After sunup, a walk along Arcadia Dr., toward Camelback Mountain.
This morning, I woke up from a dream about throwing on some clothes and going for a pre-dawn walk around the Royal Palms Resort at the base of Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, like I did every morning last week.
The complimentary coffee was set up in the MixUp Bar. To get there, I enjoyed a path of sofly lit cobblestones, lined with fragrant rosemary, and adobe walls. Water fountains were quietly bubbling. A few orange trees shone in the darkness. Mellow accoustic music was wafting around me. I was happy. Even the moon was smiling, with Mars above it.
An item I noticed for the first time, at 6:15 AM on Feb. 11, 2025.
I brought my own ceramic mug because I knew that my to-go coffee was not going far. There is a cubby with a fireplace carved into a corner of this lounge. I have gone to it for many years now, maybe 15 to 20 years. I happily share it with other resort guests, but, by going very early, I most often am alone.
Welcome warmth after a cool night.
I sat and stared at the fire, at the rustic wood floor, and all other design aspects, like the copper tabletops, of this Spanish Mediteranean villa. Sometimes I read. I usually just enjoyed. This year, I saw the detail on the menu cover, and savored its spareness, which still got the message across: this is a place to get a drink.
Rustic floor of the MixUp Bar, Royal Palm.MixUp Bar, Menu cover, Royal Palm, Phoenix.Lit up Palms line the drive, 6:39 AM, Feb. 11, 2025. View to the Southeast.
My sleep brought me back to AZ until I woke up, when I realized that I was actually in the below zero winter of Nebraska. Sigh. There would be no warm walks today.
Content to live in both worlds, the dream and the reality!
Voices came to me as soon as I stepped out of the car. Looking around, I saw that mine was the only car parked on the pathway. Scary. I also saw that I was the only person standing in the area.
It was a windy afternoon. The talking I heard must have been people’s voices carrying on the wind from the nearby businesses’ parking lots.
This was last Sunday, September 15. I had been looking for something to do and realized I now had time to go do what I always wanted to do-walk through a cemetery and read the tombstones. I thought while the weather was nice, I’d get a little exercise and entertainment combined, plus a history lesson.
Where I chose to go, in Spirit Lake, Iowa.
I went there for those above reasons, but also to try out an aluminum foil technique that I had read about in the Coon Rapids Enterprise newspaper. With a damp sponge or a small flat brush, it is possible to emboss tombstone engravings on to a thin sheet of aluminum foil.
This looked interesting, so I saved the clipping.
As I walked (with sunscreen, hat, and my sunglass readers), I searched for good candidates. The heat became sweltering, so I aimed for the trees and the shade.
The ground was hard and uneven, but still well kept up and mowed. It looked like a lush green lawn in the distance. Not wanting to risk a stumble, I had to watch my step because of indented areas and little hills. It was another opportunity to keep me sharp, paying attention to my surroundings. Vigilance keeps me on my toes!
A few familiar names caught my eye, but no connections that I knew of. Then I saw a last name of a person who is now very sick.
Was this a premonition of what I was fearing?
Or a prediction of the near future?
I tried not to think about that and moved on.
I focused on what I came here to do. I experimented with a foil casting. The wind made it difficult to hold the foil flat, so I tried a very small section. It worked! However, I hadn’t planned a way to transport the foil sheet and keep it from wrinkling up, which would erase some of the transfer.
Next time, I’ll bring a cardboard portfolio (2 sheets of large cardboard, duct taped together at the top and one side so I can slide the foil into it).
My eyes saw new things here, so it was a success. I’ll go back and try the foil casting again. A brother-in-law’s grandparents are buried here (his mother grew up in Spirit Lake). I can search for that grave.
I’m sure to see a few more that touch my heart.
Here are some from this excursion:
Whose? When? I want more information. Still, its simplicity makes me think.Fascinating life summary. He Filed the 1st Claim on West Shore of West Okoboji.I know and love someone who fits this description.Just for whimsy. No inscriptions.
This summer, it all began with a trip to the Maritime Museum in Arnold’s Park, Iowa. I saw this arched structure made from rocks. The sign said it was on loan from Clark Museum in Milford, Iowa. It did not say who made it, or when.
