Images Arizona (October 2026) by Images Arizona Magazine

OCTOBER 2026

PROUDLY SERVING THESE COMMUNITIES: DC Ranch Country Club l Desert Highlands Golf Club Grayhawk Golf Club l Happy Valley Ranch l McDowell Mountain Pinnacle Peak Country Club l Scottsdale National Golf Club Silverleaf Country Club l Troon North Golf Club and surrounding area October 2 0 2 6

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Travel Designed With Expertise

Meet your trusted luxury travel advisor and explore curated worldwide journeys.

TRENDS IN 2027:

Paula DeDario-Martori Luxury Travel Advisor, CTC For�more�than�40�years,�I’ve�built�my�career� across�some�of�the�world’s�leading�cruise�

lines,�from�Princess�to�Royal�Viking,�Cunard,�

Shoulder season is becoming the new peak season. Milestone and multigenerational travel are reshaping the calendar, with celebratory events evolving into multi-day journeys.

It’s never too early to plan.

SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR NEXT TRIP:

Seabourn,�Regent,�and�Crystal.�Today,�as�an�

Sail�on�a�river�less�traveled� AmaWaterways�in�Colombia.

Independent�Travel�Advisor�and�former�owner� of�The�Carefree�Traveler,�I�craft��intimate,�

Slip�away�to�the�French�Countryside Barge�journeys�with�no�more�than� 12�guests�through�the�canals�of� Alsace,�Champagne�and�Burgundy.

personalized�journeys—small-ship�cruises,� river�and�expedition�travel,�and�distinctive�

land�experiences�tailored�to�each�traveler’s�

interests�and�celebrations.�Truly�exceptional�

FREE�First�Class�Air� On�all-inclusive�Regent�Seven�Seas� Cruises�in�Alaska,�the�Caribbean,� and�Canada/New�England. Book�by�Oct�31,�2026.*

travel�is�never�one-size-ﬁts-all.

As�a�member�of�Signature�Travel�Network,� I�can�oﬀer�added�amenities�just�for�you!� For�an�unforgettable�travel�experience,� call�or�email�me:

Tall-ship�elegance�meets�private� yacht SEA�CLOUD-�Complimentary� upgrade�on�select�voyages. Book�by�Oct�31,�2026.*

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paula@carefreetraveler.com Scottsdale office by appointment

Cruise�the�Galápagos�Islands� With�National�Geographic�at�the� helm,�year-round.

*Restrictions�may�apply.

Experience�a�luxurious�Tuscan�Villa�� With�private�cooking�classes�and� curated�local�excursions. October 2 0 2 6

October 2 0 2 6

2026-2027 Concert Season

Joshua Henry | 2/15

Jeremy Jordan | 1/14

Direct from Las Vegas Frankie Moreno: Elivs for a Day | 11/9

Starring Tony Award Winner Paulo Szot 10/23 - 10/25 at the Herberger Theater Center

Postmodern Jukebox | 3/13

Kristin Chenoweth | 2/5 & 2/6

The Sixties Show | 11/20

Justin Hayward | 4/4

American Voices | 11/15

NORTH SCOTTSDALE’S PREMIER CONCERT DESTINATION

50+ CONCERTS FROM OCTOBER – APRIL 480.422.8449 | AZMUSICFEST.ORG

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WHAT 'S INSIDE

THE MOVEMENT MAKERS

HOME WATERS

PHOTO ESSAY

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CANYON MYSTERIES

SON OF THE WEST

RECIPE

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Photography by Bryan Black

FROM THE PUBLISHER

There is a morning in early October when the air changes. Not dramatically — a few degrees, a softness at the edges of the light — but enough that doors and windows shut since May are suddenly open again. We feel it across the Valley’s northern edge, from the washes of Cave Creek to the ridgelines above Anthem to the patios of North Scottsdale. Summer asks us to retreat, and we do, gracefully. October asks us to come back out. The calendar answers. Gallery walls fill with new work. Stages light up. Neighbors who spent the summer somewhere cooler return with stories, and the trailheads gather their early-morning regulars again. Markets, festivals and long dinners outdoors all arrive together, as if the desert had been saving them. This is the season we wait for all year. So take the longer route home. Linger over the second cup of coffee. Say yes to the invitation you would have declined in July. Welcome back. We’re glad you’re here. Cheers! Shelly Spence Publisher, Images Arizona

PUBLISHER Shelly Spence MANAGING EDITOR Joseph J. Airdo GRAPHIC DESIGNER Meaghan Mitchell CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Joseph J. Airdo, Francine Coles, Shannon Severson PHOTOGRAPHERS Francine Coles, Loralei Lazurek ADVERTISING SALES Cindi Calcinari 860-966-3271 cindi@imagesaz.com IMAGES ARIZONA P.O. Box 1416, Carefree, AZ. 85377 623-341-8221 shelly@imagesaz.com imagesarizona.com

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Submission of news for community section should be in to shelly@imagesaz.com by the 5th of the month prior to publication. Images Arizona is published by ImagesAZ Inc. Copyright © 2026 by ImagesAZ, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction, in whole or part, without permission is prohibited. The publisher is not responsible for the return of unsolicited material.

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MELINDA RISK / SABOO FINE JEWELS ALEXANDER LAUT / ALESSA JEWELRY

OCTOBER 15–17

Wine and hors d’oeuvre Thursday from 4–7 p.m. Friday and Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

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Discover the distinctive artistry of Melinda Risk, Saboo Fine Jewels, Alexander Laut, and Alessa Jewelry—four unique perspectives on jewelry as personal storytelling, blending exceptional craftsmanship, heritage, and imaginative design.

