Sometimes we’d fly from Mammoth down to Bishop, a short flight of a few minutes. When you take off out of these airports you have to fly straight up, as best you can; otherwise, you’ll fly into a mountain. And the flight between the airports is bumpy, because of the crosswinds and drafts.

The mountain you see in this photo is Mount Morrison. It has a storied history. Behind it is Convict Lake, pictured below, where on September 23, 1871 a posse encountered escaped convicts from a Carson City prison. Robert Morrison, a posse member and Wells Fargo agent, was killed. The mountain was named after him. In February 1990 twelve teenagers and two counselors were on an outing at the lake. They fell through the thin ice. Three teenagers and four would-be rescuers drowned. Just before their deaths they had been warned that the ice was too thin to support their weight. Movies have been filmed at Convict Lake.

Driving from Mammoth Airport to the town of Mammoth Lakes.

Dog Sled Adventures:

I went on a dog sled ride on Mammoth Mountain.

A friend, Katherine, and I at the top of Mammoth Mountain, 11,053 feet elevation. You may have seen car commercials made on this spot. The Minaret Mountains are across the ravine behind us. Before motor powered vehicles, when someone was injured up in those mountains, they’d have to run a dog sled team up there to the rescue.

The dogs don’t like to be still. They’d rather be pulling a sled. This was a warm day, temperatures in the low 50s F; the dogs had just pulled us about 3,000 feet up the mountain and they were resting. The sled dog owner puts the big dogs in the back to pull the sled and the small dogs in the front. The dog on the front left is the lead dog who follows the owner’s commands. The dog on the front right is learning.

The owner of this house in the Mammoth Lakes community, on his phone answering machine, said he was out back feeding the bears.

This is Juniper Ridge, where they were planning a housing development.

Horses in the Agnew Meadows area, near Mammoth.

Cowboy Country — that’s what I call it. This is the common terrain and ground cover in Mono County, Calif.; that is, eastern central California, along the Nevada border. (Mono is pronounced with a long “o”.)

God’s country.

My friend Roland at Old Mammoth Mine Stamp Mill. I visited another gold mine in Mammoth with another friend. I went inside. I hadn’t gone far when it occurred to me that there could be an earthquake, so I turned around and came out.

Roland in Agnew Meadows.

American Indian dances at Bridgeport, Calif. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t zoom in close enough to capture the vivid colors of the Native American attire. My friend and I spent a wonderful, hot July afternoon — 90-some degrees F, but no humidity — among these people. I bought a silver ring from a Shoshone woman who had made the ring from a Navajo mold.

The photo above of a snow cloud and the photo below, both of the Sherwin Mountain range at Mammoth Lakes are prints made from slides, and I haven’t been able to get the color and lighting just right; but I like the scenes.

–Samantha Mozart

Noxontown Pond at St. Andrew’s School, Middletown. This is one of the scenes from around where I live in central Delaware. Below are more.

Bridge across the Silver Lake spillway into the Appoquinimink River, Middletown.

Footbridge across Naaman’s Creek in a small park and woods at the end of the street where my mother lived north of Wilmington.

Red barn on a farm where my brother lived at Summit.

Scene on the farm where my brother lived at Summit.

The view from Taylor’s Bridge of Blackbird Creek.

The pristine Blackbird Creek and marshes.

Green door by the St. Andrew’s School boathouse on Noxontown Pond, Middletown.

Red canoes and T-Dock on Noxontown Pond at St. Andrew’s School, Middletown.

Founders Hall, St. Andrew’s School, Middletown.

Bench at the Silver Lake spillway into the Appoquinimink River, Middletown.

The bridge across the Appoquinimink River at Odessa. This historically preserved town was known in the 18th century as Cantwell’s Bridge.

The Corbit-Sharp House, one of the Historic Houses of Odessa.

The view of the Appoquinimink River from the Corbit-Sharp House, Odessa.

Pumpkins and gourds at Odessa.

The historic graveyard at 300-year-old Old St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Middletown.

And I couldn’t resist including my photo of the historic, restored 1870 Smyrna Opera House, Smyrna.

–Samantha Mozart

Driving south from picturesque Wickenburg, Ariz., and Phoenix, I headed down to Sunizona, down near the Mexican border, southeast of Tucson, and the Sunizona Motel where I stayed for a couple of nights. The photo below shows the view from the motel, looking west at the Dragoon Mountains. The husband and wife motel owners were friendly and went out of their way to accommodate my wishes. The wife was a writer and we agreed to write a book together one day. We haven’t yet. I was eating breakfast there one morning when a guy in a white pickup pulled up in front, nose in. He climbed down out of the cab, sauntered into the cafe, moseyed over to the breakfast bar and sat on a stool at the counter, gun in the holster at his hip. To the locals, such an assemblage must have been commonplace, for no one took special notice. He ordered his breakfast and I finished mine and got out, wondering whom he had a hankering to shoot.

