Djurdjevic - Arizona Photo Essays

23 Jan 2011

Updated Mar 30, 2008, adds In the Winner's Circle...

Sedona, Jerome, Mingus Mtn, Scottsdale

A glorious day in the Red Rock country

SCOTTSDALE, Mar 4, 2008 - Sedona is world famous both for its beauty and for an unusually strong energy field in and around it (see Sedona Vortex for some of the many stories you can find about it on the Internet). Here's an excerpt:

Now, I have to admit that I have personally never experienced anything like it, even though I have been a frequent visitor to Sedona in all seasons and weather over the last 25+ years. Still, never one to discount other peoples' opinions and stories, I decided to make time on my latest trip to Sedona, just this Sunday and Monday, to visit and hike through three of the famous vortexes in Sedona. In a minute, you'll have a chance to join me.

But first, I want to tell you about my "inside story" about Sedona. This pretty northern Arizona town of 15,000 attracts some of the world's most famous free thinkers and healers. Maybe it is that unusual energy that attracts the gurus? One thing I always did feel in Sedona is a lot of creative energy. Perhaps that's a result of the vortexes charging up one's own energy field? Whatever the case, there are just a lot of very smart and very unusual people in Sedona.

This year, I have had a good fortune to meet one of them - Heather Clewett-Jachowski, an Inka Shaman (CLICK HERE to

see her bio). And so on this, as on some earlier visits, I did spend a few hours with her. And the experiences have been absolutely amazing. So if you are willing to open your mind to the possibility that someone who can reach and clean your soul and the luminous energy field of the stuff you don't need, so that your body and mind can also heal, you should get in touch with Heather. And no, you don't have to necessarily come physically to Sedona. The Shamans can do their healing over the phone just as effectively as in person (see www.inkavisions.com for more on her work, or call her at +1-928-203-9122; feel free to use my name).

Anyway, with that as a preamble, here's now my Sedona photo essay, starting with the seven video clips. All of them are pretty short, except for the last time, shot from the Airport Mesa, one of the three vortexes that I visited:

The first video (Part 1/7) was shot from the northbound I-17. Sedona and the San Francisco Peaks over Flagstaff, with Humphrey's Peak displaying its snow cap, are visible in the distance. Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto on a Paganini Theme provides the backdrop as ZFILLY (my car - its custom license plate) speeds down the mountain toward Verde Valley.

The second through the six videos are all shot approaching Sedona from the south, with Mendelssohn's "Midsummernight's Dream" providing the background music. Don't get alarmed when the second video abruptly ends. Nothing happened. I was not in an accident or anything close to it. It's just that my iPod suddenly cut out which created a zapping noise in ZFILLY's speakers and forced me to jerk and turn off the camera. So all's cool, as you will see from Part 4/7 that I resumed filming right after.

The seventh and final video in this series was shot atop the Sedona Airport Mesa. That was always my favorite spot in Sedona as it provides 360-degree views of this beautiful town. It was very cold and windy, though, so you will hear the wind howling in the video. Not far from where I was standing is a giant cross where Easter sunrise services are performed. I have never actually attended them (maybe this year?), but I understand it is a sight to behold. (If so find some photos of it from my earlier visit, I will add them here).

And now, here are some still shots of Sedona, starting with those taken on my first day there...

...starting with a still clip from that first video, where you can see Humphrey's Peak (left), and a still clip from the video taken at Sedona Airport Mesa, zooming in on the Coffee Pot (second left). The two far right shots were also taken there.

And now, the rest of the Sedona pictures were all taken on my hike the following morning (Mar 3)...

The start of the Sugarloaf trail (left); the trail map; view of the Mingus Mtn in the distance to the west; view of Coffee Pot and the rock formation behind it from the trailhead. You'll see them "grow" in size as I get nearer...

But first, a little mind teaser... You'll need a "dirty mind," perhaps a little like mine, to see what I saw in that beautifully serene morning scene. Okay ladies, what does that leftmost picture remind you of? (for my answer - CLICK HERE). :-) This also brought back memories of a peak in Sabino Canyon near Tucson whose official name was Thimble Peak. But for me and for the woman I was dating back then it was always a "Nipple Peak." :-)

Okay, moving on... It was a cold and crisp morning, with a strong wind and temperatures just above freezing. Which made it a perfect air quality and clarity for picture taking. Just as I had taken the preceding shot of Coffee Pot, an airplane flew overhead. I had forgotten from my earlier visits that Sedona seems to be on a major east-west flight path. There seem to be always airplanes and chemtrails overhead.

