NEVER MET A ROCK I DIDN'T LIKE

On our way north, circling back to visit friends and relatives in Tucson, we pass a small, hand- scribbled sign on the side of the road that read, "ROSALIA'S ROCK SHOP." "Turn around," I hear Jackie's excited voice plead. "Never met a rock she didn't like," I'm thinking as I slow down to find a place wide enough to swing the big rig around and return to the bumpy drive that is almost obscured by whispy palo verde branches and scrub brush.

Not only is Rosalia a rock hound, she is also Philippino, born and bred. Rocks and Philippines, that'll keep the girls chatting for a while. A half hour later, and another 10 pounds of pretty rocks to stack in the rig, and were back on the road.

The CURVED BILL THRASHER.  I've been sighting this guy for the past two weeks but hadn't been able to capture a good picture of him. 

After stopping at a roadside rest stop, out hops this guy from behind a cactus and seemingly had no, or little, fear of me.  His time to shine and my time for a few really nice shots. 

Discarded shoes,  a quarter mile off the highway, on a well-worn illegal migration trail. When the bands of northern migration crews reach their destination/prearranged pickup point, they jettison all but the clothes on their back and hope they'll not be ferreted-out at one of the Border Patrol check points. Multiple thousands of clothes piles, backpacks, water containers and shoes litter the desert like garbage collects in any city alley. A blight on an otherwise pristine landscape. Their odds are 3 out of 4 that they'll remain undetected and assimilate into the general populace of a major metropolitan area.  "It's like a sieve, a 2000 mile long sieve," one Border Patrol guy told me. "There is just no way to detect all but a few of the illegals coming north."  So it goes.