WHEN PLEASURE PRECEDES THOUGHT

He was 21, a few months shy of 22 years, I had known him since his 13^th birthday. He died last week of an accidental drug overdose while singing, “Summer Breeze."

Mitch was a good kid, prone to excitement that unwittingly accompanied trouble, not bad trouble, more akin to complicated mischief. How may times did my dad say to me, “For Christ’s sake, you must have had your head up your ass.” Well, yes I did but today we call it more properly, and with less harshness, “Not using common horse sense.” That was Mitch, pleasure preceded thought and with an unfortunate roll of the dice, he paid with his life, I was luckier.

"Alas here comes the Gardener; he's come to till the flowers.
The draught of understanding; wisdom, peace and love is ours."

TO EACH THEIR OWN

From this:

Desert Paradise RV Park

(Which brings to mind Pete Seeger's song, "Tiny Houses"

*Little boxes made of ticky tacky*

to this

A dozen miles north of Interstate 8 west of Yuma, AZ living the sunny life on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) lands.

Sonoran Desert

In a clear visa of 360 degrees we have a half  dozen neighbors, none closer than a mile.  The nights are cool and days sunny and very warm.  White and pink quartz is scattered like chunks of blacktop along old highway shoulders, Ocotillo Cactus sprout randomly in a profusion of green thorny arms and lizards grow fat  munching from a smorgasbord of abundant ant mounds.

HISTORIC GRAFFITI

A few pictures of historic Graffiti before pulling out of our dry camping spot at Painted Rock Historic Park. 
From centuries before BC, on up to the twentieth, people have been leaving their mark on these rocks.  Some tell a story, others ask the spirits for a successful hunt and some  are modern day, rude defacing.

Look close, it's some sort of deer.

 Plateau Fence Lizard

Guardian of the rocks.

One last peaceful fire and then off to noisy Yuma, AZ for supplies.

PAINTED ROCK HISTORIC PARK

We've traveled on up from Lukeville, AZ., north of Interstate 8, about 20 miles west of Gila Bend, AZ.  We are now near Painted Rock Historic Park,  boondocking near a huge dry wash and a worn down mountain about a half mile from the official park boundaries.

                          On the way here I got add a couple of birds to my life-list.

Great Tailed Female Grackle

Say's Phoebe

Diaz Peak, Pima County, AZ.

Flowering Palo Verde tree

PAINTED LADY

The ranger said, "We tried to dynamite the old mine closed for safety reasons but instead opened the shaft for the bats, which turned out to be a good thing for everyone."  It seems that the Organ Pipe Cactus only bloom in the night and naturally, like all living things, need propagation. Bugs, except moths, don't wander around in the night so the bats take over the business of species extension for the night blooming cactus. A good fit.

20 foot tall Organ Pipe Cactus

Painted Lady Butterfly

One big black bug.  That's my cell phone for size. 

Jackie is dwarfed by this 200 (at least) year old Saguaro Cactus.

Floating right on top of the oil of this jar of Smucker's Natural Peanut butter was a chunk of black stuff.  It broke up easily between my fingers.  Yes, I sent "What is it" letter to Smucker,s.

SATED AND JADED

I think I could hang out in the desert forever...well, maybe until May when the temps begin to climb into the 100F + range.  "But it's a dry heat," is so often heard.  Yeah, be it as it may, I melt easy.  For now, I'll stick with bumming between cactus and caliche and run back north as the mercury in the therometer takes the same direction.

Setting sun on a field of Saguaro and Organ Pipe Cactus.

Baby Fishhook Cactus, about 3 inches high. Edible red fruit is what remains after the flower has been pollinated and dies away.

Ever inquisitive, Jackie goes for an up close, non-tactile, inspection of the full foliage

Ocotilla Cactus

Teddy Bear Cholla Cactus~Cute but don't cuddle.

Saguaro Sunset

Trying hard not to become sated and jaded by

  jaw-dropping sunsets delivered every evening like clockwork.

TURNING A BLIND EYE

                                 From the Tohono O'odham Nation of Why, AZ. 
"It is a worrisome thought, we already have border patrol that disregard the safety of community members as they speed through our community. They play armed soldiers all day with various toys including three wheel all terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, hummer vehicles, four-wheel high clearance trucks, helicopters and airplanes and horses, and spy cameras and listening and sensoring equipment, out on our sacred lands disregarding our relatives the plants and animals as well as our sacred offering sites and burial places."

With 60 miles of Mexican border adjoining the southern side of the reservation, something had to be done to guard the wide open desert wilderness.  The Mexican illegals, (mules) carrying as much as a hundred pounds of drugs were steaming north through a Mexican drug cartel protected desert, dropping their loads at pre-arranged drop offs along the US Interstate highways.  A few were saying the Native Americans were turning a blind eye, not because of profitable compliance but rather out of fear.

Testament of collateral drug war damage.

Memorial along the highway.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Park

Here at the park less than 20% of the spaces are occupied.  The reason why this is so depends on who you talk to.  Some say it's the fear of the Mexican Drug Cartel's advancing mules and yet others claim it to be the US economy.  Whatever the problem, we all know both need to be corrected....sooner than later.  A good start would be  civility and harmony within our political system.  When politicians are busy playing "one-ups-man," little is accomplished in the way of solutions.  

It's time to quit squabbling between ourselves and unite behind the common cause of saving this country.  Let's not let the sun set on the United States of America because we were too busy honing our rancorous tongues and making the rich richer.  As a nation we are only as strong as our weakest link. 

