Alan Olee Book Report

What a week!

Just too much to do – my work (machinery design business) always, I say again, always gets super-busy right at the end of the year.  Every year!  And being a full-time part-time musician / composer-arranger, this is, until after New Years, the busiest time of year. (and yes this year I got New Year’s gig and I’m not only playing guitar, I’m singing! “Love me tender, Love me true, Never… Let me go…“).

It’s getting to be too much, just too much!  Working all weekend at work on a drop-dead rush job – and on-call all weekend for a machine-down problem at a customer site; the soul-crushing grief from the recent death of the tiny, but courageous little space probe Philae.  Elbows on table, head in hands, I cover my eyes:  “Oh for those lazy, crazy days of summer…Oh for happier times”… slow fade … Alan goes into a waking dream-state; images of a happier past flood his mind…

“Ajo; remember Ajo?  We partied in Ajo!”

Next Time You’re in Southern Arizona, Stop in Ajo

Ajo, Arizona is located 32.3814° N, 112.8694° W, or, south off Highway 85 about 40 miles north of the Mexican border.  Cool little town.  I’d a got a nice shot of the entire town square, but it was under construction, so I need to get down there when it’s all finished because I’m sure it’s awesome.

In the Town Square Under the Arches

There’s also an abandoned copper mine right off the town, mining is still big down there, and there is a nice little kiosk like informational mine-tour place nicely fenced off, with a closed sign.  I’ve talked to other intrepid Arizona travelers, and apparently it is always closed…

So I stuck my camera through the chain-link fence and got this shot:

Ajo Mine

Each shade of color of the rocks means the rocks are made of something different that miners dig.  Get it?  Miners dig?  No, really, it’s like each color stands for a different mineral; the purple means something, the blackish color means something, and so forth.  I don’t remember what any of it means.  But it does mean something, mineral-wise.

The color of the water?  That beautiful bright green color?  That means you don’t drink that water.  Ever.  Don’t even touch water like that in Arizona mine country.  Stay away from that kind of water.  It is poisonous.  No water out in the middle of nowhere that is a bright beautiful color is any good.  At least not in Arizona mine country.

Actually, now that I recall a bit more clearly (that dream-state thing kind of got to me; I’m fine now…no really I’m OK), we did not party in Ajo.  We partied in Bisbee.

Back on the road.

Rural Arizona Really is This Beautiful

Bisbee and nearby Douglas, Arizona started off life as mining towns, and since the mines closed down in the 1970s, Bisbee has been reborn and rebuilt into a little gem of a get-away spot.  Just 11 miles north of the Mexican border, Bisbee is nestled into a canyon so you descend into the town off highway 80, and have a great view of rocky hillside with the streets of the town straddling ancient hills and gullies like a super teeny, tiny San Francisco.  And then there are houses and little hangouts up the side of the canyon – I think you get it; it’s freaking picturesque.

I’m Starving! Let’s Stop and Get Something…

There are bikers, (the weekend rebel types mostly) and plenty of partyers – but mostly just people looking to have a nice time; bored yuppies, aged hipsters, and the occasional loud-mouthed youths.  But what’s cool about the Bisbee party scene is that it’s just a classy place, everything is small scale, small bars, small hang outs, what I sometimes call an interior environment. You walk around and gawk and talk, go inside somewhere and groove, drink, talk, enjoy.  Rinse and repeat.

Art galleries with nice stuff.   Live music, lots of it acoustic, lots of places to hang out.  Oh.  And everybody, even the strangers just passing through are friendly, but not too friendly, in that Arizona out-west way of friendly.

Main Drag in Bisbee

Or, we could Get Ready for an Old Fashion Bisbee Shootout.

It’s free, buy you must be 21 or older.

Clearly, after all this road fever, it is time to chill:

A Cold One…

Have a nice weekend!