USA - Arizona - Grand Canyon Skywalk

Grand Canyon Skywalk

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is an architechtural marvel. It was completed on March 28, 2007 after 2.5 years of hard work and engineering. The structure itself weighs an astinishing 1.571 million pounds, and was built to withstand an excess of 71 million pounds in weight on top of it.

Sent by Cheyenne from Oklahoma, USA.

USA - Arizona - Mapcard

ARIZONA
THE GRAND CANYON STATE
Becoming the 48th state on February 14, 1912, Arizona is ranked sixth in size among all the states. Phoenix, the state's capital since 1889, is also its largest city.  Arizona has 15 national monuments (more than any other state) in areas of historic or scenic interest, including Indian ruins, canyons and deserts. The state is famus for its cactus and plants, and the Saguaro cactus blossom is the state flower. Arizona's official state bird is the cactus wren.

Sent by Nancy, a postcrosser from Arizona, USA

USA - Arizona - Tucson

TUCSON
ARIZONA
Full moon rising over the city lights.

Sent by Ingrid, a postcrosser from Sonoran Desert in Arizona, USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Tucson ( /ˈtuːsɒn/ TOO-son) is the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States and is the home of the state's first university, The University of Arizona. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 while the entire Tucson metropolitan area's population is 1,020,200. Tucson is the second largest populated city in Arizona behind Phoenix, which both anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor. The city is located 118 miles (188 km) southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles (98 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Tucson is the 32nd largest city and 52nd largest metropolitan area in the United States. Roughly 150 Tucson companies are involved in the design and manufacture of optics and optoelectronics systems, earning Tucson the nickname Optics Valley.

Major incorporated suburbs of Tucson include Oro Valley and Marana northwest of the city, Sahuarita south of the city, and South Tucson in an enclave south of downtown. Communities in the vicinity of Tucson (some within or overlapping the city limits) include Casas Adobes, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Tanque Verde, Tortilita, New Pascua, Sahuarita and Vail. Towns outside the Tucson metro area include Benson to the southeast, Catalina and Oracle to the north, and Green Valley to the south.

The English name Tucson derives from the Spanish name of the city, Tucsón [tukˈson], which was borrowed from the O'odham name Cuk Ṣon [tʃʊk ʂɔːn], meaning "(at the) base of the black [hill]", a reference to an adjacent volcanic mountain. Tucson is sometimes referred to as "The Old Pueblo".

USA - Arizona - Navajo Children

ARIZONA
Navajo children carefree and lighthearted carry on the tradition and heritage of the southwest native Americans.

Sent by Kristen, a postcrosser from USA.

This is from Wikipedia : The Navajo (Navajo: Diné or Naabeehó) of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the Four Corners area of the United States. The Navajo language is spoken throughout the region, although most Navajo speak English as well.

Until they came into contact with the Spanish and Pueblos, the Navajo were hunters and gatherers. They adopted farming techniques and crops from the Pueblo people, growing mainly corn, beans, and squash. As a result of Spanish influence, they began herding sheep and goats, depending on them for food and trade. They spun and wove sheared wool into blankets and clothing which could be used for personal use or trading. They also depended on their flocks of sheep for meat. Their lives depended on sheep so much that, to the Navajo, sheep were a kind of currency and the size of the herd was a mark of social status.

The Navajo speak dialects of the language family referred to as Athabaskan. The Navajo and Apache are believed to have migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska, where the majority of Athabaskan speakers reside. The Dene First Nations, who live near from Tadoule Lake in Manitoba to the Great Slave Lake in Northwest Territories, also speak Athabaskan languages. Despite the time elapsed, these people reportedly can still understand the language of their distant cousins the Navajo. Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajo and Apache entered the Southwest by 1400 CE. Navajo oral traditions are said to retain references of this migration.

Navajo oral history also seems to indicate a long relationship with Pueblo people[12] and a willingness to adapt foreign ideas into their own culture. Trade between the long-established Pueblo peoples and the Athabaskans was important to both groups. The Spanish records say by the mid-16th century, the Pueblos exchanged maize and woven cotton goods for bison meat, hides and material for stone tools from Athabaskans who either traveled to them or lived around them. In the 18th century, the Spanish reported that the Navajo had large numbers of livestock and large areas of crops. The Navajo probably adapted many Pueblo ideas into their own different culture.

The Spanish first used the term Apachu de Nabajo in the 1620s to refer to the people in the Chama Valley region east of the San Juan River and northwest of present-day Santa Fe, New Mexico. By the 1640s, they were using "Navajo" for these indigenous people. The Spanish recorded in 1670s that they lived in a region called Dinetah, about sixty miles (100 km) west of the Rio Chama valley region. In the 1780s, the Spanish sent military expeditions against the Navajo in the southwest and west of that area, in the Mount Taylor and Chuska Mountain regions of New Mexico.

