Chiricahua

SH is one busy bee, trying to manage both work and school in Tucson--so unfortunately she couldn't come with me out to Chiricahua National Monument, where she used to work. But after hearing so much about it while she was out there, I had to check it out for myself, and boy was it worth the trip. Gorgeous hoodoos and amazing views on the hike I took. And (not pictured) I even got to see a coatimundi (they survive isolated on the "sky island" of Chiricahua, which is at a far higher elevation than the surrounding desert) scamper across the road as a drove out of the park at dusk! Just beautiful.

Tucson & Saguaro

Those of you who have been following along may remember my great friend SH, who joined me for two weeks in the Yukon and Alaska in August. So soon, I've made it all the way down to her current place of residence: Tucson, AZ! She is in grad school at U of A, a campus I remember first seeing and finding very beautiful back when I was in high school. At that point I had only ever lived in WI, and I vividly remember my mind being blown by the wide-open, non-cold-or-rain-proof style of the campus buildings and set up. It's still gorgeous!

SH took me into the university's amazing tree ring research lab, where they have this completely incredible cross-section of a sequoia that lived for 1704 years before falling in 1915. This thing predates the founding of Istanbul (was Constantinople)!

No visit with SH is complete without hiking, and that we did in the western (Sonoran Desert) section of Saguaro National Park.

In addition to the (of course) saguaros, this part of the park also has some interesting preserved pictographs:

We ate very, very well while I was there, and I'm now going to think of Tucson in part as a city of great restaurants. But what might have made the biggest impression on me was the Native Seeds/SEARCH store, with all of its Southwest-specific offerings, including these fingernail-sized ordoño peppers…

…Agua Chiltepin, a germ-busting concoction made of water, apple cider vinegar, sea salt, garlic, chiltepin peppers, japans, thai and serrano peppers, ginger, lime juice, and natural spices--which I was not brave enough to try and which made even SH's Southwestern native eyes water…

…and the very yummy (I can personally attest) snack of parched corn: kernels baked in hot sand and then sifted out and sprayed with salted water. Mmmmm.

Borderlands

From Joshua Tree, I steered south along the east side of the Salton Sea into what has to be one of the most apocalyptic-feeling areas of this country. Border patrol SUVs, agents, and helicopters crawling all over the place. A smell so horrible I thought my car might be on fire, until a mile or so later I drove past an enormous CAFO--the first time I've ever seen one so up-close, I think. I was tempted to stop to take a picture to remind myself why I should never, ever eat meat that's not of the highest, most responsibly-raised quality, but I was afraid I was going to start retching any minute from the stench, and had to drive on. Vast fields of unidentified crops growing, big-ag style, supported by all the immigrants the border patrol was trying to monitor. Once I hit I-8, I went past an area of sand dunes, dotted with daredevil ATVers, that looked almost as out of place as Great Dunes in CO always does.

With a stop in Yuma, things started to feel a bit more comfortable, and the drive through the Gila Mountains was so beautiful I barely registered the drug-sniffing dogs employed at the border patrol checkpoint leading up to the pass. Down on the Sonoran Desert side, though, a nefarious column of dark smoke was rising up from the flats and creating dark cloud that made the mid-day sky seem like twilight. Back to apocalypse!

The reward for this strange journey was a trip to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which sits right on the border with Mexico in southwestern AZ. Spectacular in the sunset.

There were actually a lot more saguaro and accordion cacti than there were organ pipe cacti, but it was never too long between spectacular specimens of the species that gives the monument its name.

Though the park service discourages solo hiking or wilderness wandering at dusk or after dark due to the area being an acknowledged border crossing that is intensely monitored by the border patrol, in my too-short time there I got to take two spectacular scenic drives and a short hike near a set of amazing natural arches, plus camp for a night under a dark sky brilliant with stars and the distinctive sounds of the desert. Not bad, not bad at all….