Outside, I climbed into my Hyundai and from the motel drove a short distance southeast to the Chiricahua Mountains. I was tracking Geronimo.

I headed into the hills towards Faraway Ranch and the Chiricahua Wonderland of Rocks.

I encountered deer as I walked along this road into Faraway Ranch. I shot them in photos but the photos are not very good. I couldn’t get a closeup.

When I visited Faraway Ranch this day in 1994, I knew little about its origins and history. I do recall reading that Lillian Erickson Riggs and her husband arranged horseback tours for the guests into the Wonderland of Rocks. This image, below, I copied from the Internet tells more of the story:

I did photograph this marker:

Yes, Tucson and surrounding Southern Arizona range from about 4,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level, not counting the higher mountain elevations. So, if you visit in winter, don’t wear shorts. It snows — not deep, but a good dusting.

Above is an ocatillo cactus growing against the fence with the overgrown corral behind it.

In 2008, eighty percent of the Chiricahua National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, called The Chiricahua National Monument Historic Designed Landscape, consisting of Faraway Ranch and within the Chiricahua Mountains hoodoos (alternating layers of hard rock protect the soft rock from the elements) and balancing rocks, formed from volcanic ash and pumice.

This is the land of the Apaches. Mexicans and Americans tried to claim this land as their own, and their tactics were equally as barbaric and brutal as those of the Apaches. This is the home of Geronimo. This is Cochise County. Cochise (c. 1812-74) was a Chiricahua Apache chief. Geronimo was born here into the Chiricahua Apache tribe June 16, 1829. In 1851, a Mexican militia surprise attacked an Apache camp. Geronimo was away at the time. He returned to find his mother, his wife and his three children, his family, dead, killed by the Mexicans. For the rest of his life, Geronimo and his band of followers waged revenge, especially against Mexicans, but against Caucasian Americans, too. Geronimo and his band often hid out in the Chiricahua Mountains and the Sierra Madre of Mexico. Yet, he was captured and was held as prisoner of war. He broke out three times. The Apache prisoners were sent to Florida and then to Fort Sill, Okla., far from their homeland. Geronimo became a celebrity in traveling Wild West shows. Ultimately, Geronimo rode horseback with five Indian chiefs at the 1905 inaugural parade and days later he met with President Teddy Roosevelt and asked that the Apaches be relieved of their prisoner of war status and be allowed to return to their native land in Arizona. The president refused, citing continued animosity in Arizona for the civilian deaths resulting from Geronimo’s raids during the prolonged Apache Wars. Geronimo died on February 17, 1909 at Fort Sill Hospital, still a prisoner of war. He was buried at Fort Sill Indian Agency Cemetery. Geronimo is said to have held supernatural gifts. He could see things happening far away, as they were happening; and he was a healer. I hiked around this land on a still, warm October day, and a ways up into these Chiricahua hills. I sensed the spirit of the Apaches around me, ostensibly Geronimo, free to roam, free to live off the land, watchful. And that’s when I spotted the deer watching me. I snapped some photos. Up in the Chiricahuas a mystical, transcendent quality pervades the trees, the scrub and recesses among the rocks. It enveloped me like an incense. I could envision one hiding out in those mountains for a long time. For a long time, in the scrub of my nature, in the recesses of my spirt, still, the spirit of Geronimo abides, like a musical suspension, a prolonging of a note of one chord into the next.

Geronimo. Photo by Frank A. Rinehart, 1898.

–Samantha Mozart

Avalon, N.J., is a quiet town on Seven Mile Island, one of the barrier islands south of Atlantic City. The borough of Avalon shares this island with the borough of Stone Harbor, to the south. My mother owned a home here in Avalon, on the beach. She hosted friends for weekend visits and family — children and grandchildren — for long stays. These were happy days with many fond memories for us all. Ed McMahon, Joe Paterno and Taylor Swift have summered here; in fact, Ed McMahon’s home was near my mother’s.

Avalon Boardwalk, looking north.

The pavilion at the north end of the boardwalk.

Avalon has a lovely beach for taking long walks.

The upper left of this photo looks north across Townsends Inlet, the bay inlet between the islands, to Sea Isle City and Strathmere, on Ludlam Island, which sits below sea level, first used as a fishing grounds for the Leni Lenape Indians, then as a stopover for pirates, and beginning in the 1800s, as with all of these South Jersey islands, a summer vacation place for Philadelphians. In my family, as in many, the men would go to their jobs in the city and after work, commute down to the shore, about an hour, by train. I stood on a jetty to take this photo.

Beach goldenrod, growing in September and October in the dunes along the boardwalk.

I’ve inserted a great, detailed National Geographic map here:

Take the Ocean Highway — follow the seagull on the sign — across Townsends Inlet to Sea Isle and continue north through Strathmere along that island to Corson’s Inlet and cross to Ocean City (Peck’s Beach Island, named for whaler John Peck). Ocean City is a dry town, founded by the Methodists as a retreat camp. Because the town is dry it is billed as a family vacation resort. The two and a half mile long boardwalk is wonderful and said to be one of New Jersey’s finest. My family owned a home here before I was born. Sometimes during our stays in rental homes we’d see Grace Kelly’s family on the beach in front of the home they owned near the south end of the island. Author Gay Talese and his wife own a home in The Gardens, at the north end of Ocean City.