The maker’s name is “Anonymous”, as many pieces of folk art are unsigned.A close up detail of the birdbath.
It made me think of my Great Grandpa Goecke who made stone sculptures. The one I specifically remember was a big stone basket in front of Grandma and Grandpa Schelle’s farmhouse. Grandma, Mary Ann (Mamie) Goecke Schelle, was his daughter.
Linda Schelle Johnston has inherited this stone basket, the smaller of the two I remember. It now sits in her yard.
I wondered if he was inspired by the rocky shorelines of Spirit Lake, Iowa’s largest natural lake, where he spent many years, or if it was a popular craft of the time.
Mom (Jean Schelle Thelen) talked often of her Grandpa Goecke’s cottage on Spirit Lake. She gave me a photo from 1981 of her and our 2 older sons, Bryan and Brandon, on a rock bench at that cottage (now with a new owner). She told me that her Grandpa Goecke tied his boat to it.
Brandon, Bryan, and their Grandma, 1981. The rope shows that it’s still being used to tie down a boat.
I LOVE that picture and the idea of an ancestor making the bench. I wanted to see it, but I had no idea where it was located. I guess Mom had never taken me there, that I remember! And now, I couldn’t ask her, because she went on to her heavenly reward in 2014.
So, I asked around. I asked my brother Ed first. He’s a long time resident of Spirit Lake, and Mom and Dad visited him often, renting a cabin each spring and fall (the unbusy times), near him.
No, he had no idea either.
Next, I asked my Kennebeck cousins. They come to The Iowa Great Lakes (Okoboji) every summer for a week of pure fun, and their Mom was my mom’s sister, so she must have talked about it also.
No, they didn’t know where it was!
My Uncle Ron (Mom’s brother) had done a detailed family history for our files. That’s where I found information on William Goecke. He was married and lived in Carroll, Iowa. A few years after his wife died (in 1930), he moved to Spirit Lake (in 1934), and lived there until 1956, when he returned to Carroll. In Spirit Lake, he owned a house in town for the winter, and a lakehouse for the summer.
My Great Grandpa Goecke, at his Spirit Lake cottage. Photo sent to me by Ron Schelle, in June 2019. I love that he named his fishing cottage!
I went to the courthouse with that information, sleuthing my way to the cottage with the stone bench. The helpful workers led me to the basement, through a dark corridor into a large bright room, and left me there.
It was quite fun! Searching through a massive, tabletop sized index of handwritten deed transfers (today, they’re all digital), sorted by year, and alphabetized, I found one address really fast—the one in town.
It was energizing to see his name written here.
The lake cottage was pretty easy too. He bought it in 1941.
Details of the cottage purchase.Lake Cottage, division name.
Then, I went upstairs to the offices to get the actual address, after finding the division name and year of the sale. I got both addresses, and the current owners’ names. The lake cottage has an Omaha owner, and I knew the name!
After contacting my Omaha friend, I learned that her husband’s brother had purchased the property 3 years ago. They weren’t staying there until the weekend, and encouraged me to go have a looksee, although they couldn’t recall a bench.
I went the next day, very excited and hopeful. My imagination saw it along the shore, and I thought we could maybe take a new family photo there, with grandkids and myself, to hang on the wall, alongside the other.
Great Grandpa Goecke’s cottage, 12885 253rd Ave. My own photo, June 2019.
Well, it had been 38 years since the stone bench photo was taken. I really thought it would be there, but it was not. A sea wall, several feet wide has been built, taking over the original shoreline.
So disappointing.
However, I’ll always appreciate hand crafted stone sculptures, and think of my Great Grandpa Goecke, who gave me joy long ago, when I gazed at the basket on my Grandparent Schelle’s farmhouse steps, near Breda, Iowa.
Just for fun, here are a few stone photos from my walks, along West Lake Okoboji.
Icy rocks, West Okoboji shoreline, Nov. 2017.
I hope you enjoyed this little story, and can go sit on a favorite bench somewhere in your world!
On Writing, On Life 