Arizona

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2-22-03
Last night didn’t get much below 40 deg and I was comfortable all night long. If it gets in the low 30’s that is when I really start to notice it. I rolled out of the truck around 8:00 after doing a Soduko puzzle and went and got some water. Since I had camped in the day use area, access to water was about a ¼ mile walk. I walked there and when getting back got some oatmeal going. I started talking to my camping neighbors and let the oatmeal get a little cold as I was enjoying the conversation too much. I finally realized it was either eat the oatmeal during the conversation or eat cold oatmeal. The conversation continued as I ate. We talked about traveling and the places we had been too. These folks were from Oregon and recently moved to Texas to retire. Actually there home is just going to be a place to store stuff as they travel. They said the mortgage on the house is cheaper than the cost for them to store their items in Oregon as they had sold their house. They said they used to travel out of a suburban, but recently purchased a van sized camper that they really like. The unit included a microwave and a refrigerator that the wife loves. They said me sleeping in my truck is a great way to go and said I was doing it right. I must admit the bed of the truck with the air mattress is a pretty good setup.

I went for a short hike and looked for some semi-precious stones as the campground guide illustrated. Calling them semi-precious seems a little funny to me and somewhat of a slight to the stones, but I guess stones do not have feelings? I looked around as I hiked, but did not find any stones that looked semi-precious to me. I really didn’t want to carry a bunch of rocks around anyway. I left around 10:30 and headed into Deming to find wifi. I got frustrated that Holiday Inn did not allow access without registering. That’s it I am boycotting Holiday Inn. Well wait a minute I am too cheap to go there anyway so I guess my boycott will have zero effect on them. The LaQuinta Inn offered free access so I logged on and booked my flight from Seattle on March 20th. I got the flight for $ 123 which I was pleased with. I went and had a nice lunch at a steak joint in Deming. I had a chopped sirloin sandwich and steak fries. It was very filling. I got back on the highway and started down I-10 headed for Tucson. The computer said 212 miles, which would take me about 3 hours. I was excited as I planned to see some spring training action in Tucson the next couple days. Wasn’t sure they were playing yet, but was confident at least the pitchers and catchers would be in camp.

As I was driving down the highway I was awestruck by several vistas and pulled off the road 4 or 5 times for pictures. On about 3 occasions I jumped fences and ran to cross railroad tracks so the tracks would not be in the picture. I think I got some good photos today. In Arizona there was this huge Pecan, Walnut and Wine business that was pretty impressive. I suspect they employ lots of Mexican workers to do that work. It kind of makes me sad in that I am pro-small town/farm America and this is nothing about small town America as this is a big operation. That kind of reminds me of the Maschoff’s hog operation in Carlyle, which they claim to be a small operation in a tv commercial about legal reform. There is nothing small about their operation.

In one location in Arizona you come up this hill to a rest-stop and these amazing rocks are present. They are huge and round and look like something out of the dinosaur age. Dinosaurs? I remember talking to a person on this trip that was telling me he does not believe in evolution at all and that god did it all. I mentioned science had studied evolution and in my mind has proven things do change over time. I don’t think he believed in any part of evolution. It’s always amazes me how people pick and choose what science they want to believe. Pretty much all of the medical field is science and if someone needs angioplasty or dialysis etc. they sure do not think twice about that science. If the science is going to cause them hardship, as small as that hardship might be, they are quick to discount it. Global warming science is an example of science that people are quick to discredit, because people may have to pay a little more at the pump or on their electrical bill. Sure no one knows for sure about the causes of Global Warming, but doesn’t it make since to error on the side of caution? It does to me. People are so worried about their money (the root of all evils) that they quickly discredit the science of global climate change. If however an experimental treatment for a health issue is out there, they are willing to try that even if the science is not fully proven. Ok I digress. It just disturbs me how caught up most people are with money these days.

I saw signs about the town of Tombstone and the ghost towns near Bisbee, but I was so excited to get to Tucson because of spring training I decided to continue on. I made it to the Tucson area around 4:00 and decided to go to Collosal Cave, which is just on the eastern outskirts of Tucson. I saw lots of those cactuses that you always see associated with Arizona. The person at the Collosal Cave entrance said the only camping at Saguaro National Park is walk in tent camping, but they have camping at Collosal Cave so I decided to stay there. The cost is only $5.00 to get in and camp. I went to the cave sight and decided to pay $8.50 to do the cave tour. It is a lot different cave than Carlsbad Caverns, but is unique in it’s own way. I liked it. This cave is only about a ½ mile hike. The tour guide told a great story about bank robbers who went in their and the marshall trapped them. The robbers found another way to escape the cave and then went to Wilcox and started bragging about their escape. Well the word got back to the Sheriff of Tucson at the time and he gathered up a possee and went after the bank robbers in Wilcox. The sheriff and his men shot them all dead except one person who was shot 10 times, but still survived. The man got 28 years in prison. From the bank robbery about ½ the money was never recovered and people thought it was some where in the cave, but no one has ever found it. The tour guide said it is over a million dollars. I ask the question how the robbers ever found that secret tunnel, which goes out of the cave? She said they suspect, there was either airflow through it or bats might have flown through it? They do not really know.