Below is a picture of the Ocean City boardwalk, also scenes of the music pier and some of the summer homes along the avenues.

Don’t be misled by the sandy beach to the right of the Music Pier. The sand must constantly be replenished. When the beach washes out during storms, the ocean comes right up under the pier and at high tide the breaking waves splash through the cracks between the boards on the boardwalk.

Striped awnings are one of my favorite things. It’s cool and quiet inside them. They make me nostalgic for summers gone by, before there was air conditioning.

–Samantha Mozart

Howdy. This is a saguaro cactus at Coolidge, Ariz., near the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, between Phoenix and Tucson. The saguaro (pronounced sah-wah-roh) will grow only on the Sonoran desert in Southern Arizona. The saguaro cactus grows very, very slowly. A baby saguaro grows one inch in 10 years; by 95 to 100 years it may start to produce its first arm; by 200 years the saguaro cactus has reached its full height, 45 to 70 feet. I’ll wager that if the cactus I stood before and photographed could talk, it would tell you stories of the Old West that would make your skin prickle. The local Tohono O’Odham people viewed the saguaro cactus as a different type of humanity, not as a plant. They considered the cacti as respected members of their tribe. You can read more about this fascinating cactus here: Organ Pipe National Monument. I shot this photo on one of my road trips across country. I love Arizona and have explored nearly all of the state. Every time I go there I don’t want to leave.

Wide open spaces and that Arizona sky.

I love Southern Arizona, around Tucson, the best. Below are some scenes:

The venerable Horseshoe Cafe, a historic landmark, has been in operation since 1938. Whenever I travel to Tucson, I make a point to stop in nearby Benson, on Highway 80 (business route Interstate 10), and eat at the Horseshoe Cafe. I visited a few times in the 1980s and ’90s; but it’s been now 20 years since I was there. The Horseshoe Cafe not only has historical ambience, but also Vern Park murals on the walls depicting scenes of the Old West, a jukebox and plenty of great food and service. Folks are friendly here. It turns out that my waitress was good friends with a young woman from Benson whom I worked with in Los Angeles; and the young woman in L.A. had told me about Cody, the buffalo, from a Benson ranch. Cody is a celebrity: he was the buffalo in “Dances With Wolves,” the 1990 movie.

Here’s an Old West tale about the Horseshoe Cafe and one of its residents.  http://www.examiner.com/article/spirits-at-the-lucky-horseshoe-cafe-benson-arizona. Note that the painting on the west wall when I took my photo in 1994 (the uppermost photo below) now has Ghost Riders added to it, evidenced in the more recent 2010 Examiner photo (middle), and the next one.

Below is the Horseshoe Cafe with the recent recreation of the Ghost Riders painted on the wall by Doug Quarles. This photo below is not mine. I took it from the

Southeast Arizona Economic Development Group’s website: http://www.saedg.org/benson-clean-and-beautiful-murals.html#

I owe the town of Bisbee more than just a drive-by photo, shot from my car window. I ran out of time. I wish I could have stayed longer. I reckoned I’d come back someday soon. These are the copper hills surrounding Bisbee, located 92 miles southeast of Tucson, close to the Mexican border. Bisbee has a quirky history and an open-pit Copper Queen Mine. But more minerals than copper are unearthed from the mines here in the Mule Mountains — gold, silver, a high quality turquoise (Bisbee Blue), cuprite, aragonite, wulfenite, malachite, azurite and galena.

In 1929 the Cochise County seat was moved from Tombstone to Bisbee, where it remains.

Tombstone is one of my favorite places in Arizona. Unfortunately, it has become commercialized, so it’s hard to get authentic pictures of how the town looked in the days of the Clantons, Doc Holliday and the Earps.

The O.K. Corral occupies a small open space to the left of the store.

Tombstone Courthouse at sunset.

–Samantha Mozart

Every April writers and bloggers come together to take up the Blogging From A-Z Challenge. This year I am taking up the challenge, once again, along with this annually growing group.

I wish to thank my writer friends who have inspired and encouraged me to take up this daily writing challenge. Each day we write a blog post themed on a letter of the alphabet, beginning with the letter A on April 1, continuing to the letter B on April 2, the letter C on April 3 and so on. We take Sundays off.

This year, simply enough I have decided to show you each day a picture of a place where I have lived or visited. My theme, accordingly, is “From Sea to Shining Sea,” my landscape photos from my travels across America.

My landscape photographs have hung in gallery exhibit, and been selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities for slide show presentation.

I hope you enjoy my 2016 A-Z Blogging Challenge presentation.

–Samantha Mozart