ITALIAN WEEKEND LA DOLCE VITA IN GOLD .. .. .. ..

OCTOBER 22–24

Wine and hors d’oeuvre Thursday from 4–7 p.m. Friday and Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

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Italian Weekend celebrates seven of Italy’s most celebrated fine jewelry houses, showcasing distinctive regional traditions, innovative craftsmanship, and extraordinary Italian design.

COLOR AND COCKTAILS: SAPPHIRES, EMERALDS AND RUBIES, OH MY!!! .. ..

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Cocktails and hors d’oeuvre Thursday from 4–7 p.m..

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Discover the extraordinary world of David Gross jewelry, featuring rare colored gemstones and oneof-a-kind designs. Explore exquisite sapphires, emeralds, rubies, and bespoke jewels where exceptional craftsmanship meets timeless luxury.

Historic Spanish Village | 7212 E. Ho Hum Rd. # 7, Carefree, AZ | 480.575.8080 | GraceReneeGallery.com

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SUTRA JEWELS WARMTH AND DEPTH

NOVEMBER 20–21

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Friday 10 a.m.–7 p.m. // Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Sutra Jewels showcases bold, romantic designs featuring rose-cut diamonds, vivid sapphires and rubies, and sculptural 18-karat gold. Discover distinctive pieces created to move beautifully with the body.

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Grace Renee Gallery is a refreshingly beautiful way to explore fine contemporary art in the breathtaking shadows of the Sonoran Desert foothills of Carefree, Arizona. Artfully designed jewelry, inspiring sculptures, spectacular wall art, stunning ceramics and more await.

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ST YLE

THE MOVEMENT MAKERS Seven Italian Houses Bring Kinetic Writer Joseph J. Airdo

Gold and Color to Carefree

A length of 18-karat gold slides over a wrist, tightens and settles — no clasp, no catch, nothing holding it in place but the metal’s own memory of how to bend. It took a Vicenza workshop decades, several patents and at least four distinct engineering solutions to make jewelry move like that. This October, all four of those solutions will sit in the same room in Carefree. Grace Renee Gallery’s Italian Weekend, running Oct. 22–24, brings together seven of Italy’s most recognized fine jewelry houses for three days under one roof. Four of them — FOPE, Mattia Cielo, Roberto Coin and Peruffo

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— already anchor the gallery’s standing jewelry program. The other three, Roberto Demeglio, Giovanni Ferraris and Chiarelli Milano, are new to Carefree, chosen deliberately by owner Shelly Spence and jewelry curator Natasha Lazarova to sit alongside them. “We didn’t want seven houses that all say the same thing,” Spence says. “We wanted a weekend that shows people what Italian goldsmithing actually looks like right now — not one idea of luxury, but several, sitting next to each other so you can feel the difference.”

The gallery’s storefront sits in Carefree’s Spanish Village, in the Sonoran Desert foothills, home to both Spence’s contemporary art program and the fine jewelry line Lazarova has spent years building house by house. Italian Weekend is the first time she’s assembled this many at once. The concentration itself is worth pausing on. Nearly two-thirds of Europe’s gold jewelry is made in Italy, and roughly a third of that comes out of Vicenza alone — a city so associated with the standard that it’s long been known specifically for 18-karat gold, the karatage behind FOPE’s Flex’it and most of the Vicenza houses in this show. Valenza, in Piedmont on the opposite side of the country, runs a different specialty: more than 1,500 goldsmithing firms there handle the bulk of the fine gemstones Italy imports, which is exactly the terrain Ferraris and Chiarelli Milano work from. Underneath both towns is the same apprenticeship model — skill handed from bench to bench, often inside one family for generations — which is why four of the seven houses in this show can each trace their name back to a father, grandfather or founding partner who was already working gold before the current label went up. That difference starts with engineering — and, in FOPE’s case, with nearly a century of practice at it. Founded in Vicenza in 1929 and still run by three generations of the Cazzola family, the house had already spent decades solving mechanical problems in gold before it patented

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We didn’t want seven houses that all say the same thing. We wanted a weekend that shows people what Italian goldsmithing actually looks like right now — not one idea of luxury, but several, sitting next to each other so you can feel the difference. Shelly Spence

Flex’it in 2007, the technology that lets 18-karat mesh stretch and release without a clasp. The 1985 Novecento chain, a woven mesh design, was an earlier attempt at the same instinct. Mattia Cielo, founded in 2006 by a jeweler born into one of Italy’s own prominent jewelry families but trained himself in commerce rather than at the bench, borrows from aerospace engineering, building coiling memory-alloy cores that let a piece move independently of the wearer’s own motion.

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Roberto Demeglio, working out of Torino on a family goldsmithing lineage that dates to 1922, solves the same problem differently: a patented stretch-coil system combining gold, ceramic and precision metal that lets bracelets twist and slide onto the wrist without losing their shape. And Peruffo — the current identity of Fratelli Bovo, a Vicenza house founded in 1977 and now led by second-generation CEO Enrico Peruffo, a cousin of the founding Bovo brothers — skips gemstones

entirely, building sculptural gold forms out of articulated, moving elements instead. “Four houses, four completely different mechanisms, and none of them borrowed from each other,” Lazarova says. “That’s what tells you it’s a real engineering problem worth solving, not a gimmick one brand happened to land on.” Roberto Coin sits at something of a hinge point. Also rooted in Vicenza’s goldsmithing tradition — Coin founded his company there in 1977, after an earlier career as a hotelier, and launched his eponymous label in 1996 — his signature isn’t mechanical at all. Every piece conceals a ruby somewhere in its structure, visible only to the person wearing it. The house produces more than 600 new designs a year and sells through over 1,000 retailers worldwide, yet the ruby stays a private detail rather than a marketed one. “It’s the opposite instinct from Flex’it or a coil system,” Lazarova says. “Nobody needs to see it work. You just need to know it’s there.” Where the Vicenza houses build identity around mechanism, Giovanni Ferraris and Chiarelli Milano build theirs around color and story. Ferraris has worked from the goldsmithing district of Valenza since 1985, alongside his wife and co-designer, Katia Olivucci, favoring large-format colored gemstones set into bold dome and cocktail rings meant to be seen across a room. His recent Riflessi collection clusters marquise, teardrop, cabochon and