If you're getting tired of the Coffee Pot, just skip some shots and get yourself another one at Starbucks. :-)

You can see from my attire and my swirling hair how bundled up I was. It was COLD... BRRRR..., especially for this "desert rat" who is not used to freezing temperatures in his home state.

By the way, I hiked between the two vortexes in Sedona. And other than feeling very cold and having to move fast in order to stay warm, I did not feel any extra energy. But then, I work out every day quite hard, and so who knows... maybe that kind of stuff is only discernible by some people who are nor normally very active? Anyway, vortex or not, I loved the scenery. I even did some yoga stretches on the rocks under Coffee Pot to warm up (third from right).

The left shots shows the frosty part of the trail just as it was starting to thaw in the morning sun (it was about 8:30AM when I started my hike). The second shot from the left shows you some motorcycle tracks right at the foot of Coffee Pot! How that cyclist got there through all the wilderness is beyond me. Maybe he grew wings and using the vortex energy flew over all those shrubs and rocks? :-)

The other three shots are views from Coffee Pot toward the west, south and east.

Finally, finishing up the trail the way we started... with another view of Mingus Mtn.

After I finished my business in Sedona, I decided to drive home the slower and prettier way - via Jerome, Mingus Mountain and Prescott. So I headed toward Jerome in mid-afternoon. Once again, here are first a couple of videos from that drive...

All of the above shots were taken while approaching Jerome from the direction of Cottonwood.

A few scenes from the town itself that seems to cling to the mountain like a spider to its webbing. Than Hotel Grang (right photo) looks newly renovated and quite charming. A lot of the rest of the town is in a varying state of disrepair.

... at which I took the above picture (left). As ZFILLY continued to climb up Mingus Mtn, the views became more and more spectacular (middle left), as the amount snow in the hills started to rise (middle right). The rightmost picture was taken right after the Summit, at just over 7,000 feet, as the road starts to descend toward Prescott.

The howling sound you will hear in some videos is a very strong wind at that elevation. Sorry about that, but it's just the way the day was - beautiful to look at, bone-chilling to be in.

All of these video clips are pretty short - 30 secs or less so as not to stress out your Internet connection.

SCOTTSDALE, Mar 5 - One day about 10 years ago, when I still had my Australian home (the Bolt Hole), I was talking to a reporter from New York on the phone, while looking out my kitchen window at the "paddock" (field) in front of the house.

"Interesting," I said, "it's almost noon, and the roos are still out there having breakfast. Guess that's because of the rain" (click on the photo to enlarge).

"I am looking at kangaroos in front of my kitchen window. And they are still eating even though it's late in the day."

Well, can't blame Manhattanites for being skeptical. To them, pastoral country scenes is something you see in the movies. And lettuce and tomatoes grow in Safeway's and IGA's.

Well, I am sharing this Aussie story with you only as a preamble to today's piece. That's because I first want to assure you that I had had only one cup of coffee before the following unusual event took place. And definitely no Martini's!

I was working at my office desk around 9AM. My lateral vision caught some motion on the sidewalk. I turned my head expecting to see a neighbor walking a dog, or a jogger shedding pounds while gaining self-esteem. Instead, it was a coyote, calmly walking along the sidewalk, as if sightseeing. He was not on the road. How well mannered is that?! :-)

"Hm, a nice neighborhood," the coyote seemed to be thinking, looking left and right. "Wonder how many dogs live here? Can't see or smell any. Damn mortgage crises! It's making the homeowners so nervous they even keep their dogs locked up inside."

I grabbed my camera and rushed out to the street. Using a zoom lens, I was able to catch this pair of coyotes before they disappeared around the bend. Guess they must be insomniacs and a bit disoriented to be in a residential neighborhood like this in mid-morning. Or maybe they were just having a little fun and forgot to look at the watch. :-)

A few minutes later, a lady walking a white fluffed-up and coiffed poodle passed by. "Hm... that looks like a succulent coyote breakfast," I grinned. Not the lady. :-)

SCOTTSDALE, Mar 19 - That money can't buy happiness probably won't come as any great surprise to you. It's an age-old adage. But what happened in my neighborhood in Grayhawk this afternoon underlines that truism in red ink.

