Don writes: The Saguaro cactus has always fascinated me. The ones with "arms" resemble large green men frozen in outlandish poses. Sometimes, they have too many arms, so they just look strange. Then there are the ones that stand straight up with no arms looking like an exclamation point looking for an exclamation. I guess my favorites are the saguaros with arms that grow next to each other and appear to be locked in a prickly embrace. It's fun imagining what the different shapes might be. Wonder what kind of person comes back as a saguaro?
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| Hugging each other? |
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| Don hugging carefully. |
And they are majestic! The smaller ones about 6 feet tall may be 50 or 60 years old. The 30 to 40 foot tall giants may be 200 years old. Imagine! Some of the cacti we saw were around when the Indians were the princes of the west in the early 1800s. They might have seen Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo, Billy the Kid, or Doc Holliday riding into Tucson back in the 1880s.
We visited the Saguaro National Park (West). It's more representative of the Sonoran Desert environment than the eastern part of the park. We stopped at the Red Hills Visitor Center to find out where the rangers might recommend that we visit. They directed us to the Bajada Loop Drive to give us a real feel for the desert as well as a view of some old Indian petroglyphs.
The Bajada Loop is a dirt road that takes visitors into the desert. You are constantly surrounded by saguaros, prickly pear, yuccas, chollas and mesquite. We didn't quite hit the best time for seeing the desert bloom, but we got a taste of what it could be like since some of the plants had blossoms. Our first stop was to eat our lunch in a picnic area in the desert. The P&J sandwiches tasted mighty fine as we watched the landscape around us. Having built up our strength, we continued our drive to the Valley View Trail that leads to an impressive view of the Avra Valley to the west of Tucson and of the Tucson Mountains just east of the park. The saguaros were everywhere. As we were standing at the top of the hill, we heard a pack of coyotes off in the distance getting very excited about something. Lots of yips and barks. It set off another pack behind us. They all settled down shortly probably after agreeing to see if they could sneak up on some hikers and grab a midday snack. Thankfully, it wasn't us.
We continued on along the Loop to the Signal Hill Trail that leads through the saguaro forest up a hill to a jumble of rocks with old Indian petroglyphs prominently featured. Evidently, Indian hunting parties would leave their artwork on the rocks as they came through. No one has yet figured out what the symbols mean though the simple depictions of men and animals would seem to indicate some kind of hunting stories. "Got two deer here with hunting party of 5 men." "Got three bigger deer here with just 2 of us." Who knows, this might have been the Indian equivalent of the corner bar with cactus wine and pickled javelina feet.
On the way back to the truck, a couple of men pointed out a herd of mule deer munching on cactus blossoms. Linda and I watched for at least 15 minutes as the deer would stand on their hind legs to reach the taller blossoms. What a great show! They knew we were there, but it didn't bother them much.
As we left the Saguaro National Park, we decided to visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum that had been recommended to us by one of the park rangers. It was on the way back to Tucson, so we pulled in and started walking around. This is a beautifully set up park/zoo with great exhibits, habitats, and displays of desert plants and animals. Cacti, century plants, mesquite, bobcats, snakes, foxes, wolves, birds, tarantulas and scorpions are all featured in the museum. We had a great time and only had one complaint - the ice cream stand wasn't open.
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| Sad to think this 60 - 80 year old cactus puts out its only bloom and then dies. |
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| Chainfruit Cholla |
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| Teddy Bear Cholla - I think the plant is showing signs of stress due to the severe drought. |
Linda writes: This is not an exciting day, but it is time to hit the dreaded chores list. We started the day by doing our laundry, which has probably become our least favorite task while on the road. The nice, clean, affordable laundromat on base certainly makes it a lot more pleasant.
Don took his truck into the Toyota Service Center for its first oil change. While there he picked up a Tundra sunscreen for the truck. We don't use these much in Maine, but what a difference it has made here in the blazing western sun.
When Don returned, he took me to get an updated military ID. Coming through the base gates, a sharp security guy picked up that my ID had expired. This was a surprise. I had seven days to remedy this, which we did pronto.
From here we went to a barbershop at the Officers' Club. We were both shaggy and need some sprucing up. Women will get this --- It is not easy to be on the road and need a haircut, especially getting it done by an unknown hairdresser. You take a deep breath and hope for the best. I had Don go first. Also since it has been SO HOT, I got a really short haircut. I survived and it turned out kind of cute and much easier to manage.
Next on the list was the bloomin' tire on the camper that keeps losing air. Don has done everything except get a new valve stem. Off to the auto repair for a tire dunk in the tank (no apparent leak) and then the tire got its new valve stem. [This is not the end of the problem. More about that in a later post.]
Last on the list was getting the tire on my bike repaired. The rear tire went flat. I went online and found a bike shop that had really good reviews and that wasn't too far from base. The folks were great and $10 later my bike is back in business.
List done and we're worn out. We hauled out our red chairs, made a drink and called for pizza delivery. This is camping at its best!
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