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“Jessica isn’t asking a piece to be a technical marvel,” Spence says. “She’s asking it to mean something specific to the person wearing it, the same way a great painting means something specific to the person who bought it. That’s exactly the kind of thinking we look for on the art side of this gallery, and it’s why she belongs on the jewelry side too.”

round-cut stones — sapphires, tourmalines, a full range of color — into pieces built less around a single showpiece gem than around the interplay of several at once. “Ferraris is doing something almost architectural with color,” Lazarova says. “Most designers pick one great stone and build around it. He’s arranging several the way you’d arrange notes in a chord.” Chiarelli Milano is the newest name in the lineup by decades. Jessica Nasr founded the house in 2020 after years spent living abroad, returning to Italy and to her family’s roots to build a brand where the jewelry itself carries her own story — journeys, migration, the layered identity of someone who left home and came back changed. Every piece is still handcrafted by artisans in Valenza.

That refusal to separate the two conversations — serious art gallery, serious jewelry destination, neither one subordinate to the other — is what Spence built Grace Renee Gallery around, and it’s the same instinct driving this particular weekend. Seven houses, four Italian cities, one shared goldsmithing tradition pulled in at least two directions at once: toward mechanism and toward meaning. By the time a visitor leaves the gallery Oct. 24, they’ll have handled gold that flexes, gold that coils, gold that hides a ruby and gold that simply refuses to sit still. There was never only one right way to make a piece of jewelry move — or to make someone want to wear it. gracereneegallery.com

ITALIAN WEEKEND

Oct. 22–24 // 10 a.m.–5 p.m. (Thursday 4–7 p.m.) Grace Renee Gallery // 480-575-8080 // gracereneegallery.com

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Italian Weekend // Oct. 22–24

COMMUNIT Y

OCTOBER 2026

Editor’s Picks ACROSS MEDIUMS Through Nov. 30

Three very different visual languages share one roof at Holland Center: Margit Kagerer’s geometric art quilts in saturated, color-blocked improvisation, Diane Huff’s layered mixed-media abstractions and Pamela Fingerhut’s surreal nature photography, where insects and wilting blooms perch atop the human form. The show opens with a reception Oct. 9. // hollandcenter.org

CARLOS PAGE STUDIO AND GALLERY Oct. 15 // 4–7 p.m.

Carlos Page Studio and Gallery opens its new season with drinks, hors d’oeuvres and two guest artists: painter Craig Terry, whose large-scale mixed-media canvases explore texture and erasure, and jeweler Chad Lieske, known for turquoise-set bolo ties and sterling silver work. Their pieces remain on view through Nov. 13, alongside Page’s own sculpture, painting and pottery. // carlospage.com

ARIZONA MUSICFEST: MAN OF LA MANCHA Oct. 23–25

Musicfest steps outside its usual Scottsdale sanctuaries for this concert,

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co-producing a fully staged Man of La Mancha with the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix. Tony winner Paulo Szot leads as Cervantes/ Don Quixote in the Broadway classic built around “The Impossible Dream,” with a full weekend of performances anchoring the run and tickets starting at $79.50. It’s a rare pairing of Musicfest’s orchestral resources with the Herberger’s theatrical stage. // azmusicfest.org

ITALIAN WEEKEND: FOPE, MATTIA CIELO, ROBERTO COIN, ROBERTO DEMEGLIO, GIOVANNI FERRARIS, PERUFFO & CHIARELLI MILANO Oct. 22–24 Grace Renee Gallery gathers seven of Italy’s most recognized fine jewelry houses, each rooted in a distinct regional goldsmithing tradition. FOPE and Mattia Cielo, both of Vicenza, engineer flexible 18-karat gold that moves without clasps. Roberto Coin conceals a signature ruby in every piece. Roberto Demeglio pairs gold with titanium and ceramic in stretch bracelets. Giovanni Ferraris builds bold gemstone cocktail rings. Peruffo, of Vicenza’s Fratelli Bovo workshop, contributes sculptural gold forms. Chiarelli Milano’s Venezuelan-Italian designer Jessica Nasr brings a storytelling sensibility drawn from nature and heritage. // gracereneegallery.com

ARIZONA MUSICFEST: REVISITING CREEDENCE Oct. 30 // 7:30 p.m.

