"Wire!". I stopped, stood still to listen. "Hey Rick, come over here! !". The note of excitement in Tom's voice was really electrifying. It was a Monday morning and our first full day of hunting for insulators since arriving at the site yesterday evening. Tom and Lynda Katonak and myself were looking forward to a great time of insulator hunting in the great outdoors on a portion of the early telegraph line serving the Army forts in Arizona.

And Then There Were Three 

This trip had been in the planning stages for many, many months. We had originally planned to do it in the week following the National, but because of various conflicts, it was moved to the preceding week. Originally, by Tom's count, there were 14 individuals interested in going on the trip, but as the time grew closer, that number dwindled down further and further. On "I" day [Insulator Day] minus 2, Tom called and said it was just the few, the proud... uh, just us three. "Oh well, that will leave more insulators for us" we joked, not imagining how prophetic that would be.

While I Was Waiting.. Er Hunting 

The rendezvous was to take place Sunday, July 14, 1996 in Globe, AZ, at 12:30 NM time. I arrived a tad early (OK a lot early, for I was eager). Anyway it was 12:30 when I arrived so I planned to hit the antique stores, but alas that didn't work out too well. Of the several I went to, two were closed, one was closing up and the other was in the process of moving to another location. Zilch! !###@@@%%** As I'm driving around town, I spy a mining museum (closed, of course), but there is some interesting mining equipment and machinery outside to look at. I idly look around and see...power poles with no wires. They are up on the hill behind the museum. Wondering if there are any nice power porcelain insulators up there, I climb the hill. Boy, what a climb! Slipping and sliding, and fighting thorny brush, I finally achieve the top of the hill. After much hiking along an old pipeline road, I end up finding two PINCO uniparts, one sky glaze and one brown out of the 10+ smashed ones.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to (Find) Camp We Go 

After recovering the two extremely valuable ($2-3 ea) unipart porcelain (U-762), I see it's about time to meet with Tom and Lynda. After this 2-1/2 hour jaunt, I'm covered with sweat, my legs are trembling with fatigue, blisters have started and I am dying of thirst. A bad case of insulator virus. There is no cure, so I just decide to let it run its course for the next four days.

We meet up at the arranged convenience store, gas up and head out. It's a long slow climb as we go and it's HOT, around 100 degrees or so.

We finally arrive at the area (after a couple of false starts). Traveling down the road, Tom stops his car, gets out and points out some weathered juniper cedar, posts...The Telegraph poles! Boy, I'm pumped again. We all get out and walk along the pole line and shortly find the wire. Tom finds me a tie wire and I cut it out with my fence pliers (an indispensable tool as we soon find out). My first artifact. Yee-ha! We walk a little farther along and then make camp out of the flood plain. 

We eat supper and unpack and then go for a short walk back along the pole line. We line up and walk back and forth. I look down on the ground and see something. Picking it up, it's the top quarter of an aqua EC&M. We're excited, and our short hike lasts 'til well after sunset and it becomes too dark to see. As we get ready to sleep, we look forward to tomorrow.

Our camp. Tom & Lynda slept in the tent,
I slept in my S-10 Blazer.

Now, Where is The Line? 

After a good night's sleep (no bears), we wake up Monday at dawn. It's very cloudy, which is good, but also very humid, which is not so good. After a breakfast of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (love that vitamin S), off we go full of high hopes.

The previous night we had determined that the line turned and headed up the valley we were camping at, so we travel the road that goes up the valley. We walk up the road about one-quarter mile or so and then turn right, hoping to find the line. Our assumptions are correct and we all stumble across it about the same time. We find the wire and just a little further up the hill an old graded road that is only about 5-6' wide. It must be the original road work done to follow and maintain the line. Undoubtedly, it was graded using animal power. My mind boggles at what it must have been like first building this line back in the 1870's.

At This Rate We'll Have... 

Now that we've found the line, we know where to concentrate our efforts looking for those EC&M's and blobs (CD126). We're so glad that it's only taken 15 minutes to find this unsearched section of line. Tom and I follow the line up hill while Lynda goes back the other way. The wire is in fairly long pieces, but it sometimes disappears and we go at right angles again to find it. Occasionally the wire is uphill from the army road, but mostly downhill as one would expect, presumable dragged by cows or elk, pulled over by falling trees and washed down by heavy downpours. 

Now to pick up where my story left off. I rush over to where Tom is, in some fairly thick brush. I can tell by the tone of his voice that Tom must have found something good. But I don't know just how good it is. Sure enough, in the middle of the brush and still in its tie wire is a glowing yellow green CD 126 blob in basically mint condition. What a rush that gave me. Tom was pretty excited, and he could barely stand still. We yell for Lynda to come and see it and snap a picture of it in situ. We wait about 10 minutes for her as she has gone really far the other way.