In the last 1,000 years, Navajos have had a history of expanding their range and refining their self-identity and their significance to other groups. This probably resulted from a cultural combination of endemic warfare (raids) and commerce with the Pueblo, Apache, Ute, Comanche and Spanish peoples, set in the changing natural environment of the Southwest.

USA - Arizona - Saguaro National Park

SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK
TUCSON, ARIZONA
Saguaro National Park contains stands of saguaro cactus and rock formations decorated with Native American petroglyphs and designs. Saguaros can live for more than 200 years, attaining heights of 30 to 40 feet.

Sent by Stephanie from Arizona, USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Saguaro National Park, located in southern Arizona, is part of the United States national park system.

The park is divided into two sections, called districts, lying approximately 20 miles (32 km) east and 15 miles (24 km) west of the center of the city of Tucson, Arizona. The total area in 2010 was 91,440 acres (37,000 ha) of which 70,905 acres (28,694 ha) is designated wilderness. There is a visitor center in each of the two districts. Both are easily reached by car from Tucson, but there is no public transport into the park. Both districts conserve fine tracts of the Sonoran Desert, including ranges of significant hills, the Tucson Mountains in the west and the Rincon Mountains in the east. The park gets its name from the saguaro, a large cactus which is native to the region. Many other kinds of cactus, including barrel, cholla, and prickly pear, are abundant in the park. One endangered animal, the Lesser Long-nosed Bat, lives in the park part of the year during its migration, together with one threatened species, the Mexican Spotted Owl.

The park was proclaimed as Saguaro National Monument on March 1, 1933 by President Herbert Hoover, and redesignated a national park on October 14, 1994.

Facilities in the park include 150 miles (240 km) of well marked and maintained hiking trails, and shorter walking trails with interpretative information available. Backcountry hiking is not advisable during the hot summer months.

USA - Nevada - Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, located 30 miles South East of Las Vegas.

Sent by Brianne, a postcrosser from Nevada, USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. The dam was controversially named in honor of President Herbert Hoover.

Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium called Six Companies, Inc., which began construction on the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and the lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned over the dam to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.

Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, and is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 25 mi (40 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. Heavily travelled U.S. 93 ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.

USA - Arizona - Petrified Forest National Park (2)

PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK
Sky, land and agatized fossil trees exhibit nature's rich and varied palette of colors. This uniquely colorful and scuplted landscape has drawn fascinated visitors for over a hundred years.

Sent by Darryl from Ohio, USA.

USA - Arizona - Petrified Forest National Park (1)

BLUE MESA
The great distance of the view, the stillness of the desert, the blue and purple shadows in their intensity, cast a spell upon the observer at the sight of this great phenomenon.

Sent by Glenn, a postcrosser from Canada.

This is from Wikipedia : Petrified Forest National Park is a United States national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. The park's headquarters are about 26 miles (42 km) east of Holbrook along Interstate 40 (I-40), which parallels a railroad line, the Puerco River, and historic U.S. Route 66, all crossing the park roughly east–west. Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about 146 square miles (380 km2), encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands. The site, the northern part of which extends into the Painted Desert, was declared a National Monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962. About 600,000 people visit the park each year and take part in activities including sightseeing, photography, hiking, and backpacking.

Averaging about 5,400 feet (1,600 m) in elevation, the park has a dry windy climate with temperatures that vary from summer highs of about 100 °F (38 °C) to winter lows well below freezing. More than 400 species of plants, dominated by grasses such as bunchgrass, blue grama, and sacaton, are found in the park. Fauna include larger animals such as pronghorns, coyotes, and bobcats; many smaller animals such as deer mice; snakes; lizards; seven kinds of amphibians, and more than 200 species of birds, some of which are permanent residents and many of which are migratory. About half of the park is designated wilderness.

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic, about 225 million years ago. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name. Beginning about 60 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau, of which the park is part, was pushed upward by tectonic forces and exposed to increased erosion. All of the park's rock layers above the Chinle, except geologically recent ones found in parts of the park, have been removed by wind and water. In addition to petrified logs, fossils found in the park have included Late Triassic ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and many other plants as well as fauna including giant reptiles called phytosaurs, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs. Paleontologists have been unearthing and studying the park's fossils since the early 20th century.

The park's earliest human inhabitants arrived at least 8,000 years ago. By about 2,000 years ago, they were growing corn in the area and shortly thereafter building pit houses in what would become the park. Later inhabitants built above-ground dwellings called pueblos. Although a changing climate caused the last of the park's pueblos to be abandoned by about 1400 CE, more than 600 archeological sites, including petroglyphs, have been discovered in the park. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers visited the area, and by the mid-19th century a U.S. team had surveyed an east–west route through the park and noted the petrified wood. Later roads and a railway followed similar routes and gave rise to tourism and, before the park was protected, to private removal of the park's fossils. Theft of petrified wood remains a problem in the 21st century.