Musicfest closes out its October concert slate back on its home turf at Highlands Church with Revisiting Creedence, a high-energy tribute built around the swamp-rock catalog of Creedence Clearwater Revival — “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising” and the rest of the hits that defined a generation’s soundtrack. One night only, with tickets starting at $57 and the kind of crowd-pleasing setlist that closes a season on its feet. // azmusicfest.org

“WOOF!” SCULPTURE ENLIVENS THOMPSON PEAK DOG PARK

Scottsdale Public Art has installed “Woof!,” six brightly colored aluminum panels by Arizona artist Shachi Kale, at Thompson Peak Dog Park. The piece depicts a range of dogs in playful poses, with cutout shapes casting canine shadows across the park. Kale named the work for her own rescue dog. // scottsdalearts.org

Calendar Directory ARTS & CULTURE

THROUGH EACH OTHER’S EYES: A PHOTOGRAPHY SEMINAR WITH JOEL GRIMES, SCOTT BAXTER & JEFF KIDA Oct. 3 // 9 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Three acclaimed photographers lead a seminar on their craft at Western Spirit Museum, with tickets at $75. // teoe.org

DELICATELY DRAWN: ALEXANDRA BOWERS AND MATTHEW HUNT Oct. 6–Dec. 31

Painter Alexandra Bowers and jeweler Matthew Hunt share a free exhibition at the Civic Center Public Gallery. // scottsdalearts.org

JOEL SARTORE: AN ARCC TOWARD A BETTER FUTURE Oct. 16 // 5–8 p.m. Wildlife photographer Joel Sartore,

creator of National Geographic’s Photo Ark project, headlines this benefit evening at the Phoenix Zoo, with tickets ranging $125–$175. // phoenixzoo.org

LARSEN ART AUCTION Oct. 17 // 10 a.m.

Larsen Gallery hosts its signature live art auction. // larsenartauction.com

MUSIC & PERFORMANCE PHOENIX CHORALE: LIFE, LOVE, AND LIGHT Oct. 11 // 3 p.m.

Phoenix Chorale performs a program

THEATRE ARTISTS STUDIO: THIS Oct. 18–Nov. 3 Theatre Artists Studio stages the drama “THIS.” // thestudiophx.org

FAMILY & COMMUNITY

SPOOKTACULAR HOT AIR BALLOON FESTIVAL Oct. 23–25 // 5–9 p.m.

Hot air balloons light up the night sky at Salt River Fields, with tickets from $17. // saltriverfields.com

CAMELOT STARRY KNIGHTS: BOOTS, BUCKLES, AND BELLY LAUGHS Oct. 23 // 6–9:30 p.m.

SEDONA AIRPORT WINGS & WHEELS ’26 Oct. 10 // 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Vintage aircraft and classic cars fill

the tarmac at Sedona Airport, with $2 admission. // sedonaairport.org

35TH ANNUAL SEDONA ARTS FESTIVAL Oct. 10–11 // 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Sat, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Sun

Juried artists from across the country exhibit fine art and crafts at Sedona

Red Rock High School for the festival’s 35th anniversary, with $5 admission. // sedonaartsfestival.org

Camelot Ranch hosts a Western-themed evening of comedy and entertainment, benefiting the ranch’s therapeutic

horsemanship programs. // camelotaz.org

TRAVEL

PRESCOTT AREA ARTIST STUDIO TOUR Oct. 2–4 // 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Seventy-four artists open 52 private studios and three art centers across the Prescott area for this free, self-guided tour. // prescottstudiotour.com

ARIZONA WINE COUNTRY ARTISTS VILLAGE Oct. 9–11 // 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Fri– Sat, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Sun

SMOCA NAMES CHRISTINA BRUNGARDT NEW DIRECTOR Scottsdale Arts has named Dr. Christina Brungardt director of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, effective Aug. 31. Brungardt previously served as director of institutional giving at Houston’s Alley Theatre and led the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin. // smoca.org

Juried artists sell original work at this outdoor market in Old Town

Cottonwood’s wine country. // artistsvillage.com

exploring life, love and light at Camelback Bible Church, with tickets from $25. // phoenixchorale.org

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TR AVEL

CANYON MYSTERIES Where Legend Meets Stone

Writer Joseph J. Airdo Black + White Photography Courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park Service

Every evening, the same performance plays out along the rim: the light drains out of the canyon in long amber sheets, the crowds thin, and a handful of visitors linger past the point where the guidebooks stop talking. They drift toward a small stone marker behind a parking lot, or stand at an overlook where a honeymoon once ended without an ending, or picture a stubborn gray burro somewhere on a snowbound ridge, holding out against men who might not let him see spring. Since its dedication as a national park in 1919, the Grand Canyon has drawn visitors for its vistas — but it has just as steadily collected a second kind of record, one kept not by geologists but by rangers, hotel staff and the travelers who linger after the tour buses pull away. These are the canyon’s mysteries: three stories, each holding at least a thread of

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truth, each proof that Arizona’s crown jewel guards as much as it reveals.

THE HARVEY GIRL WHO NEVER WAS Walk past El Tovar Hotel’s parking area today and you’ll still find it: a weathered stone marker reading “Pirl A. Ward, 1934,” tucked into a small grove of trees a few dozen steps from the hotel’s front doors. Opened in 1905 as one of the original Fred Harvey Company hotels along the Santa Fe Railway, El Tovar has welcomed guests ranging from Theodore Roosevelt to Albert Einstein — and, if the stories are true, has kept a few of them long after checkout. The marker has spawned one of the South Rim’s most persistent ghost stories: that of a doomed Harvey Girl, one of the crispuniformed hostesses who staffed the company’s hotels, said to have died an untimely death and never left. Visitors and

hotel staff alike report a black-shrouded figure gliding past the marker on moonlit nights before vanishing behind the Hopi House. The truth is stranger for being more ordinary. The marker is a cenotaph — a monument with no body beneath it — and accounts of who Ward actually was don’t agree with each other, let alone with the ghost story. Some describe him as a cowboy passing through; others as a laborer who spent years working construction around the hotel before his death in 1934. He rests hundreds of miles away in Artesia, California, regardless of which story is true. Ward isn’t El Tovar’s only resident specter. A second legend has attached itself to the hotel’s founder: each Christmas, guests report an older gentleman in old-fashioned dress inviting them to the season’s festivities, seemingly unaware that Fred Harvey has been dead since 1901. Between Ward’s marker and Harvey’s holiday visitations, the hotel has spent more than a century proving that a good story outlives the facts that inspired it — and outdraws them, too.