I Play Alice In Wonderland or
 follow the wire down the hole

After Tom liberates his find with my fence pliers (that most important insulator tool previously mentioned) we continue looking with renewed vigor. I must say I am a bit (OK a lot) envious of Tom's find. After about 15 minutes of looking and thinking,  I finally conquer my envy and get it out of my mind.

"Tom holding his CD 126 blobtop as it is still attached to the wire"

Lots of wire is found and we carefully follow it to the end only to find either a broken tie or the wire itself broken. As we folIow the road on its upward course, Tom goes ahead of Lynda and me. We find a tangle of wire and start following it, Lynda going back and myself going forward. My wire loops over and around itself and a few small shrubs and clumps of grass. I finally follow it to where it goes under a large clump of grass [bear grass?]. [tug hard on the wire and it moves a little but then stays stuck. I get out my hand weeding tool and probe along the wire... a funny scraping sound, It sounds like -- METAL RUBBING GLASS! Yow! I think that some time during this I let Lynda know I have something. Digging much more carefully around the wire, I unearth a hole and carefully tug the wire and ..YES!! It's a 126 blob, and it looks like something dark, No, not aqua, it looks like dark olive green. It's hard to say, I pull it out further to get a better look at it while Lynda yells at Tom to come here (he has the camera now). I'm so excited, and give Lynda a big hug as she congratulates me. Tom makes it back and takes my picture as I cut (with those ever handy fence pliers) my insulator free from the wire, And then I hold it up to the light and it's not olive green. it's a MINT OLIVE AMBER, All this happens before II :00 o'clock.

"I liberate my find from its wire.
Note the big clump of grass it was under."

Things slow down 

After these two finds, we start calculating how many more we will find over the next two days. It sprinkles some from the heavy clouds above us, but we don't mind. In fact it feels good and keeps us cool. I'd much more have a light rain than walk in the sun in AZ in July.

We walk along the old road and line until it crosses the current dirt road. We walk along the road and see scattered pieces of wire where it has been ripped apart when the road was graded. We mark our place and head back to camp for lunch.

The Big Hill

Done eating, it is time to look at the map again. We decide to go to the top of the valley, find the line and work our way back down. Well, before we can do that we have to do a little tire changing. Tom has seen a bad bald spot on his left rear tire where the plies are showing through. As for me, my right front tire is flat. Since my other front tire is pretty worn, we decide to leave my Blazer at camp and go together in Tom's Isuzu. After he changes his tire, we load up and head up the hill. The road starts off pretty good as we wend our way along the wash. Then the road leaves the valley and starts going up the side of the hill. It gets steeper and we shift into 4 wheel low and grind and bounce up. It's a good thing the tire has been changed. At last we achieve the top of the pass and park. We split up and start looking for the line. It takes us longer this time, but Lynda finally finds it. The line is several hundred feet uphill from the road, quite a distance. Once again there is the distinctive grading of an old road with wire along side. The hillside is very steep and wire is scarcer. We don't find much on the way down.

Six Different In One Place 

About halfway down the hill, Tom spots a piece of glass down off the side of the line. We all scramble down to look for the missing pieces. Then I notice a quarter size piece of glass flush with the ground. "Well, what have we here?" It's the top of an EC&M. We all start noticing pieces here and there and end up finding 5 or 6 different pieces of EC&M's. It amazes us to find so many different in one place. We surmise that perhaps there had been several damaged ones in the bottom of a barrel and the linemen dumped them at that particular spot. Just one of the intriguing mysteries that go with insulator hunting.

End Of The Day Surprise

My legs are jello by the time we get down to the bottom of the mountain. One interesting insulator that Lynda finds is like an oval donut with flattened sides, marked Thomas. It really puzzles us as to how it got there and what it was used for. This particular mystery would be solved tomorrow. 

The last part of the old telegraph road is very steep, and I'm the last one down to where Tom and Lynda are waiting. As I approach them they call me over sounding excited. Hoping they've found another good insulator, I walk over. Lynda points to a brown plastic marker which reads "Historic Trail". That is real interesting. I rest my legs while Tom walks back up the hill to bring the Trooper down. 

After Tom comes back, we backtrack to where we had first started in the morning and follow the line backwards. Searching, we find several pieces of insulators, mostly EC&M's. As the line loses altitude, we come out of the trees and follow it as it makes a 90 degree turn straight for our campsite. There is lots of wire to follow and we did. I find the last insulator of the evening, still attached to the wire, another CD 126 blob in aqua with a small chip on the skirt. A fitting end to a tremendous day of fun and discovery.

	"I pose with the best EC&M we found resting on an old pole."
	"The first days finds. Three complete blobs; aqua, yellow amber, yellow green (back) and many pieces. "

The Next Day 

As I woke up in the predawn light, I just lay in the back of my S-10 Blazer, feeling my aching legs. It was again cloudy, but I didn't care. We ate breakfast and then drove partway up the road headed up the mountain. We were hoping to find some more of the line cutting across the slope away from the road. Unfortunately, it was not to be. The wire is in huge masses of bunched tangles adjacent to the road and hard to follow. I did find a nice yellow green blob (CD 126), like Toms', with about 1/3rd of the base broken off. We look around but aren't able to find any of the missing skirt.