After the tour I drove around the park to check things out. They have a horse ride at the ranch inside the park, but it is $27/hour which seems a little steep to me. The park ranger told me about the Arizona trail, which goes all the way to Utah. He said you can ride it by bike so I plan to do a part of that tomorrow. The park ranger said he did it by horse for 7.6 miles and drank a ½ a case of beer while doing that and kind of laughed. He was a little interesting to say the least and I hope I do not hear dueling banjos tonight at any time. The bike ride should be cool. I think after that I will head to Tucson and check out the Spring Training stuff. They probably have a Hostel there somewhere as well, which I may opt for tomorrow night even though I am enjoying the camping the last few nights. I may go back to Tombstone and Bisbee if the Spring Training stuff is a flop. Who knows maybe I will even head to Mexico since I will be so close.

The campsites are really primitive and there are only two other vehicles here. The site though looks very cool. It would be great camping here with a large group tent camping. I talked to a lady and her daughter who are here camping from Alaska. They came here for her daughters hockey tournament. They had a campfire going so I joined them for awhile and had a couple marshmallows with them. She home schools her two daughters and then works at night to pay for their hockey playing. Her husband is an aviation mechanic from Neosha, MO. Not sure how they met, but I got the impression that they do not have money for a lot of extras. It was neat learning about her family.

Wow just when I thought it couldn’t get much better than New Mexico I encountered some phenomenal stuff in Arizona too. Bring on more Arizona!


2/23/07
The next day I drove into Tucson considering going to the 82nd Annual Tucson Rodeo. I went to a restaurant for lunch and ask them about the Tucson Rodeo. The waitress said she had never been. A couple next to the booth I was sitting in overheard the conversation and told me that they have been to the rodeo several times and highly recommended it. They told me exactly how to get there. They said the school kids in Tucson get the Thursday and Friday off of rodeo week. That explains why those kids seem a little dumb, as they are not attending school. Just kidding I hadn’t even talked to any of them. The rodeo started at 2:00 and it was about 1:00 so I scarfed down the fish and side dishes and headed for the rodeo. I got lost several times and pulled up to the rodeo about 2:00. I found some free parking and scampered towards an opening in the fence I had seen. In doing so I had walked briskly past two security guards not thinking much about it. As I walked towards the arena there were lots of horses around me and a few people on horses walking past me. When I got to the arena I couldn’t find a place to purchase tickets so I asked some people and they had gotten there’s in front of the building. I tried to make my way around the building the best I could through the crowds to the front of the building. I could hear the PA guy starting to talk about the event. I didn’t want to miss anything so I was rushing even more. I still couldn’t find the tickets and came across walkways into the arena and didn’t see anyone checking tickets so I just walked on in. I felt a little bad but the bottom line was, I was in and the rodeo was just getting underway. I guess I should have paid someone after the event but I didn’t. Oh well I did try to find the ticket office at least for awhile.

The rodeo was awesome. I have only been to 2 rodeos prior to this one with one being in Kansas as a kid, when we were visiting one of my grandfather’s war buddies. I believe their last names were Lawrence and once in Carlyle when the fair had a small rodeo with bull riders. This I gathered was a big time rodeo and it was the 82nd annual so that tells you something right there. The place was not completely filled as the weather was horrible. I didn’t think it was so bad, but everyone else seemed to think so as the temperatures were in the 40’s and the wind at time I estimate was blowing at least 30 mph. At times you could see cowboy hats blowing off people’s heads and into the air. Of everything I saw I think I enjoyed watching people ride their horses fast. I suspect that might be weird to say, but their was just something about a horse being in full gallop that I enjoyed. The PA guy would talk from his horse as well and that was pretty neat too. I just assumed he would be in the booth sipping coffee and watching the action from afar. They had bare back riding, saddle riding, steer roping, barrel riding, team roping and of course the bull riding. They talked a lot about the companies supplying the horses giving them credit for having such wild horses essentially. The company supplying the horses were different from the company supplying the bulls. Bull riding always worried me a little afraid the riders might get injured but today I was going to try and just enjoy it. The riders wore helmets which surprised me a little. One rider was bucked off and fell under the bull and the bull stepped on him. The rider had to crawl off as the clowns distracted the bull. A person came out to help him off and the cowboy couldn’t really stand upeven with help. I bet he was pretty sore the next day. The rodeo kind of had a dark cloud over it from the day before, because during the parade a young girl of 5 was killed when her horse was spooked by another horse and she got knocked off and was ran over by the adjacent horse and buggy. Very violent. Dad had heard about it in the news and said that the girl should not have been in the parade as there is a minimum age of 9. The rodeo finished a little after 4 and I thoroughly enjoyed my day at the rodeo.