As I was biking home around 5PM, after a workout at my DC Ranch club, I decided to drive by the pool to see if it is open today (it wasn't last night). There were two Scottsdale police squad cars parked in the street leading to it with their flashers going. In three years that I have lived in this upscale gated community on the Grayhawk golf course, I have never seen even a single police car driving by, let alone two of them with flashers on, suggesting some "hot action" must be under way.

Two young cops were standing in the intersection in front of the pool gates, blocking the way down that street that runs parallel to mine. I joked with them if the association has now brought them in to guard the pool, as if putting a padlock on the door were not enough? They laughed and said something funny in reply. I noticed how young they both were, probably under 20.

Then as I proceeded to bike down that street, I noticed at least a dozen police cars of various types and sizes with their flashers going. Also, a cordon of between a dozen and two dozen cops was coming toward me. Some were dressed in camouflage uniforms. Some looked like a SWAT team and carried machine guns. Some wore helmets. As I was approaching them, I joked, "So what did you catch today? Another rattle snake?"

(In Arizona, killing a rattle snake is against the law. So when people find one, those who want to obey the law typically call the police or the fire department. Who typically come and throw the snake over the fence... so it can crawl back another day. Smart, huh? Which is why the people who don't want rattle snakes around their back yards tend to take the law into their own hands, and don't bother calling the law.)

Anyway, back to the Grayhawk crime scene, "isn't the use of this kind of force just a tad bit excessive against a single rattle snake?"

The cops all laughed and cracked some jokes back. They seemed to be relieved that the job is over. But what were they here really for?

As I biked past the last house on this cul-de-sac, I noticed that its garage door was open. Inside the garage, there were two cops standing over a suspect who was seated on the ground. His hands were behind his back, presumably cuffed. I made a mental note of the scene and surmised that the cops had probably thwarted some sort of a burglary attempt, or maybe a car theft.

A few minutes later, as I was watering some plants in front of my house, a neighbor walked by. She and her husband seem to be the "neighborhood watch." He is a retired business executive from New York with nothing to do. She is a full time homemaker with nothing to do. So they combine their snooping talents and oodles of spare time to keep track of everything that moves in our neighborhood. And sometimes of things that don't as well.

"Well, I saw a bunch of cops one street over," I replied. "But I don't know why they were there. I teased them by asking if they were the new Scottsdale anti-rattler SWAT team."

"To prevent a suicide? How would they have known? Suicidal people normally don't call in a SWAT team for help."

"Someone must have seen him or had known about it and called the police. And they were able to talk the man out of it."

"That was probably the guy," she said. "The cops told me they were going to take him to a hospital for treatment."

"That's pretty amazing (for someone as nosy as you two)," I thought, but did not say anything out loud. Have to be nice to neighbors, even some with noses as big as that of Cyrano de Bergerac. :-)

"And they said that this is typically what they get called for in North Scottsdale (the wealthy part of Scottsdale). In South Scottsdale (the poorer part), they get called for petty or serious crimes, like burglaries or murder. But north of Frank Lloyd Blvd, they usually have to deal with suicides."

"Hm... let me see," I said. "What I would conclude from that is that money can't buy happiness. Or some such thing."

"You're right. 'Keeping up with the Jones's' gets to be pretty desperate for some people. And some of them reach the end of the rope and just can't deal with it anymore. It's pretty sad."

"It is," I agreed. But it is what money does buy in wealthy America today - unhappiness and desperation.

Of course, there could be many other reasons for suicides, too. But you would think that heartbreak, lovesickness, jealousy, terminal illnesses etc. would strike equally in South and North Scottsdale, wouldn't you?

SCOTTSDALE, Mar 30, 2007 - On my way back from New York, I had stopped in Cincinnati for an overnight visit with my younger daughter Emily. As yet another winter storm blew through Ohio, the temperatures dropped from the 50s during the night to the 30s in the morning. So I was very glad to get back home to the mid- to high-80s, and inhale the springtime air filled with heavenly fragrances of orange blossoms and jojoba blooms.

On Saturday afternoon, I got a chance to enjoy our beautiful weather in an old familiar environment - at the Phoenix Turf Paradise racetrack. Karen has become quite an active and successful horse owner this year, so she invited me to spend the afternoon with her at the races. Two of her horses were scheduled to run. Well, not only did they race; both of them won! And by a wide margin at that.

"Only eight percent of my owners get to win at all," said Justin Evans, Karen's trainer (the right arrow in the left "official" winner's poster points to him - above left). "So to win two races in one day is practically unheard of."