Over The Hill and down again 

After an early lunch, we decide to go back to the top of the mountain and head north. We pile into Toms' Trooper and jolt our way up the rocky road in 4-Lo. Upon reaching the top, we again have a difficult time finding the line. With all the logging done in the past, things are really messed up. The slope is much gentler going the other way, and the walking very easy since all underbrush is gone. Lynda goes to the other side leaving Tom and me walking together discussing the previous day's efforts. As we are discussing EC&M's, Tom reaches down and picks up the top to one. He says that he has been "visualizing" them in his head and so is able to spot it easily! Anyway, we find lots of small pieces of insulators all around the area, but nothing large.

What's Oval, Porcelain, and Has A Hole? 

One of the next things we find attached to wire is a brown glazed porcelain something, recessed embossed THOMAS. We find a total of 8 of them along with many pieces of glass. After getting back to Tom's a few months later, I looked in Jack Tod's misc porcelain book (Hey Elton, how about a revised/ updated reprint) and found out it was a forestry type insulator designed to hang from a tree with telephone wire running through the hole. All of the ones we find are one piece. One of the last is still hanging in the tree. I like it there so much that I decide to leave it for others to see. Being a porcelain guy, I am very happy to get the others. 

This is where we all decide to turn around and go back because of an impending thunderstorm. There are many miles of line still left to follow.

The Last Evening 

The trip back down the mountain is long and bumpy, but we make it back to base camp safely. Fortunately the T-storm doesn't head our way and eventually dissipates. We snack and then travel in the opposite direction headed to lower elevations. We line up on the existing poles and follow along the line. It is all rangeland with no trees and there is not much to follow. We are able to easily pace off pole spacing, and find some indication of holes.

On one pole spacing there isn't anything to see. I notice what looks like a fence pole lying several yards away and say to Lynda "maybe that's a pole". She doesn't think so, but I go over to it and sure enough find two square nails broken off in it. We are on the right track!

The terrain begins to get rough as we climb up a rocky escarpment 15 or 20 feet high. No traces of wire or glass can be seen. Finally we come to a promontory overlooking the vast plains. A moderate breeze whistles as the sun shines clearly and brightly. Has the line turned or what? The three of us spend quite a while conjecturing before deciding to split up going back to camp. 

Tom and I walk together crossing back from where we had come, looking for a trace of the line. Nothing to be found. It's amazing how cattle can disturb and erase all signs of things so thoroughly. It is pretty dark when we get back to camp. Time to pack up everything for departure tomorrow. A good thing too, as almost all my ice has melted.

Time To Go Home 

Tom and Lynda get up early so as to make it to the NIA in time for some important meeting. I plan to stay for a couple of hours more and look around where the poles are still standing before I leave. Today is going to be really warm, I could tell. It is a little lonely waving off Tom and Lynda, I have really enjoyed my time together with them here. 

I walk around a little, and find a real pretty piece of light yellow amber blob, but can't find any more. Using my bow saw, I cut the tops of two poles, one standing and one fallen, showing the square nails.

As I drive slowly back, I look around very carefully for where the line might have gone. Then I hit the pavement and start to go, when I spot a brown plastic marker on an embankment along the side. I stop, back up and get out to look. Guess what it says? You got it "Historic Trail"! I'm planning for the next trip already!

Antique Stores Part II 

Going back home, its Wednesday, and the antique stores are open now. I stop in at the first one. The owner has a purple 121 for $20. It has a small chip on the side and she lets me have it for $15. Not too bad. I go to several other stores on the main street, but they have nothing. Stopping at the Goodwill store - no insulators, but all books are 10 cents ea. $3 buys a lot of hardback books (heavy too). I find a listing of antique shops, look at it and see a place I missed Sunday. I go in and ask for insulators. He shows me a crossarm with common clear and aqua. I turn around to go .back into the store and spy an interesting 2 piece porcelain multi stuck in the ground. "How much for that?" I point out an old crack and offer one dollar. He accepts and off I go. I know it's a pretty good one because it's a lily shell style. At the very moment I'm typing this, I am looking it up in Elton Gish's Multipart Porcelain Insulators book. It's either a M-2843 or M-2875, I'm not sure. Either way, not bad for a buck!

Epilogue 

When I arrive home, I act nonchalant and start off by showing my wife Lyn some of the broken fragments. Then I show her the yellow green CD 126 with the broken skirt. She is disappointed that it is broken but is glad for me. Then I can't wait any longer and bring in the CD 126 in yellow amber and Lyn jumps for joy. Funny how it's "our" insulator all of a sudden.

FINIS