Saturday, 19 February 2022
Today is my sister Louise's birthday. The trouble with someone dying young - she was only 21 - is that it's impossible to know what kinds of things they'd be interested in as adults. I don't know if she'd be glad I was celebrating her birthday by exploring a lot of desert and cactus, but she had an inquiring sort of mind, so she might have been interested at least a little. I went only because I was here and it seemed to be something unique to Arizona, and I ended up being much more interested than I'd expected.
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| today's route in Tucson |
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| today's route on the road |
In Tucson
I drove past the University of Arizona campus - very attractive. It's a land grant college and was founded in 1885, which is interesting because AZ didn't become a state until 1912. So it's impressive that they were quick on the educational uptake, even if they were a little slow on the statehood bit.
In the historic downtown area I ran into so much road construction that it was hard to get to places I wanted to see. Plus the streets weren't called what Google said they'd be called. But I did stumble upon this amazing-looking building.
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| Pima County Historic Courthouse |
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| close-up of mosaic dome |
It was built in 1929 in the Spanish Revival style. Pretty gorgeous, isn't it? It looks like the actual court activities are now conducted in a more modern building that's lacking the history of the old one: this old building is where John Dillinger and his gang were arraigned after they'd finally been caught here in Tucson. There's an interesting account of the whole saga at this link. https://thisistucson.com/tucsonlife/john-dillinger
We stopped for a short walk at a public library by a Boys and Girls Club, and then hit the road.
On the road
Much of today's drive crossed the Tohono O'odham Reservation. As far as I can tell from the internet, these indigenous people aren't part of an Indian nation such as Navaho. Instead, their families crossed what's now the Mexico border with the seasons, and many of the tribal members still live in Mexico. Because their land sits right on what's now the border, there's been controversy over smuggling, illegal immigration and other such issues. Not long ago the tribe offered vigorous resistance to Pres. Trump's border wall, because thousands of tribal members live just on the other side of that border. I don't think the wall got built but instead the government put up surveillance towers to monitor border activities. They told the tribe there'd be 16 of them, but it recently became known that there are 52 of them instead. And the Border Patrol has been putting so much pressure on tribal members that they now feel like they can't leave their homes without being under scrutiny. Not a happy state of affairs, regardless of the problems of border security.
I passed a sign telling me Kitt Peak was just over there, and when I looked I saw what I thought was an astronomy set-up. It reminded me of the telescopes I saw at the McDonald Observatory in Texas. And sure enough, that's just what's up there. Kitt Peak National Observatory is "one of the largest gatherings of astronomical instruments in the northern hemisphere," per Wikipedia. You can see from the road map that there's not a lot out here, so I imagine there's not a lot of light pollution either.
I passed lots of saguaro cactus and mesquite and sage, lots of rolling desert hills. There were large mountain ranges dotted all along the road, on both sides. According to the AAA map, they really are separate mountain ranges, and there really are a lot of them. And I started seeing what I thought might be called cholla cactus - looking like a bush with dreadlocks.
We stopped at a rough picnic area to take a walk, and the dogs found several holes in the ground they wanted to check out. I hauled them away. We're no longer in chipmunk country and I'm afraid the holes down here might hold snakes.
At one point I got passed by the US Border Patrol pulling 2 ORVs in a trailer. Later I found the truck parked off the road and the trailer was empty - presumably the agents were patrolling in the ORVs.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
When I turned onto the entrance road, I was met with a sign saying this monument area is a Biosphere Reserve. I've seen those signs before but had to look it up again: they're designated by UNESCO to "preserve genetic diversity in representative ecosystems by protecting wild animals, traditional life style of inhabitants, and domesticated plant/animal genetic resources.
I learned that the organ pipe cactus lives primarily in Mexico, and this monument protects most of its US range.
This is an organ pipe cactus:
And lest you think they're just fleshy plants, here's a somewhat fuzzy close-up view. You may want to enlarge it more to get the full effect.
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| There are spines everywhere on that plant. They are not to be trifled with. |
These cactus typically grow to about 15' and were named by early settlers who thought they looked like church pipe organs. When a cactus is about 35 years old, it'll begin to produce flowers. The odd thing about them is that the flowers bloom only at night and close again by mid-morning. They're pollinated by bats, which I guess figures because who else is going to be flying around at night.
These cactus need lots of warm sun to grow, so they're found almost entirely in specific sections of the monument: on hillsides that get the most sun during the day. So I drove for some miles inside the monument without seeing any, and then suddenly there they were. Lots of them. The photo above I took in the campground - it was very close to my campsite.
Of course these weren't the only kind of cactus around here.
Park rangers told me these trees with dreadlocks are indeed cholla (pronounced CHOY-yuh), and I think I saw 2 different kinds.
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| You can see this cholla was between us and our next door neighbors in the campground. I worried about the dogs getting too close. |
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| close-up view of that cholla |
Note the differences between that one and this next one, that is also a cholla.
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| These were near the visitor center. See close-up below. |
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| Rangers said these were called chained fruit cholla, because they grow those "chains" with the fruit-like balls at the ends. |
Though they're both obviously cholla, they also don't look the same - the one in the campground doesn't grow those balls-on-chains. And it turns out one of the rangers said he too calls this type beaded-dreadlocks chollas, so it's not just me.
Then there are these dangerous looking things.
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| This is an ocotillo - see close-up at right. |
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| close-up view showing how lethal these things are |
So here's the odd thing about ocotillo: they're not cactus. Despite their obviously cactus-like appearance, they're considered a shrub. Seriously. Apparently, if you happen to see one of these things 48 hours after a rain, you'll see that they're starting to put out leaves, and within a few more days all those thorns are hidden by a thick coat of green leaves. Seems impossible to me, seeing them as they are now, but that's what the park service says. And in March and early April, they'll even put out bright red flowers at the ends of those stems and become very popular with hummingbirds and pollinating insects. Then, when the soil dries, they go back to being a bundle of dangerous sticks. Weird plants.
This campground, which was within the national monument, had no plug-ins for either electricity or water. Fortunately, some parts of the campground, including mine, allowed use of generators - but only from 8-10 AM and 4-6 PM. It was a warm day with temps in the upper 70s, so I turned on the generator and then turned on the AC for my allowed 2 hours in the afternoon. Gracie and I were both hot enough to want it. But I played fair and turned it off at 6:00 - and noticed everybody else did the same thing.
I'd been without any kind of utilities the night before at the doctor's office, but there I could run the generator all I wanted. Here, no generator not only meant no AC but also no microwave and no TV/DVDs. All I had was the electricity from my cabin batteries, and I tried to conserve that, just in case. It worked out fine but I had to do some planning to make it work.
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