WHEN WINTER CLAIMS ITS OWN The canyon’s mysteries aren’t limited to human tragedy. For roughly three decades, from about 1892 until 1922, a gray burro named Brighty wandered the inner canyon and the North Rim, named for Bright Angel Creek, where he spent his summers. He carried water for tourists, let children ride on his back, and by most accounts tolerated nearly anyone who arrived with a pancake in hand. He is even said to have crossed paths with President Theodore Roosevelt during one of Roosevelt’s own canyon visits — the kind of encounter that made Brighty as much a local celebrity as a working animal.

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The Grand Canyon has spent more than a century being explained and it has spent every bit as long declining to explain itself completely.

Brighty’s fame outlasted him by decades. A 1922 “Sunset” magazine article by former North Rim camp manager Thomas McKee — titled “Brighty, Free Citizen” — introduced him to a wider audience, and three decades later, author Marguerite Henry turned his story into a children’s novel. Henry didn’t take McKee’s word for it: she traveled from her home in Illinois to interview park rangers and wranglers and rode a mule into the canyon herself before publishing “Brighty of the Grand Canyon” in 1953, adapted for the screen in 1967. According to canyon legend, that same winter of 1922 was also his last. A man fleeing into the canyon is said to have encountered Brighty and, lonely in the season’s quiet, been followed by him up toward the North Rim. When a blizzard trapped the fugitive and a second stranded traveler together in a small cabin for months on end, the story goes, hunger eventually settled the standoff between them — and Brighty didn’t survive the spring.

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Nor, nearly, did his memorial. A bronze statue of Brighty had stood inside the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim since 1966, his muzzle worn bright by generations of visitors rubbing it for luck. The statue’s popularity later became entangled in a real fight over the canyon’s feral burro population, one that eventually led wildlife officials to airlift hundreds of the animals out rather than let them multiply unchecked. Then, in July 2025, the lightningsparked Dragon Bravo Fire tore through the North Rim, destroying the historic lodge along with dozens of other structures. Brighty survived — barely, with broken legs and a hole where his pedestal had been — and was moved to the South Rim, a century-old legend now standing somewhere he never stood in life.

THE HONEYMOONERS WHO VANISHED Perhaps no canyon mystery captivates quite like that of Glen and Bessie Hyde. The newlyweds set out from Green River, Utah, in the fall of 1928, hoping Bessie would become

the first woman to run the length of the Colorado River through the canyon while setting a speed record along the way. They stopped at the South Rim in mid-November to resupply and visited photographer Emery Kolb’s studio, where Bessie is said to have remarked to Kolb’s young daughter that she wondered whether she would ever wear pretty shoes again. Days later, the Hydes vanished. Searchers found their scow drifting near river mile 237 in December, upright, fully packed and empty. The mystery deepened nearly 50 years later. When Kolb died in 1976, his family cleared out his boathouse and found a human skeleton with a bullet wound to the skull, tucked away and forgotten. Speculation immediately ran toward Glen — and toward Kolb himself, who had once questioned the Hydes’ lack of life jackets and was now unable to answer for what he had been keeping. It wasn’t until 2008, when donated photographs linked the remains to an unrelated 1933 suicide near Shoshone Point that Kolb had once investigated as a coroner’s jury representative, that Glen’s name was finally cleared. Glen and Bessie themselves were never found. More than one woman has claimed over the decades to be Bessie, grown old and living quietly under another name — none of the claims have held up, but each has kept the case in the news a little longer. Their disappearance has since inspired its own small library, from Brad Dimock’s “Sunk Without a Sound” to a novel and multiple documentary treatments, proof that some canyon mysteries are still being solved — or at least still being told. By the time the last light drains from the canyon each evening, the ghost stories are usually just getting started. A marker that guards no grave. A burro who outlived the roof that once sheltered his statue, if only barely. Two honeymooners who never came home, and a boat that did. The Grand Canyon has spent more than a century being explained — geologically, historically, exhaustively — and it has spent every bit as long declining to explain itself completely.

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TR AVEL

HOME WATERS Bartlett Lake // Photographer Jeff Shewan

Two Lakes Within Reach of the North Valley

By nine on a Saturday morning, the boat ramps are already busy, trailers backed halfway into blue water while paddleboards get lifted off truck beds and coolers get wedged under bow seats. Within the hour, all of it will be scattered across open water, framed by desert mountains that don’t look like they should have a lake at their feet. That’s the scene most weekends at two of the closest lakes to the North Valley — close enough from Anthem, Cave Creek, Carefree or North Scottsdale that a morning coffee and an afternoon on the water fit easily into the same day. Bartlett Lake tends to be the shorter drive for Cave Creek, Carefree and North Scottsdale readers alike, while Lake Pleasant sits closest to Anthem, a short run west on Carefree Highway. Between the two lakes, there are nearly 26,000 acres of water, and depending on which of the three communities a reader calls home, one or the other is almost always the more convenient option. The two lakes

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Writer Shannon Severson

fall under different management, too — Bartlett within Tonto National Forest, Pleasant as a Maricopa County regional park — which explains why their amenities and rules differ slightly from one shoreline to the next. Bartlett Lake creates a striking contrast of blue water against rugged mountain vistas, its 2,815 acres erupting into wildflower displays each spring — a bloom that typically peaks in March and April, drawing photographers as much as boaters. The family-run marina rents everything from jet skis to stand-up paddleboards, plus a two-story, 45-foot pontoon yacht that accommodates 20 passengers. The Cove at Bartlett serves a signature Copper State Burger topped with prickly pear chutney, and the marina’s boat club membership offers access to 14 different vessels without the commitment of ownership — a model that has made Bartlett one of the more approachable lakes in the Valley for first-time boaters.

