Pounding the Proverbial Pavement

Finally glimpsed the most famous of the desert plants, the bulbous saguaro cactus. The one with quintessential cactus shape, the one is sure to be portrayed on neon signs. They look really funny and chubby, and most of them don’t even have those two arms. They are just like a fat body with holes from birds and decades of growth behind it.

We were surprised to see so much citrus, lemons and oranges growing all around the houses of Tucson, where water is no joke and there isn’t any. We’ve also been surprised by the level of homelessness. People everywhere, just pounding the pavement, back and forth and back again, life and luggage in tow. Ever since we passed through Texas we have noticed humans making a habit of roadside strolling. Highways, interstates, local roads, whatever. People are hoofing it to their locations, don’t matter how it takes to get there. Bisbee has a lot of the same wanderers. Actually I see people walking from the next towns to come to Bisbee for the daylight hours. From our porch I can see the “anarchist coffee clutch” who brew their own coffee, bring three air pots and styrofoam cups each morning to the little park in front of the coffee company shop where they sit and sip their free brew. People pounding the pavement to get there and sit on the bench.

Tucson was ok, we slept in the van and the train ran the whole night, so mot much sleeping was actually done. We went grocery shopping and ate Vietnamese food at a cute place that just opened today. We couldn’t decide what to get, so we just make us some stuff of her picking. Yum. It’s the first time I’ve ever had Pho, I was so stuck on the V5 I couldn’t see the light.

We’ve been learning a lot about the Apaches, Navajo, Pima, Tohono O‘odhom, Chiricahua and other peoples who lived here over the past 800 years. This is a really crazy place in every way. Not just the tourists who come out of the woodworks on the weekends, not just the group of 50 year olds you find smoking a joint behind your van, not just no rain, but, as previously mentioned, we are only about 5 miles from the border. The school is about 2, we can see Mexico and there are so many border patrolmen everywhere. They have blimp, you can see it flying around. Supposedly it can read the paper over your shoulder all the way in Tucson, I believe it. There are a lot of military forts and air force bases around here. We keep hearing the same rumor that all the Abu Ghraib officers and folks involved where trained there. Like the SOA of the Wild West. We drove through there today to check it out, all we saw was a group of people tailgating on the side of the road and holding poster boards that said “Go Home Illegal Aliens” and such pleasantries. It is also a transition zone for the whole region. South of the Rockies and the Sierra Madres, just north of the two north American great deserts, the Chihuahua and Sonora.

There are legends of “chivocabres”, which are said to be like desert goblins, they feed on negative energy and may be an unknown mammal. All the animals I have seen look like rabbits so far. The deer have bunny ears and so do the squirrels. There are javelinas, wart hog looking animals and jackrabbits that are the size of dogs. Then there are the coyotes and rattlesnakes and the dreaded tarantulas and scorpions. Seen none of the later yet, but have been brushing up on our snake survival skills.