Rock Cairns by the Side of the Road

When I got out of the car to take a photo of the Route 66 sign I noticed there were several rock cairns by the side of the road.

It was quite a surprise for me because up to then I've only known rock cairns as a help to find your way on hiking trails through rough and wild country. There wasn't a hiking trail here and I wondered why they were here. Obviously someone or several people had set them up, but for what reason? Were they some kind of alternative trail markers? Or are they used as some kind of communication?

When I googled "rock cairns" I found that there is even a poll whether one should knock over rock cairns or not. The short article also held some interesting information about legal and illegal rock cairns. There was a reference to the book "Cairns: Messengers in Stone" by David Williams. Here I learned that they can mark a grave, serve as an altar or shrine, reveal property boundaries or sacred hunting grounds, and even predict astronomical activity.

They seem to come from the Himalaya and can be found in different terrain (even in the moors of Scotland). The book sounds quite interesting to me and I've put it on my Amazon wish list. This seems to be too good to pass up.

The Inuit of the Arctic are said to have more than two dozen terms to describe cairns and their uses. That reminds me of the inukshuk in Canada - one even was the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC. When we went up the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia two years ago, we found a small inukshuk on a driftwood log at the beach.

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The inukshuk is available in my Etsy store

as a photo greeting card.

Check it out if you like!

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Mailboxes in the Middle of Nowhere

Route 66 in Northwestern Arizona is a pretty lonely road. Except for the tiny town of Oatman and its burros you seldom meet someone. The road goes up and down through rugged country and mountains until it flattens out into uninviting landscape. Dirt and some tough vegetation - and this:

There aren't any homes to see, no driveways except for dust roads that seem to go on unto the horizon. You really wonder where these mailboxes belong to.

Layered with kk_isobel that I first rotated 

and then blended in hard light at 42%; texture brushed away from mailboxes

Since it was December there were long shadows - I couldn't resist stopping here and taking some photos.

Some of the mailboxes were quite rusty which made me wonder how long they have already been here that they are in this condition in such a dry climate as this one.

Although rather late, I'm linking up to Kim's "Texture Tuesday".

Burro Fence

We had been warned!

We were driving along Route 66 when we came upon this sign by the side of the road. "How cute!", we thought.

A few miles later, we landed here:  (be prepared for tons of pictures)

Welcome to Oatman, Arizona, the burro capital (of Arizona? the Southwest? the USA? the world?)

Of course we had to stop and take a closer look! It took us some time to drive through the tiny town because of the burros who don't get out of the way just because a car wants to pass them. No way!! At the end of the town we found a parking lot, left the car and went to meet the burros.

Although they are wild and we were warned that they bite and kick they never did. All they wanted was the alfalfa that you could buy in paper bags and feed to them. Kaefer carried the bag and therefore she was very popular with the burros.

What about a beautiful burro ear?

And here is the only fence I could find in Oatman, Arizona. Honestly, I only saw it when I looked at the photos back home - when I was there I was actually looking at the burro who didn't join the craze in the road. She probably already had her share of alfalfa!

The animals were curious and wanted to explore the Geek's camera (and he took some great close-ups!)

The burro bar...

Some of the smaller burros had little signs on their heads telling people not to feed them. Here's the reason why:

A different kind of - fence?

I guess the shop owners were a bit annoyed about the people who fed the burros in front of their store and the bits of alfalfa that were lying around (and other burro "gifts" as well probably).

This is Flapjack, the only male burro in town. He must have a good life... He was pretty sassy, but very cute as well.

I'm linking up with Theresa's "Good Fences" and Eileen's "Saturday Critters".