Bartlett Lake // Photographer Kelly DeLay

West of Bartlett, Lake Pleasant Regional Park spans 23,000 acres framed by rugged desert mountains — roughly eight times the size of Bartlett, leaving plenty of open water even on a busy weekend — and offers everything from paddleboard yoga to nighttime scorpion hunting and stargazing. Below the surface lies one of the West’s premier inland scuba destinations, where the original Waddell Dam rests 260 feet deep alongside forgotten structures. Pleasant Harbor and Scorpion Bay marinas offer watercraft rentals and experiences ranging from hydroflying to overnight stays in floating cabins, plus Paqua Park, a floating obstacle course for thrillseekers. Daily boat cruises and dinner cruises round out the no-hassle options for a day on the water.

Lake Pleasant // Photographer John Menard

Both lakes get crowded by midday on summer weekends, so an early start or a weekday visit rewards early risers with calmer water and easier parking at either marina. Two lakes, one short drive each — Bartlett for wildflowers and pontoon afternoons, Pleasant for scuba dives into sunken history and nights spent hunting scorpions under the stars. Neither requires more planning than a full tank of gas and a cooler; the hardest part of either trip is deciding which one to visit first, and there’s nothing stopping anyone from doing both.

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ARTS

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SON OF

Andrew Patrick Nelson Shapes Western Spirit’s New Era

THE WEST Writer Shannon Severson // Photographer Loralei Lazurek

Dusty trails, vermilion sunsets, shootouts and outlaws — the idea of the American West is a mix of truth and tall tales that shifts with changing times, but the fascination endures. Andrew Patrick Nelson, chief curator at Scottsdale’s Western Spirit Museum, has centered his life’s work on the art, culture and entertainment of a region that continues to hold people in thrall. Since 2024 he has led the museum’s efforts to present the art and myth of a complicated past and present, held in tension with artifacts, first-person accounts and historical documentation. Myth, in this case, isn’t a negative term. “Myths are the real stories we tell ourselves to answer questions or solve problems we are struggling with,” he says. “Science or philosophy haven’t come up with satisfying answers to everything. Stories about much of the West are some of the most powerful of the 19th and 20th centuries and still resonate. We need to take them seriously.” Nelson notes that Western art is not the same as Western history. Museums like this one tell the stories of the West through art. “Even art produced in the moment it was happening — influenced by the sensibilities of the day or the unconscious biases of the artist — is a reflection of the moment,” he says. “Art privileges the subjectivity and perspective of the artist; that’s what makes history so interesting.

Andrew Patrick Nelson, chief curator at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, is leading the institution’s first exhibitions in its new $12 million Louis Sands IV Center. October 2 0 2 6

Myths are the real stories we tell ourselves to answer questions or solve problems we are struggling with. Andrew Patrick Nelson

“I’m never trying to present the one true history of the American West. Here, we are telling the stories of the West through art. The facts are often not in dispute, but why it happened and why it matters — that is where the real energy of history lies. It’s less about one history than a set of competing historical arguments that change over time. “When you’re in a museum like this one, art forces you to confront multiple and sometimes contrasting perspectives. That tells us a lot about the richness of human experience and why the Western story is so compelling — not because it’s one story for everybody, but because it’s many stories.” Those stories have been touchstones throughout Canadianborn Nelson’s life. An academic, author and podcast host, he is now leading Western Spirit into the future with its new Louis Sands IV Center, a $12 million, 12,000-squarefoot expansion. “There was very little ‘cowboy’ about my upbringing except that I was in the West and it was part of the culture,” Nelson says of his suburban childhood in Calgary, Alberta, home of the Calgary Stampede. “Calgary has cowboys, cattle, oil, a certain kind of independence — the things we associate with the West.” He began watching Westerns as a film student at the University of Toronto, then earned a Ph.D. in film from the University of Exeter under the tutelage of pioneering British scholar Steve Neale. “Like so many sons of the West before me, I went east for education and, so enlightened, I returned to the West,” he says with a laugh. “There are many great British scholars who have written some of the most important critical work about Western movies. It was a wonderful place to learn about Westerns, genre cinema and Hollywood more generally.”

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Raised in Calgary, Alberta, Andrew Patrick Nelson counts himself among the “sons of the West” who left home for their education and returned — a journey that eventually led him to the chief curator’s post at Western Spirit.

His first museum experience came at Exeter’s Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, where he volunteered cataloging, archiving and teaching exhibition design to fellow students. That paved the way for future television appearances on the History Channel, PBS, NPR, Fox Nation, INSP, CBC and National Geographic. In the United States he taught film and photography at Montana State University (2013–2019), spent time as a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, and later chaired the film and media arts department at the University of Utah. “Once my academic career began, I received invitations from museums to give talks and program films,” he says. “I was fortunate to be the film advisor on a major show jointly produced by the Denver Art Museum and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. That work ultimately led to guest curating, including the first iteration of ‘Still in the Saddle’ at the Briscoe Western Art Museum in San Antonio.” His books, “Still in the Saddle: The Hollywood Western, 1969-1980” and “Contemporary Westerns: Film and Television since 1990,” became the foundation for Western Spirit’s current exhibition, “Still in the Saddle: A New History of the Hollywood Western,” an expansion of the 2015 Briscoe show. The exhibition was a natural fit for Western Spirit’s calendar once Nelson accepted the chief curator position. “I certainly received inquiries [from museums] over the years, but never as appealing as the opportunity here at Scottsdale,” he recalls. Part of the draw was the chance to curate his own exhibitions and help launch the Sands Center, which houses four galleries of Western American and American Indian art — painting, sculpture, jewelry and ceramics, many from the private collections of local museum donors.

with Los Angeles screenwriter and journalist Matthew Chernov. The pair met on Twitter (now X) and launched the show in February 2020. “After hearing Andrew deliver several talks at the Autry Museum, I knew he was an incredible speaker with an approachable style,” Chernov says. “He’s a genuine intellectual authority on Western film history, while I’m more of a passionate lifelong fan. Despite being a serious academic, Andrew has a sly, silly side just beneath the surface. He’s one of the smartest and least pretentious people I know.”

