It's Whining Time Again (II)

In a previous post, I complained about the outrageous prices of wine in Canada and promised to accumulate more data. More numbers have been gathered and subjected to intensive analysis (the wine tasted good too). A visit to the local BC Liquor Store supplied the final piece of data.

We visited 8 states on this trip south of the 49th. We weren't in Colorado long enough to fully understand what was happening there, but I think wine and beer was generally only available in state stores. More pity them, if that was the case. We did discover something about the liquor laws in Utah. Only a limited selection of beer (low alcohol) is available in supermarkets. It was almost like living in Canada.

However, in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Montana and Idaho, wine and beer were available in supermarkets. I can't say that I noticed a higher incidence of debauchery in those states than in Utah or Canada, but perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough.

The sample item for comparison was Yellowtail Shiraz, a fine-tasting Australian red widely available. I only bought 1.5 litre bottles, mostly so that one bottle would last more than one night!

San Jose, California - Lucky supermarket - 1.5 litre bottle - $10.00 plus tax.
Parker, Arizona - Safeway - 1.5 litre bottle - $10.88 plus tax
Safford, Arizona - WalMart - 1.5 litre bottle - $11.37
Moab, Utah - State Liquor Store - 1.5 litre bottle - $15.00
Missoula, Montana - WalMart - 1.5 litre bottle - $11.20

BC Liquor store: I wasn't able to find the 1.5 litre quantity. All they had was 750 ml bottles which they were selling for $12.97. So, to get the same amount of fine wine in BC, you'd need to spend about $26.00.

We tried a number of other brands and types of wine, many from Oregon and California and I don't think I had one that wasn't quite drinkable. For example: Banrock Station Merlot - $3.97; Fox Brook California Merlot - $1.99; Little Penguin Riesling - $5.76; Oak Leaf Pinot Grigio - $1.97.

So, there you go. It's only one brand of wine, but in Canada, it will cost you more than double what it's selling for in most places in the USA. I think we know where the huge difference in price is going.

One final observation: We were able to buy a 30 can case of Milwaukee Best Beer for as low as $13.00. You know what beer costs in Canadian liquor stores. You do the math.

I imagine that high prices are partially intended to protect and support the Canadian domestic wine industry. Are they so inefficient and fragile that they need this kind of price premium? The other reason must simply be government gouging Canadian customers. Makes you want to go on vacation more often.

Arizona (III) - Chiricahua National Monument

This would be an easy place to miss. On the map, it was just a little bit of green stuck way down in the south-east part of Arizona, close to New Mexico and the Mexican border. For a reason I can't now remember, we decided to give it a visit, and we were very glad that we did. It's a little gem of a park: quiet, scenic, great hiking trails, unusual flora and fauna (again)!

First, you pronounce the name as if it was "cheery-cow-a". The Visitor Centre has a cute set of icons explaining how to do this. I gather they hear it mis-pronounced often. We stayed here for 3 nights in a nice little campground surrounded with Utah Juniper, Arizona Cypress and various varieties of Oak trees, Mexican Jays, Acorn Woodpeckers and a couple species of Juncos. More pictures of the area can be found on my Facebook page.

Chiricahua is a "sky island": an area of mountains and hills poking up from the surrounding prairie. Because of the elevation difference, the climate differs from the desert nearby, and with different climate comes different plants and animals. I've also alluded to some of the variety of trees in the area. We spent some of our time hiking around looking for a Coatamundi. They are residents of Mexico and areas south, but have taken up living further north in Chiricahua. We didn't see any, so this picture from the web will have to do for now.

One very nice feature of this little park is the shuttle bus they provide each morning to take hikers to the top of the mountain so they can follow the various hiking trails down to the valley again. This was the best way to experience the fantastic rock formations. We spent a very pleasant few hours following one of these trails.

Originally, much of this area was part of an old homestead and farm. Some of the original buildings are still standing. Later on, after the area was set aside as a park, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) created many of the trails that visitors use today.

Chiricahua: definitely worth a visit.

Why, Arizona

Why, indeed?

I was tempted to leave it at that, but surely this deserves more of an explanation.

The name of the town, er.. place, er... hamlet? is actually WHY, and once I saw it, that was my question too, although I was very attracted to the desert - neat place and all that. Few people live here, and you can see why (perhaps that should be "why not"). Lots of cactus plants, though.

The explanation is that if you look at a map of AZ, you will notice that two roads join here in the shape of a "Y", although it's upside down as you look at the state. Apparently, over the years, this junction came to be known as WHY. Probably more fun than if they had spelled it WYE!

Arizona (II) - Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

This is one of a few very neat parks that we visited in Arizona early in February. It was also one of the few places that didn't have any snow, although it was rather cool.

This is also about the only place in the USA where these particular cactus plants grow, and the Park was created to protect this desert environment. Pictures can be seen here. This park and the drive down to it were very interesting and it really triggered a curiosity in the desert in general and cactus plants in paticular. The Park is in the middle of the Sonoran Desert right on the border of Arizona and the Sonoran district of Mexico. (Further north, around Las Vegas, it's the Mojave Desert.)

We stayed here for a couple of nights with the desert at the door of our camper. There were many new bird species to see (the Gila Woodpecker, for example) and lots of fascinating plants, plants specially adapted to survival in a desert environment: the many species of cactus (or is that cacti?), for example, as well as the Ocotillo which was actually starting to bloom.

Speaking of flowering.... I had heard about the desert blooming, but it normally happens a bit later (March or April), and really depends on how much rain the desert gets back in November and December. This will have to be a return trip.