O'KEEFFE SUNRISE AT GUNSIGHT WASH, AZ

Tell me this isn't a Georgia O'keeffe sunrise and I'll tell you the number of my eye doctor.  See them, right there in front of you, the morning's warm, welcoming lips of nature's love draped with fierce and fiery pastels.

Morning Dove that comes for handouts.  These guys have learned that the big white boxes (RV's) relate to food.  They land, walk around the rig looking for bits of food and then take off with their distinctive squeaky flight.

PHAINOPEPLA - fay-no-PEHP-lah. No PEEPing

I chased this skittish guy for days trying to get a decent shot but managed only cactus burs in my boots and blurry pictures. Then.....sitting in the rig, Jackie says, "Look, there on top of that Palo Verde tree."  So he came and presented himself to end the chase and get some piece and quiet.  "Click,"  an extraordinary picture of a beautiful bird.

Ash Throated Fly Catcher 

 Best picture I could get through the dust covered window.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

A couple of desert miles south of Why, AZ. we see an Anglo geriatric duo strolling the shoulder of route 85, the Sonoita Highway that punches directly into Mexico. I register it as unusual, given the proximity of illegals and drug trafficking but pay it no further notice....until Jackie says, "Hey, is that the place." The lights went on in my dark room and remember it is the place we'd talked about, "Gunsight Wash."

Slowing and lumbering gently to a wide spot in the road, we do a 180 with our 30 foot home and head back to find the BLM wash. This is one of the "This is your land and my land," 14 day free, dry, sometimes called, boondocking camping spots. No water/electric/sewer at this location.

We follow a gravel trail from the highway and come to this sign...Is this a "Hold Harmless" absolving our government of potential lawsuits or an honest attempt to alert would-be campers? 

After a slow-crawl over the desert two-track and past a half dozen other campers,we find "our spot," secluded but not so far away that we aren't able to spot a couple of other rigs.  Beautiful country, wide open and welcoming after so many RV parks.

This might be the fattest and oldest Saguaro cactus I've ever met.

Jackie put out a handful of carrot chum trying to lure-in the wild burros as the sun blazed the evening sky.

 

THE ROAD TO WHY

Traveling the road from Tucson to Why, AZ we see millions of Saguaro Cactus and at least (More than anywhere else) two dozen Border Patrol vehicles.  The 85 miles of Tohono O' Odham Indian Reservation, east to west, on Highway 86 wide open country and must be a major route for illegals coming north.

A quick stop at the Sells, AZ post office to send a couple of envelopes.  Jackie returns to the rig and says, "They were speaking in their native tongue."  I suspect they were saying, "What the hell is with the paleface?."  

"RED BULL," THE LONG DISTANCE ELIXIR.

A new RV neighbor pulls into a space behind us, situates the trailer and bounds out of his pickup with the energy and agility of a young orangutan.  His eyes looked to be red ovals about the size of an English tea cup saucer and the twitches in his chin and cheeks rather unnerved me.  "Hey, you ever try this Red Bull stuff,"  He shouts in my general direction.  Without waiting for an answer he rattles on how he just drove straight through from Minnesota with stops only for fuel (Red Bull?) and to let the little lady "go powder her nose."  I wonder where he'd been powdering "his" nose. 

We'll be moving on west toward Aho and Sells, AZ.  through the Tohono O'Odham Indian Reservation and then probably down to one of the nicest parks in the country, Organ Pipe National, after a stop at BLM's Gunsight Wash.

                  A couple of parting pictures from Pima County Park, Tucson.

  

SHRIKE - The Assassin Bird

Looking for a little piece of "dirt" to call a landing-pad should be fun, right? Here around Tucson, like most of the fringes of southwest's cities, desert land that was marginally developed by punching-in a half-assed road, sticking a few electric poles in the sand and then sold on speculative optimism is now in greedy bank‘s hands. The scheme of interplay between valuation and liquidity blew up in their deserving faces and is now for sale at hugely reduced prices; In other words, back to "almost" normal.

We spent the day trying to locate three of these bank repo properties with our reward being many miles of rig-rattling, teeth chattering, dusty dirt roads traversed and never actually finding any of these plots. Even with the aid of our Garmin GPS, they were just too elusively listed to locate.

One 10 acre piece we did locate the day before seemed perfect. A mile off the blacktop with a good dirt road to an isolated, no neighbor, scrub and cactus, end of the electric line dusty paradise. Property found, problems begin. Like the nice lady I spoke with at the electric company, while trying to find out how to have the electric connected, said, “It’s a zoo out there, no one is going to take care of, or help you, except yourself. These Realtors will tell you anything to get into your pocket.”

Our patience drained and reality heightened, I think we’ve decided that putting another piece of property in our portfolio would be counter productive to our personal concept of "fun." 

So for now we concentrate on finding those Bureau of Land Management out-of-the-way places that requires no paperwork, realtor/banker dealings or long term commitments.

Bankers Realtors Parakeet

SADDLEBROOK, AZ

After another run to Jackie's favorite taco stand, "Tania's," we sliced through the afternoon traffic of Tucson and over to the 

 

                Oro Valley Hospital

for a little routine geriatric maintenance probe.  The mechanics on duty gave a resounding thumbs-up after a little face-to-face Yooper "what-for," delivered by taco-fueled, "I want the results now, not Monday," Jackie.

Off to Oro Valley Wallyworld for a couple of bottles of good news, celebratory wine and then on to Cousin Jackie Hall's in Saddlebook for grilled salmon and asparagus.  Yum X 2.

Jackie-pooch Abbey-me-Jackie