“It’s not often a curator finds themselves with the chance to build out a new expansion,” Nelson says. “In two years we launched 14 exhibitions — done to very high standards — with a remarkable team. It has resonated with our visitors.”

Chernov adds: “It might sound like a cliché, but Andrew was born for the job of chief curator at Western Spirit. The man has absorbed so much information about the West — from film and fine art to historical records about indigenous cultures — that I can’t imagine anyone else bringing the same depth of knowledge and appreciation. Combine that with his avuncular personality, and it’s a combination any Western museum would be lucky to have.”

“Still in the Saddle” is nearing the end of its yearlong run, supported by lectures, Sunday film screenings and curatorled private tours. The book also inspired Nelson’s longrunning podcast, “How the West Was ’Cast,” co-hosted

In the 6,000-square-foot exhibit, cowboys with thousandyard stares look down from the walls while the sound of galloping hooves and gunfire drifts from screens. Among the artifacts is a duster once worn by John Wayne and a

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corduroy suit Robert Redford wore in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” “It’s something you only experience on TV and suddenly it’s there — big as life in front of you,” Nelson says. “It’s incredibly meaningful to share the power of this art. It all comes down to the transcendent power of film.” The exhibition presents Western movies of every style and actors of every background, a testament to the West’s versatility as a backdrop for drama, comedy or commentary. It strikes a balance that nudges visitors without scolding, while still engaging difficult topics. “It’s important to meet people where they’re at,” Nelson says. “The tendency in the modern museum is to be more confrontational in trying to ‘correct’ people’s ideas. The worst thing you can do is welcome people by saying, ‘That thing you like? Here’s how it’s bad.’ That doesn’t mean those critiques aren’t valid, but that’s not how you educate people. We begin the hard conversations in a kind of middle ground.”

He emphasizes that the West has always been about contact, exchange, people coming together — and those who want to be left alone. “The West can be all of those things, and in art, it is. We celebrate the diversity of those artistic traditions. We welcome people who decide to spend time with us and we can provide some context.” In this way, Nelson is still teaching, just not in a conventional classroom. He and his family — a wife and teenage son — are enjoying life in Phoenix, and he is gratified by the community’s support as he plans future exhibitions. “The West is still a place where people feel like they can come and achieve something or become the person they were meant to be,” he says. “That mythical idea is still very much alive here. That spirit endures.” westernspirit.org

STILL IN THE SADDLE

A New History of the Hollywood Western Through Dec. 31 // Monday–Saturday: 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday: 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Western Spirit Museum // $28; discounts available // westernspirit.org

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480-881-562137

Simple Farm operates on Cactus Road in the middle of Scottsdale, opening its gates one morning a week for an on-site market and hand-milking its small Nubian herd twice daily — proof a working farm can still exist inside a major metro suburb. October 2 0 2 6

PHOTO ESSAY

ROOTS & RANGE Photographer Brenna Zumbro-Monke Instagram: @brennazumbro

Date Creek Ranch has raised cattle in the desert northwest of Wickenburg since 1966. Its herd is mostly Brahman — a breed built for heat, with loose skin and long legs, rather than the Angus common in cooler cattle states — and the ranch now runs entirely on solar power. October 2 0 2 6

PHOTO ESSAY

At Page Springs Cellars, punching down the cap of grape skins by hand keeps color and tannin moving into the wine during fermentation. The finished vintage won’t age in French or American oak — the winery uses staves cut from Arizona White Oak, a native species.

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At Rabbit Run Farm, every root that reaches a farmers market table comes out of the ground by hand — almost none of Arizona’s small organic farms harvest by machine.

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Rabbit Run Farm grows in Skull Valley, a high-desert grassland community west of Prescott sitting well above the Valley floor — cool enough that root vegetables like these carrots keep coming long after Phoenix gardens have given up for the season. October 2 0 2 6

PHOTO ESSAY

A newborn kid at Simple Farm in Scottsdale, part of the small Nubian herd whose milk becomes the farm’s chèvre, soap and caramel sauce.

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G R A C E

R E N E E

G A L L E R Y

NOVEMBER

ARTIST

Martin Blundell

CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE ARTIST

With bold color and gestural brush strokes, Martin’s contemporary landscape art is captivating and unique.

[

ARTIST RECEPTION Thursday, November 19 Wine & appetizers 4–7 p.m.