Isn't It Great to be Back Home

"Home is where I want to be...." lyrics from Paul Simon, for those of you who are fans of his music. We finished our USA odessy yesterday afternoon. Sunday morning we did two hikes in Capital Reef NP (SE of Salt Lake City a couple of hours), doing the obligatory daily 5+ miles. Great views, neat canyon, more semi-desert terrain. After coming off the last trail, we drove to north of Salt Lake City, just into Idaho. The next day we got to Missoula, MT, and Tuesday we made it home, just catching the Kootenay Lake ferry by a couple of minutes. I'll write about Capital Reef and other areas we visited in a day or two once we get unpacked and organized.

Speaking of getting organized, we arrived home to find the driveway full of snow. That in itself wasn't a surprise, but the condition of that snow was a bit of a shock. We had about 50 cm of hard, packed, crusty snow that the snowblower just wouldn't chew through. All we had the time for last night was a space big enough to pull the van into for the night. Today, I spent about 7 hours clearing out the driveway. The technique was to use the rototiller to break up the crust and then blow the remains out of the way. It was a long day. The sun was nice, though.

But back to Paul Simon. The lyrics continue along the lines of "Everywhere I go, I get libeled, slandered. I hear words I never heard in the Bible..." Our trips, this winter and last, were very pleasant. We found everyone we had contact with was friendly and helpful. Food was cheap, wine was cheaper (see an upcoming blog), US National Parks (and Monuments, Forests, etc) are fantastic, their roads are great to travel on.... In short, we had a nice time south of the 49th. I remember the beginning of our trip last winter, the feeling that this (the USA) was definitely a "foreign" country; the sense of it's militarism and being "different from us" almost palpable, in my mind. This time, however, I felt none of that. I know Canadians like to slag the US, but if there's one thing travel does for one, it's helping you understand other countries better. Our two extended trips have been excellent.

Now I have to upload some pictures to Facebook and write some blog entries about the neat places we visited. Stay tuned....

Utah!

Having found SW Colorado too snowy, we headed to SE Utah, only a couple hours drive away. This is the location of Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, as well as Bryce, Capital Reef, Zion and a host of other parks and monuments, all with great scenery. The weather was great, somewhat warmer, somewhat less snow and clear blue skies. So we camped and hiked. The highpoint so far was a 11 mile round trip hike down into the Colorado River canyon, using a seasonal 4x4 "road". It was great and the accompanying picture shows the area.

Last night it rained and snowed a bit, but the weather is expected to clear up and we plan some more hiking over the next couple of days before we head off further north and towards home. I'll upload pictures later on of all these fascinating areas.

Arizona (I) - The Overview

We've covered a lot of territory in the past 12 days and Internet availability hasn't been too good in the places we've been. Here's an overview of the parts of AZ we explored; details on some of them will come later, perhaps once we get back home.

After leaving Las Vegas, we headed south, basically following the route of the Colorado River, which still had some water in it. What we discovered was at least one of the snowbird enclaves in AZ. The area around Lake Havasu City and Parker is full of them. These places are huge and have apparently mushroomed in the past few years. There are more RVs, condos, RV parks and the like than you can shake a stick at. We didn't stay long.

We did, however, find a nice State Park: Buckskin Mtn, just north of Parker, which was quiet and had access to some interesting trails into the desert around the park. Our camper van (The "Big Horn") definitely looked odd packed in with all the other fancy RV rigs. Anyway, we hiked, birdwatched and checked out the neat desert vegetation.

Our next move was down to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This is in the heart of the Sonoran Desert and had lots of fascinating plants, bird life and such. This area had received some rain and the desert looked like it was going to respond with lots of blooms, unfortunately in a month or two. Obviously a place we will have to come back to, just later in the season. The park was only a few miles north of the Mexican border so we went down for a quick look. Mexico perhaps another year....

Then on towards Tucson. On the way, we encountered a pouring rain for a few hours, something we hadn't expected, and drove by what I could only describe as desert shanty towns. Poverty, neglect and probably a number of other factors combined to produce something you'd expect in a third-world slum.

We really only touched the fringes of Tucson: Saguaro National Park West (really nice), Pima Air and Space Museum (anticipated by me but a bit of a disappointment, more later). The city, however, seems like it might be interesting, having a better reputation than Phoenix which we consciously avoided.

On to Chiricahua National Monument, down in the far SE corner of AZ. This place was very unique. It's what they call a "sky island", hills or "mountains" that poke up out of the desert. The desert here was more of a grassland, but the sky island itself was really interesting, with unusual bird species, neat rock formations and a number of very fun trails to hike on. We spent 3 nights there and took lots of pictures which I'll post later on.

Leaving Chiricahua (lessons on how to pronounce this will come later), we headed north for the first time on our trip. Gradually working our way back home. To do this, we followed route 191 north most of its length in AZ. Along the way: Sitgreaves National Forest north of Clifton (almost 9000 ft in elevation - lots of snow, incredible road), Lyman Lake State Park (cheap, quiet, showers), Petrified Forest National Park (great collections of petrified wood, as you'd expect), Chinle (Canyon de Chelly National Monument - great hike down into the canyon on a beautiful morning.

This finally landed us in Cortez, Colorado, where we hoped to explore Mesa Verde National Park. No such luck. Winter remains in this corner of the state and almost everything is closed. We took the opportunity for a motel, laundry, food prepared by someone else and some time to plan where we could go that wouldn't involve more snow. We think Arches and Canyonlands near Moab, Utah. We will see.