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Showing posts with the label desert

A New Plane/Plain of Existence

In the desert west of Phoenix, a couple years ago. It's been so long since a real cold front blasted through, like they do back east. Wonderful. We went out to explore the desert plain around our new boondocking site near Tonopah, AZ. The altitude was just over 1000 feet. Some of my plastic bottles were flattened by the air pressure. I dreaded returning to the creosote bush-dominated desert of lower Arizona. Perhaps it was monotony of a desert plain dominated by one plant ; or maybe it flatters the ego to live at high altitudes. But someone who has been hiking in thorn and sticker country recently can see creosote bush as a blessing, since it has no stickers or thorns! That is no small miracle. Just a few feet from this monotony you could see the lush boscage of a dry wash. Maybe they were ironwood and elephant trees. Just imagine walking across this hellish plain in June, and finally finding this shade! This desert plain is covered with desert pavement, like at Quartzs

Climate Change in the Sonoran Desert

Boondocking east of Gila Bend AZ, a couple (early) springs ago. These volcanic knolls aren't exactly Irish hills but that doesn't stop them from trying to be, this spring. They are surrounded by sloping lawns of grass. At the base of the knolls are guard-rings of vicious cholla. The cholla seem to like good drainage. From the top of the volcanic knoll Coffee Girl surveys her empire. I seem to be encountering strange optical effects lately. This sloped valley of hers had plants on it that seemed to be arranged in parallel rows. On any given day all of central Arizona is covered with "climate change," Phoenix style: smog during the day and light pollution at night. I'm not sure which of these ever-expanding, glowering blobs is more hideous. You must tolerate this if you are going to enjoy the BLM land that is now called the Sonora national monument. The pollution does create some interesting optical effects, like colorful sunsets and this:

Hohokam Empire of the Sun

In our day many people feel revulsion towards the Valley of the Sun, metropolitan Phoenix. And yet people are still moving here. If ever there was a proof that 'Reputation is a Lagging Indicator..." I've avoided this smoggy monstrosity for most of my career as a full time RVer. It has been a pleasant surprise this winter to find some areas on the western fringe that are still nice. This was probably the largest, irrigable, agricultural valley in the Colorado River system. Only the Grand Valley near Grand Junction, CO, or the Dome Valley east of Yuma come close. And yet the specialness of this never made much of an impression on me before. Just after sunrise one morning I noticed pendulous bulbs of dew hanging on the side of the van. But just barely. Tap the van, and they collapsed like a monsoon downpour. They were accentuated by the rays of the sun striking them at a glancing angle. Suddenly I was a schoolboy doodling at the blackboard, and why no

Teddy Bear Cholla

Wickenburg AZ, a couple years ago. How can dogs run so easily through the desert? For years, my miniature poodle scampered between the cacti while only suffering one mild incident. So it isn't surprising that when we came to Wickenburg AZ we weren't expecting anything but some nice desert hikes and scenery. Indeed, we found a nice wide dry wash behind the RV campsite. I took a shortcut back to the trailer, late one afternoon. The little dog went ahead. When I came out of the dry wash the little dog was bucking violently at something. He had three sticker balls on his forelegs, and more in his lip. He was wildly panicked, and I was just as bad. But at least there wasn't a lot of blood on his mouth even though there were spines inside his mouth. My only thought was to do nothing that made it worse! Panic is something you have to get out of one notch at a time. A dog goes for stickers on his leg with the mouth, so I flicked the remaining ones off of his legs wi

Teddy Bear Cholla, part 2

Wickenburg AZ, a couple winters ago. My noble experiment has hit a snag. I was trying to improve the winter RV boondock camping experience by tolerating cooler weather, in order to find prettier land and less crowded camping. But lately the weather has been wet, rather than just cool. I don't know if I could ever readjust to wet weather again. I wasn't the only the person standing on the bridge over the mighty Hassayampa "River", gawking at it. I took some photos but won't show them since there are readers north and east who refuse to be wowed by water flowing through a river.   The dogs and I headed up to Vulture Peak, right from the trailer door, by screaming up Cemetery Wash. It is amazing how you can play with dry washes and the ridges between them. Day after day you can walk the same basic area, but small variations make the loop interesting. There are a lot of horsemen in the Wickenburg area. Normally horseshoes are written intaglio into