Cactus Crazy

Note: I have learned that the plural of cactus can be cacti, cactuses or…cactus! I will no doubt apply all uses inconsistently in this post. ;)

On Monday we left sleepy Deming for Tucson, Arizona. But first we had to check out the nearby City of Rocks State Park. It looks exactly as it sounds. I was slightly skittish about scorpions, rattle snakes (oh and hantavirus!), but before long I was clambering happily between, up and over rocks for better views. There were only a couple of other people in the whole park. 

The park was beautiful and I lost all sense of time (and I lost Lashi). I came away happy and delirious from the heat. 

Back in the car for the day, passing breathtaking desert scenery, a few ghost towns, dust storm warnings, billboards for ‘Fresh Jerky’ (huh?) and flying through a time zone or two. I bid New Mexico goodbye (I love this joyful yellow sign) and welcomed Arizona!

I was happy to finally reach the appropriately named ‘Copper Cactus Inn’ - our Tucson home for the next two nights. A city nestled between rocky mountains literally covered in cacti. There is nothing more beautiful than a cactus forest, it is sublime. Cacti grow into all kinds of odd forms, some look sort of human-like to me, with ‘bodies’, ‘heads’ and ‘arms’. 

I just couldn’t get over the fact that people had cactus and rocks in their front yards instead of trees and rose bushes!

The next day was Venus Transit day! After a frantic site reconnaissance, we found the perfect spot. I braved poisonous cactus, mountain lions, rattle snakes and the afternoon heat to support Lashi in his obsession to photograph Venus for six hours as it transited the sun. Not such a unique obsession as it turns out, as we were joined by another Venus hunter with a similar impressive set up, not to mention the throngs of people who stopped by to check out the telescopes and witness the transit over the course of the day.

It was pretty amazing to witness that historic little black dot moving, oh a millimetre or two every five minutes (hehe), but I was soon distracted by all the beautiful things around me to photograph like the mountains, cactus, and a dozen discarded long stem roses (I wonder what the story was with these?).

 

Check out Lashi’s amazing transit pics here.

As the sun disappeared below the horizon a group of capoeira dancers turned up to take over our site. Dancing and singing, sharing a joyful ritual together. I knew exactly why they would want to perform it here. It was a beautiful, grateful moment.

A hot, momentous day was completed with a heavenly Vietnamese pho noodle soup. As we returned home, I witnessed a ‘Hollywood’ moment. Relatively empty streets with cop cars on every corner and crawling down side streets. Literally dozens! A ‘Ghetto Bird’ above us sweeping its spotlight looking for crims, right above our hotel! We darted from the car to the hotel and locked the door before we were taken hostage or something. ;)

Wednesday we travelled north to Flagstaff, Arizona. At this point I could change the title to ‘Caffeine Crazy’, you can imagine what hours trapped in a car does to people. It includes strange animal noises, rants, wild theories and delirious singing...you get the picture.

This epic driving day was to get us close to the Grand Canyon and early on Thursday we headed up. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, what an incredible place! On the way back we passed Native American stalls by the side of the road selling dream catchers, and I day dreamed as I passed through magical sounding places like ‘The Painted Desert’ and ‘Sacred Mountain’.

The next day we got up at 5.00am and drove 12 hours to San Francisco to be the ‘Aussie specimens’ at a 65^th birthday party in Mill Valley. We drove over the Colorado River, through the Mojave Desert and passed a town called ‘Needles’. 

Christian radio made a comeback (I thought we were in California now?)  with ads for ‘affordable, biblical healthcare’ (?) and statements like ‘we are not even capable of framing questions that the bible cannot answer’ which shows a remarkable lack of imagination I think! 

I also found my favourite plant so far, a strange sort of cactus-tree. I have other, clearer pics, but I like this blurry drive-by shot!

So there you have it, we crossed three time zones and drove almost 5,000 kilometres (think of driving from Cairns to Perth!). It was magic, and I miss cactuses!