Some two weeks after he started out to come to California,
Juan Bautista de Anza made camp in the vicinity of Nogales AZ, where I am this
evening. He had started his journey in
Rio San Miguel de Horcasitas on Sept. 29, 1776, and was camped in Nogales on October
14. They had traveled 58 leagues (150
mi, or 242 kilometers) in 13 days, or 11 miles per day. Obviously some days
were longer that others. I have traveled
a little over 1100 miles to get here from Oakland. With a stop for three days for baseball games
in Phoenix, I drove for approximately 2-1/2 days to get here. The Anza expedition, including 300 or more
men women and children, and over 1000 cows, goats, sheep, mules and horses,
traveled at an average speed of 11 miles per day. I traveled at an average
speed of 400 miles per day. But then, I
wasn't slowed up by any women or children.
As I was driving between the outskirts of Phoenix and the
outskirts of Tucson I was struck by the fact the Anza must have seen about the
same views as I did – craggy mountains jutting above the horizon of the flat
desert land with some scrub bushes. An adobe
building along the freeway would probably have looked familiar to Anza, but I
doubt the one I saw was there in 1776. Tucson was not something Anza would have
seen, and it was not something anyone would have seen before about 20 years
ago. A six-lane freeway (Interstate 19)
runs right through the city. The freeways in Arizona are distinctive due to the
decorative sound walls, and overpass abutments.
They are very colorful and reflect the landscape and the native heritage
of the area. There are few such decorative
freeways in California. I guess we
prefer the spare industrial look of dried concrete.
I’ll begin my trip home tomorrow with photographs taken at stops
along the way to illuminate the past and illustrate the present.
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