Grace Renee Gallery

]

Historic Spanish Village | 7212 E. Ho Hum Rd. # 7 | Carefree, AZ 85377 Hours: Tue.–Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. By appointment Sun. and Mon. 480.575.8080

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GraceReneeGallery.com

CONTEMPORARY

ART

GALLERY

CAREFREE

ARIZONA

ABOVE LEFT TO RIGHT :

LEFT PAGE :

“Alpine Aspens” 48” by 36”

“Clouds Over Blue Mesa” 48” by 48”

“Above Fields” 36” by 48”

Historic Spanish Village | 7212 E. Ho Hum Rd. # 7 | Carefree, AZ 85377 Hours: Tue.–Sat. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. By appointment Sun. and Mon. 480.575.8080

GraceReneeGallery.com

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TR AVEL

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TALL TALES Three Cochise County Towns Where Legend Never Dies

Writer Joseph J. Airdo

The billboards start showing up a hundred miles out, long before Cochise County itself comes into view — faded paint promising mystery, alien remains, the wickedest town in the West. By the time a driver actually arrives, the promises have mostly held up. Bisbee, Tombstone and Dragoon sit within an hour of each other in Arizona’s southeastern corner, three towns built on mining booms and gunfights and one very persistent roadside oddity, and each one has spent more than a century getting the story just a little bit taller in the retelling. Bisbee climbs the walls of the Mule Mountains instead of spreading across them, a legacy of its mining-boom days when there was no room left to build outward. That vertical layout is why the Bisbee 1000 exists at all: the race’s nine staircases were built by the Works Progress Administration during the Depression, put up specifically to give out-ofwork miners something to do, and runners still start at the foot of the Iron Man, a 9-foot, copper-plated concrete miner erected in the same era. The 2024 running marked the 33rd year of the event, held every October since 1990 and drawing entrants from around the world for a 4.5-mile

Bisbee // Photographer Eric Jewett October 2 0 2 6

course through Old Bisbee’s staircases and switchbacks. The Smithsonian-affiliated Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum and the underground Queen Mine Tour fill out a day; the weekly farmers market and monthly art walk fill out a weekend. Thirty minutes northeast, Tombstone has spent 145 years living up to its nickname, the Town Too Tough to Die. The 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral is reenacted daily on Allen Street, but the better story might be underground: the Bird Cage Theatre, a former saloon and brothel, kept a single poker game running continuously in its basement from 1881 to 1889 — eight and a half years, a $1,000 buy-

in worth roughly $27,000 today, with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and mining magnate George Hearst among the players who sat down. Helldorado Days, the town’s oldest festival, has marked Tombstone’s founding anniversary every October since 1929, filling Allen Street with parades and gunfight reenactments. Boot Hill Graveyard’s tonguein-cheek epitaphs round out an afternoon. East along I-10, Dragoon is barely a town at all — an unincorporated stretch of desert best known for the hundreds of billboards advertising The Thing?, a roadside museum built around a mummified mystery that’s been drawing curious drivers off the highway since 1965. The attraction underwent

Bisbee // Photographer A Guy Named Nyal

Tombstone // Photographer Mike McBey

Bisbee, Tombstone and Dragoon sit within an hour of each other and each one has spent more than a century getting the story just a little bit taller in the retelling. 48

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Dragoon // Photographer Cecilia Alexander

Dragoon // Photographer Dedhed1950

a major renovation in July 2026, adding life-sized alien and dinosaur exhibits without touching the original centerpiece, which still gets the same big reveal at the end of the walk-through it always has. History buffs willing to look past the aliens can visit the grave of outlaw Johnny Ringo nearby, whose death remains almost as disputed as anything on display at The Thing. Three towns, one highway corridor, and a shared talent for turning uncertain facts into a good story — Bisbee’s staircases, Tombstone’s ghosts, Dragoon’s aliens. None of it is entirely verifiable. All of it is worth the detour.

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RECIPE

Makes: 6 servings

Ingredients

For the spiced nuts, seeds and prosciutto: 1/2 cup (4 ounces) raw hazelnuts or pecans 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas) 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle 3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto (omit if vegetarian) 2 tablespoons honey Flaky sea salt FOR THE SALAD: 1 pound orzo pasta 4 cups shredded kale 2 cups shredded Brussels sprouts 2 Honeycrisp apples, thinly sliced 1/2 cup pomegranate arils 1 cup cubed Manchego cheese (or white cheddar) 4 ounces feta cheese, cubed or crumbled FOR THE CINNAMON CIDER VINAIGRETTE: 2 tablespoons salted butter 1 shallot, sliced or chopped 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves 1/2 cup apple cider 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil 2 teaspoons honey (optional) Salt and black pepper Chili flakes

FALL HARVEST APPLE ORZO SALAD

Writer and Photographer Francine Coles thefancypantskitchen.com

This bountiful fall salad layers hearty orzo pasta with crisp Honeycrisp apples, kale and shredded Brussels sprouts, then folds in Manchego and feta for richness. A brown butter dressing scented with apple cider and cinnamon ties everything together, while pomegranate arils, spiced nuts and crispy prosciutto add color, crunch and a touch of smoky sweetness. It’s substantial enough for a fall dinner table yet light enough to keep guests coming back for seconds.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 2. On the prepared baking sheet, toss together the hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, butter, smoked paprika and ground chipotle, then spread in a single layer. Arrange the prosciutto around the nuts and seeds. Bake 10 minutes, until the nuts and seeds are toasted and the prosciutto is crisp. 3. Drizzle honey over the baking sheet and return to the oven 5 minutes longer. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and let cool completely, then break the prosciutto into bite-size pieces. 4. Meanwhile, cook the orzo according to package directions and drain. 5. In a large salad bowl, combine the kale, Brussels sprouts and warm orzo. Add the apples and pomegranate arils. 6. To make the vinaigrette, cook the butter, shallot and thyme in a skillet over medium heat until the butter is browned, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the apple cider and cinnamon. Return to high heat and boil 5 minutes, until reduced by half. Whisk in the olive oil, honey, salt, pepper and chili flakes, tasting and adjusting seasoning as needed. 7. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss to combine. Top with the toasted nuts and seeds, prosciutto, Manchego and feta before serving.

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