Quick notes: J.W. Schultz

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J.W. Schultz, also known by his Blackfoot name Apikuni, was a noted author, explorer, Glacier National Park guide, fur trader and historian of the Blackfeet Indians.

The first book he wrote I am reading now, in 2012:  "My Life as an Indian." This is a really easy book to read, and you feel as though you were there. It is full of fascinating stories of the Blackfeet, Arickaree and Crow Indians. I am halfway through the book.

He wrote his first book at age 48. It was first published in parts in Field and Stream magazine.

He wrote 32 books altogether.

He married a Piegan Blackfoot named Natahki, and is buried in his Indian wives’ family cemetery in Browning Montana. They had a son.

One of the features named by him is Going to the Sun Mountain in Glacier National Park.

Features named for him are: Apikuni Creek, Apikuni Flat, Apikuni Falls, and Apikuni Mountain.

He was born in the Adirondacks, in Booneville New York, to a wealthy family in 1859. The house still stands and has a historical plaque on it.

James Willard Shultz died in 1947 at age 88.

You can purchase the first book at Amazon. Or I will lend it to you.

I am saving my favorite books for Abel in my casita. Inside each book I write when I read it and -- if it was a gift -- who it was from. This one easily makes the list.

Bob "Medicine Weasel" Bachan

La Posada

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I talked to Sheila from the reception desk at La Posada Hotel this morning. She is originally from West Roxbury and even went to school with our Boston Mayor Tom Menino. She referred to him as Tommy. Or Tawmee to be exact. I asked her to send me the list of the 14 day trips that you can do from there. Some were the Hopi Mesas, the Painted Desert, Canyon de Chelly and even the Petrified Forest. Monument Valley was on there I think.

La Posada was included in "World’s Best Places to Stay" in Conde Nast Traveler - the Gold List, rated # 1 for design and dining.    

“Favorite Hotels in the world: I'd highly recommend the historic La Posada in Winslow, Arizona.” - Los Angeles Times.    

"Wow, I murmured in awe, as I walked into the lobby of La Posada Hotel” - Albuquerque Journal.

“It was like traveling back in time to Shangri-La . . . Colter had designed the greatest railroad hotel of them all."  - Arizona Highways.

He was referring to Mary Jane Colter, who also designed the hotels at the Grand Canyon and even that Indian Watchtower at the eastern end. Everyone needs to go to La Posada. “The resting place” in Spanish. Kathy & Charles, did we introduce you to it? Ha ha . . .

Well I was standing on the corner of Winslow Arizona  

Such a fine sight to see.

It's a girl my lord in a flat bed Ford

Slowing down to tell me her life's story

. . . or something like that. By the Eagles. Do you know they are, or were, “Eagles” NOT “The Eagles?” It is true. I would never lie to you.

I am four hours into the making of our southwestern New Mexico vacation photo albums. I am up to the gold, almost ghost, town of Pinos Altos. Tall Pines. Eight million dollars in gold came out before it ran out. William Randolph Hearst's dad owned it. He was quoted as saying, "He came to Silver City for the silver, but ended up with the gold."

Tomorrow Billy the Kid's Mother’s grave, and Bayard, and the desert hot springs, and the Mexican Jalisco Café. Then on to Winslow. It is going to be a fine album.

We showed it to Tom & Eileen last night at El Sarape. It was one of the Days of the Dead, Friday evening. Every year we bring candles and photos of relatives who have passed on. We Catholics, of course, refer to it as All Saints Day. The place was packed and the food was magnificent as usual. Well, why not? It is a Mexican Restaurant in Braintree Massachusetts.

We had tons of leftover Halloween candy, so Sandy thought we should bring it to Pepe. Wow was he happy! Patron was present, and warmly welcomed us. We always bring him hard candy from the Super Mercado on Isla. The one in Centro. Sometimes we see Luis Tiant at El Sarape, but not this time. He of course is Cuban, but his esposa is Mexican.

Rogelio sends his warm regards to you. Do you know that he speaks Port-ooh-geese ALSO? He was waiting on Bethany's Mom & Dad, who sat across from us. They refused to share their sangria. I invited them to the next Fourth of July pool party regardless.

La Posada was rated #3 in the United States for bargain hotels by Trip Advisor, the biggest travel-rating web site in the WORLD.

Sandy and I highly recommend room #241. For $143 this room is a steal.  We have stayed in the $109 rooms and they are nearly as nice.

The Turqouise Room at La Posada was rated as the SECOND best hotel restaurant in the ENTIRE United States. Did you catch that? SECOND BEST in the U.S.  YCMTSU

Excuse me , por favor, while I microwave my fajitas de pollo from last night.

Rosanne & Ryan of Phoenix, are you listening? Rock Springs Cafe on the way up for lunch and pie?

Todd & ???  Instead of Florida? Fly through Phoenix instead of Albuquerque and drive up.

- Roberto Francisco Tocino

The Gila Wilderness

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 Cactus Kathy Gregory from Albuquerque highly recommended this book to Sandy and me.

PROLOGUE

She was posted in the middle of the Gila National Forest, 

on the edge of the world’s first designated wilderness, 

130 miles north of the border with Mexico. 

On Loco Mountain, she  said, NOT A SINGLE 

MAN-MADE LIGHT COULD BE SEEN AFTER DARK. 

