Cabin Fever...Visits with Zane Grey

Sande J · Posted: 9/9/2006, 8:20 pm Post subject: Cabin Fever...Visits with Zane Grey

Growing up in the Midwest, cabin fever was something you got when you were cooped up during a winter storm. Now that I am here in AZ, it has revealed a new meaning. Spending some of my creative time reading Zane Grey and researching the old west somehow sparked a flame….then oddly, a couple of old cabins found me while I was out exploring. Having those great unplanned moments has sort of turned into my own cabin fever. Now I am ‘in search of’. Zane called it manifest destiny….(or was that Kurthzone?) I have hiked to some and have ridden horseback to others. I put a collection in the gallery of some of these wonderfully historic places. They are also a great way for me to practice my photo skills. Let me tell you, shootin’ from a saddle on a moving target ain’t easy. (shootin’ photos, that is). Thought some of you may enjoy these images. I know there are many more places like this to explore, and I really have no idea where they might be. I may find them or they may find me, who knows. The best part is the fun they bring and the memories they create. More of those personal ‘happy places’.
Thanks for the opportunity to share.
Smile!
SJ

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And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stone, good in everything..
-William Shakespeare-

Davis2001R6 · Joined: 12 Dec 2003 Posts: 5591 Location: Italy

Very cool Sande! So do you camp out inside the cabins on your adventures? Use the fireplace? I would love to checkout one out in winter, maybe someplace covered in snow. That would just be awesome. Beautiful horse too!

Trishness · Posted: 9/9/2006, 9:09 pm Post subject:

Great pics sis! I surely understand that Cabin fever thing......used to hit hard around February in New England!

Wink

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~~~Trish~~~

"Eastward the dawn rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into guess; it was no more than a glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of the memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains." ï¿½ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings.

Nighthiker · Joined: 05 Jan 2003 Posts: 1714

Visited the Zane Grey replica cabin in Payson yet ? or the Kohls Ranch Restaurnt, it has several Zane Grey items. I picked up a copy of Riders of the Purple Sage at Bashas and on the cover it said it was uncut and uncensored. I hvve not read it yet and ws wondering what is the difference from the other editions. I plan or reading during another camping trip when I visit just beneath the rim.

beckett · Joined: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 1066

I have always been fasinated by old barns and the history they hold. I so enjoyed your pictures. I recently discovered a couple of Zane Grey books in a stack of old books left to me by my Uncle Les. They are on my list to read now. Desert Gold, published in 1913 ( given to my uncle by my Grandmother in 1919 for a birthday present). The Spirit of the Border, published in 1906. Any suggestions of other Zane Grey books?
Linda
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Nighthiker · Joined: 05 Jan 2003 Posts: 1714

I had a list and a link but can't find it of the locales of Zane Grey's books.

azbackpackr · Posted: 9/10/2006, 6:26 am Post subject:

I like to collect old books like that, despite their old-fashioned values. They were the pulp fiction of their day. I collect another old author, Harold Bell Wright. His books, published mostly in the '20's and '30's, are just about as old-fashioned as Zane Grey's, very moralistic, Victorian values. The handsome hero, the swooning heroine, etc. He lived in Tucson for a long time, and his house is still there (I think), near Wilmot and Broadway, and all the streets around it are named for his books. Like Zane Grey and the more contemporary Louis L'Amore, he was pretty good at describing landscapes. He wrote "The Mine with the Iron Door, which takes place in the Santa Catalina Mountains (Mt. Lemmon) near Tucson. (Specifically Canada Del Oro canyon.) He also wrote "When a Man's a Man" which seems to be located somewhere near Prescott. (He changed the names of all the towns, mountain ranges, etc., in his books.) The "Winning of Barbara Worth" takes place around the El Centro, Imperial Desert area of California. And yet another one is located somewhere near San Bernardino. It is a view into a time before the freeways and massive developments.

Wright was the first person in the history of publishing to sell a million copies of one book. He was vilified by the academics and reviewers of his time, and became something of a hermit, partly because of that and partly due to severe health problems. Of course the academics hated him because his books were so successful, whereas theirs weren't! Today, though, Wright's name is far less known than Grey's. This means that old first editions are relatively cheap. A first edition of a Zane Grey book is going to be very expensive!

Unlike with Grey's books, you can't always specifically pinpoint the area he was writing about, because he changed the place names of everything. This makes it a bit interesting to try to figure out the locale, etc.

paintninaz · Joined: 06 Jan 2003 Posts: 3515

The AZ Republic had a whole thing on Zane Grey the other day (sorry I can't remember what day as I don't get the actual paper, someone just showed it to me)...

I love the pictures! I'm a big fan of old cabins..maybe because they always seem to be situated in just the perfect spot, I walk in and think 'yep, home sweet home!'

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~Tracy

“Friends make the bad times good — and the good times unforgettable.”

Hikngrl · Posted: 9/10/2006, 3:47 pm Post subject:

Awesome Sande! I too love the old cabins... I always stop to wonder who lived there and what they did with their time..... You know they were hard workers... the had to be.
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~~~Diane~~~

I want to shine!

threedogz · Joined: 06 May 2005 Posts: 668 Location: Chandler

What a beautiful horse Sande! Thanks for sharing the images.
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You can never eat too much candy...

Sande J · Posted: 9/10/2006, 8:04 pm Post subject:

RedRoxx44 · Queen of the Walkabout Joined: 15 Jan 2004 Posts: 1167

Your horse looks like one I bottle fed who lost her mama, she turned into 16 hands of chestnut beauty with an attitude. I sold her when I left to go to college.
I love the old cabins, the old homesteads that you run across out there, just waiting still for someone to appreciate them, all the while nature labors to restore homeostasis.

Lovely area and lovely pics!!
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You can rest when you're dead

paintninaz · Joined: 06 Jan 2003 Posts: 3515

Hikngrl · Posted: 9/10/2006, 9:17 pm Post subject:

Me too! Me too! Multi

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~~~Diane~~~

I want to shine!

desertgirl · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 3350 Location: Chandler, AZ

Me 3 ....
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