USA - Arizona - Sonoran Desert

ARIZONA
A summer storm sweeps through the Sonoran Desert providing water to the patiently waiting cacti.

Sent by Andrenna from Phoenix, USA.

This is from Wikipedia : The Sonoran Desert is a North American desert which straddles part of the United States-Mexico border and covers large parts of the U.S. states of Arizona and California and the northwest Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur. It is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 311,000 square kilometers (120,000 sq mi). The desert contains a variety of unique plants and animals, such as the saguaro cactus.

The Sonoran Desert wraps around the northern end of the Gulf of California, from Baja California Sur (El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in central and Pacific west coast, Central Gulf Coast subregion on east to southern tip), north through much of Baja California, excluding the central northwest mountains and Pacific west coast, through southeastern California and southwestern and southern Arizona to western and central parts of Sonora. It is bounded on the west by the Peninsular Ranges, which separate it from the California chaparral and woodlands-(northwest), and Baja California desert-(Vizcaino subregion, central and southeast), ecoregions of the Pacific slope. To the north in California and northwest Arizona, the Sonoran Desert transitions to the colder-winter, slightly higher elevation Mojave, Great Basin, and Colorado Plateau deserts. To the east and southeast, the deserts transition to the coniferous Arizona Mountains forests and Sierra Madre Occidental forests at higher elevations. Finally, to the south the Sonoran-Sinaloan transition subtropical dry forest is the transition zone from the Sonoran Desert to the tropical dry forests of the state of Sinaloa.

The desert's sub-regions include the Colorado Desert of southeastern California and the Yuma Desert east of the north-south Colorado River. In the 1957 publication, Vegetation of the Sonoran Desert, Forrest Shreve divided the Sonoran Desert into seven regions according to characteristic vegetation: Lower Colorado Valley, Arizona Upland, Plains of Sonora, Foothills of Sonora, Central Gulf Coast, Vizcaíno Region, and Magdalena Region. Many ecologists now consider Shreve's Vizcaíno and Magdalena regions, which lie on the western side of the Baja California Peninsula, to be a separate ecoregion, the Baja California desert.

Within the southern Sonoran Desert in Mexico is found the Gran Desierto de Altar, with the Reserva de la Biosfera el Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar ('Pinacate National Park' in Mexico), extending 2,000 square kilometers (770 sq mi) of desert and mountainous regions. The Pinacate National Park includes the only active Erg dune region in North America. The nearest city to the Reserva de la Biosfera el Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar is Puerto Peñasco (a.k.a. 'Rocky Point') in the state of Sonora, Mexico.

USA - Arizona - Grand Canyon National Park (2)

MORAN POINT - GRAND CANYON - ARIZONA
Moran Point is one of the most visited sites on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The point offers far reaching views along a wide section of the canyon. It was named after landscape painter Thomas Moran who helped popularize the canyon.

Sent by Rose, a Wip partner from New Jersey, USA.

"Along with Desert View, Grandview and Yaki, Moran is one of the most visited points on the east rim drive, and offers far reaching views along a wide section of the Grand Canyon, approximately between river miles 87 and 72. The point is due south of Cape Royal on the North Rim - just 8 miles away in a straight line but 215 miles by road. The promontory is reached by a short spur road and was named after the landscape painter Thomas Moran who came here for the first time in 1873 and helped popularize the canyon, leading eventually to its incorporation as a national monument in 1908 (and a national park in 1919). To the west, Coronado Butte blocks some of the southern cliffs but there are still fine views downriver over a succession of red ridges and ravines, as far as Yaki Point where the Colorado bends back south. The eastern aspect is more restricted, by Zuni Point and ridges below". (Read more)

USA - Arizona - Grand Canyon National Park (1)

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZONA
Located in northern Arizona, the Grand Canyon National Park takes in 277 miles of the Colorado River and surrounding uplands. A world heritage site, the canyon is the fantastic end result of weathering and erosion.

Sent by Katherine from Peoria in Arizona, USA.

USA - Arizona - Bird Quiz

Sent by Joan, a postcrosser from Arizona, USA.

USA - Arizona - Desert In Bloom

Desert In Bloom, Arizona.
Often inappropriately described as a barren land, the desert abounds with plant life. Having adapted to the extremes of heat and aridity desert plants paint the desert terrain with brilliant colors.

Sent by avanium from Tucson, Arizona.

USA - Arizona - Tombstone

The Crystal Palace is Tombstone's most glamorous and historically accurate bar still in operation. Mingle with historic characters and lovely ladies at the finest saloon in the southwest.

This is the third of five postcards sent by Demaris of Texas, USA.

USA - Arizona - Bisbee

Bisbee is located 90 miles southeast of Tucson. This community was founded in 1880 and named after Judge DeWitt Bisbee, a financial backer of the Copper Queen Mine. In the early 1900s, the Bisbee community was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.

The first of the five postcards sent by Demaris of Texas, USA.