So Karen was in seventh heaven, as was her entire racing team, including the jockey - Glen Corbett. And for the first time in my life, I also ended up in the Winners' Circle at a major race track (standing next to Karen - two top arrows in left photo).

Here are the official results of the two winning races, with Karen's two winners highlighted in hot pink:

After the race, as Karen's team celebrated at the Clubhouse bar, I got to rub shoulders with Justin, her trainer, who was a triple winner on Saturday afternoon. No, make it quadruple. Not only did another one of his horses win (Way Up There, Race 3), but his fiancé Lori Keith was aboard.

This British-born and raised 25-year old jockey, who also raced at Santa Anita and Chicago, joined us at the 7th race and later at the bar. I could not believe she was a jockey. I told her she "cleans up real good." :-) Lori is the most beautiful and feminine jockey I have ever seen. She's got the shoulders of a bantam weightlifter, but her body has the curves of a model. And Lori also has a shrewd business head on her shoulders. So she acts as a business manager to her (only) one-year old older fiancé, yet already a seasoned trainer.

And there is much to manage. "How many horses do you have in your barn?" I asked Justin at one point.

"Too many," he replied. "I'd better get rid of some." He paused and scratched his head. "Fifty five," he added upon reflection. It takes about $40,000 per month to feed and care for them, Lori, ever the business manager, added. Which means a lot of winning just to break even. Well, today was a big payday for all of them. So everybody was happy.

"If only eight percent of owners get to win at all, what are the chances of a trainer winning three races in one day?" I asked Justin.

Even yours truly (uncharacteristically) won some money. Actually, quite a bit, relatively speaking. While Karen did not bet on her own horse, I did. And I bet for Whiskey to Win - something I have never done before (I usually make just wimpy "$2 to Show" bets - just for fun and show of good faith). So I quadrupled my money yesterday.

Why did I step out of the box? I just sort of "knew" Karen's horse would win. Don't ask me how. I just did. Maybe because it took such a Herculean effort just to get there. All freeway ramps around my house at Grayhawk were closed for some stupid Scottsdale construction project. So I had to drive about 10 miles the wrong way, before I could do finally a U-turn and head west toward Turf Paradise, about a 25-mile ride, plus the extra 10.

Karen had her own explanation. "Little do they know," she said, smiling at the other members of her team. "This is my payback from God for all the suffering I have been through." And she sure deserved it.

After the races, Karen took me to the "hallowed" grounds where only racehorse owners and trainers are allowed - the stables.

That's where I met two of her horses - Hopetown Hero (above), the winner of the first race on Saturday, Karen's favorite horse, as well as Dante's Gulch, a three-year old she just bought last week, to whom Karen refers as her "baby." We fed carrots to both of them. Which brought back memories of us doing the same back in Western Austra

lia where my Bolt Hole property bordered a horse ranch (the right photo was taken in Dec 2004).

Karen likes to nickname everything. So naturally, both of her horses have them. Hopetown's nickname is "LeBron", as in LeBron James, the NBA star, also Karen's favorite. And Dante's nickname is "Forrest Gump." At least it's not "Inferno," I thought, but did not say anything.

"That's because he has such an earnest face," Karen explained, "like Tom Hanks' in the Gump movie."

The Cleveland Cavaliers' (NBA team) opponents can also probably relate to that. :-) How many times has LeBron bitten them with a last second game-winning hoop...

But in horse racing, an owner has to be careful not to get too emotionally attached to his/her animals. For, they can be claimed (sold) in an instant. That's what happened to Whiskey this afternoon, for example, Karen's second winner. A slight damper to his victory celebration was news that the horse had been claimed.

All Karen's horses have "royal" lineages (meaning they have been sired or born by former Kentucky Derby or other Triple Crown racing greats). So when they win a race or two, they catch other owners' eyes. And voila - in an instant, they are gone! We never even saw Whiskey at Justin's stables. He was already having his dinner at a new owner's barn. Darn! It would have been good to have take a shot of Whiskey, too. :-)

Anyway, to reciprocate for her invitation, I then took Karen out to the Phoenix Symphony Hall for a concert of Elton John and Billy Joel music, a kind of a 1970s retro-evening, with a present-day dinner afterward.

"What a day!" she exclaimed, sounding happily exhausted, as we said goodnight to each other.

It's always marvelous to see someone living their dream. And being an owner of racehorses has always been Karen's dream. Winning - that's just the cream on top of the dream.