She lived in her lookout tower, 

a twelve -by-twelve-foot room on stilts. 

The nearest grocery store was five miles by pack trail 

and eighty-five MORE by mountain road. 

Over the course of four months 

she had fewer than twenty visitors--

hunters on horseback, mainly, and a few adventures hikers.

Sandy has read it, and by the time I post this blog, I will have read it too. We were up at Brant Lake, New York in August, and we go to the Gila (say “hee lah”) Wilderness in western New Mexico, in September into October, with Kathy and Charles. It is Billy the Kid and Geronimo territory. I read Fire Season at the lake. Can you think of a better place to read it?

At the Gila Wilderness, we plan on hiking to pueblo ruins and ghost towns and to the many hot springs. One of the highlights will be the hike to where the Apaches Geronimo, Victorio and Cochise watered their horses. We start in Albuquerque right out of the aeropuerto with dinner at El Bruno's. We first ate at Hazel and Bruno's in Cuba New Mexico near the east portal to The Chaco years ago. Santa Fe by rail with lunch at Tia Sophia’s is next. The gourmet ending will be dinner at La Posada in Winslow Arizona. Reservations needed for the Turqoise Room. Sandy and Kathy. will be wearing all of theirs. Originally this hotel was a train station designed by the famous architect Mary Coulter to resemble a Spanish patron's hacienda.  She designed the hotels at the Grand Canyon including the Tower. The train track side is the most beautiful and is in the rear of the hacienda not on the street side. Travelers go out of their way to dine here in the middle of the desert in Winslow Arizona.

If the trip is successful, we will have reached forty-five years of marriage. Easy for me -- not so easy for Sandy.

One of our hotels is in Silver City The Palace,  costs $50 per night but we are going for it. Just north of there is where the American runner, Caballo Blanco (White Horse), died near a spring while on a twelve mile training run. He was the famous Ultra guy who lived for a while with the Taramuhar Indians down in the bottom of Mexico's Copper Canyon. He first met the famous Ultra running Indians while he was a pacer at the Leadville 100 Trail Run at the top of a mountain in Colorado.  The starting line is at 14,000 feet. Doc Holiday from Tombstone legend worked for a while as a professional gambler in Leadville. Years ago coming back from hiking Arches and Canyonland National Parks, my amigo Tomaso Egan and I saddled up to the bar and had a few there in Leadville in honor of Doc before finishing the trip at Denver. Caballo Blanco was the main subject in the recently published book called "Born To Run." If you are or were a runner, you certainly should read this book. It was on the best seller list here in Boston for quite a while.



We fly back to Providence for a sleep at the airport and then in the morning drive to mid New Jersey for a wedding of one of my Seabee friends daughters. The next day we drive further south to Wildwood and Cape May to spend quality time with Tom and Jeannette Egan at the shore.

Sweet at the beginning and end, with a little adventure in the middle.  Exactly like our lives together over these 50 some years. Sandy says " nothing is perfect except our marriage." 

General Sheridan's "Terrible Swift Sword"

 
Tonight I found an incredible book review in the Wall Street Journal.

TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD a biography of General Philip Sheridan written by Joseph Wheelan.

Certainly this must be the book that Tom Egan is getting me for Christmas.

The only serious interruption to Sheridan's campaign occurred in October, at the Battle of Cedar Creek. He was returning from a trip to Washington when his army was surprised by a devastating predawn Confederate attack. Learning of the army's rout, in one of the war's most renowned episodes of singular leadership, Sheridan galloped hellbent to the front, rallied his men, counterattacked and led them on to total victory. The counterattack was spearheaded by one of Sheridan's most aggressive and flamboyant young officer's George Armstrong Custer.

This of course was the attack by Confederate General Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley.

Dr. Egan has sent a number of smashing books as you have already heard but are about to hear once more.

The Essex, The Mayflower, The Last Stand, and Empire of the Summer Moon, about the famous Comanche Quanah Parker.

Thoughts on This Sunday's Paper

September 16, 2012

To Billy Baker,

Thank you for writing the Monson / Appalachian Trail story. It was very well written and really interesting to me. It brightened my day.

It is terrific that it made the front page of the Boston Sunday Globe today. To me it wasn't the Appalachian Trail itself that was so wonderful, but the people and veterans walking, or the people lending a hand. They were so interesting!

My wife and I grew up under Mount Greylock, which is of course a resting place for the hikers on the A.T. in extreme western Massachusetts. I have some understanding of what the through-hikers go through, having run 54,000 miles of roads and trails in my lifetime. Even if I hadn't been a runner, your story would still have moved me.

My daughter Marnie and I are planning on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain next September. It is only one quarter of the A.T. distance. Buen camino.

Thank you for writing the article,   
Bobby Bacon

Only Mom and Aunt Blanche actually called me Bobby. Roberto Tocino is my Spanish name . . . which I only use for my e-mail address.

Please keep these kinds of stories coming. I am so tired of reading of war and politics.
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/09/15/trail-angels-lighten-load-for-appalachian-trail-hikers/CQbzptXzdpUk2w8FCqH0OM/story.html

A great photo of a hiker leaning on his poles.

Mount Greylock taken from the east side of Adams Massachusetts.     

The tower on the very top of Mt. Greylock.