From there I went to the roadrunner hostel in downtown Tucson. It was surprisingly pretty cool. I liked the art work on the building and the roadrunner theme of which I have not seen one in the wild. I was told there are lots of roadrunners out here. I met the guy running the hostel and he seemed pretty with it, which was comforting to know. He showed me around and showed me my dorm, which was actually across the street from the hostel. It was ok but there were 10 people total in the room. I assumed there were would be a couple snorers. That’s hostelling. I wanted to go out that night, but was just too tired so I stayed around the hostel using their wifi and getting a blog entry published. I went to bed around 11:30. While in Rome you sleep when the Romans sleep. No use going to bed any earlier although their were already a couple people trying to sleep. One guy I had talked to was a baseball vendor. He talked a lot about major league baseball. I told him my plans to check that out tomorrow.

2/24/07
I got up around 7:00 and headed across the street to the Hostel for breakfast. They had a complimentary waffle breakfast which was kind of nice. A lot of the people at the Hostel eat extremely healthy. There were a few people up already and I went straight to the waffle iron and fixed my waffles. After that I headed to the Rocky's Spring Training facility. The bike ride was much farther than I had expected, but I had made it their by around 9:00 but their wasn’t much going on. I talked to some of the staff and they said they should get going real soon. I decided to bike around the park awhile and then came back. You could see the players beyond the outfield fence in a sectioned off area running. A coach was barking out orders and then the players would run. I looked at a roster sheet and was pleasantly surprised to see John Mabry on there. Him and Todd Helton were really the only players I knew and they both played first base. I stayed near where they would be practicing. I was surprised how close you can get to the players as I was within 10 feet at times when they walked by. I asked Todd Helton about hunting and we talked briefly. I also wanted to talk to John Mabry, but didn’t get the chance. A hospitality lady with the team told me I would have to wait around until 1:00 to get a chance to talk to him so I decided to ride to the White Sox and Diamondbacks facility. Again this ride was longer than I expected. When I got there at 11:45 they were starting to close down the practice so I only got to watch a few drills. To be honest, the first day of full squad practice was pretty boring. I talked to a guy for awhile who relocated to Tucson from Chicago. He was a hydraulic engineer in Tucson who had graduated from the University of Illinois. He had brought his son to the practice. About 12:30 I left there and headed to the University of Arizona. I was going to bike up there for lunch.

Again it was a farther than expected bike ride, but hey look at the health benefits. I asked some people for a place with good beer and food. They recommended a bar called Gentle Bens, which was a microbrewery. That was the perfect place. I really enjoyed their beer and talked to a couple ladys who were from phoenix who had come down for the lady’s basketball game. I talked to them for awhile then they left to head to the 2:00 game. They said to me as they walked out that they would see me here after the game. I told them strangers things have happened as the beer tasted very good. I however left a little after 2:00.

Back at the hostel I worked on the blog for awhile and then decided to take a nap. I intended on seeing the town at night, but after I got up I decided to just work on the blog. I was trying to line up a place to stay in phoenix the next night. I decided finally to skip Phoenix and get to California after looking at the map, because there is so much to see in California.

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Photos

Mountain Biking in the Desert !
This is a pic of me mountain biking on the Arizona trail near Tucson! I wonder what this would have been like in July?

Hello Arizona
Arizona Welcomes Me!

Look at These Rocks
These rocks are unbelievable. They look like something from Jurassic Park!

Colossal Cave Mountain Park
This is just east of Tucson I did the cave tour and camped here.

Another Cave
Colossal cave was a hideout of some bank robbers. The sheriff thought he had them held up in there after they had robbed a bank and he waited outside the entrance for them. It turned out there was another passage way out. The robbers got out and went to another town I think it was Wilcox, and started bragging about how the sheriff was still waiting for them to come out. The word got back to the sheriff and he went there and gunned them all down except one guy who lived and the story goes he had 10 bullet holes in him.

Cattle Rustlers
I came upon these rustlers while riding the Arizona Trail. I told them this town was not big enough for the likes of them and told them to keep a move on or I would pump their kiester full of lead.

Cattle Rustlers - Pic 2
The rustlers moesying out of Tucson!

Mountain Lion Fecal Matter
While in Vermont Jason taught me this is Mountain Lion fecal matter so I immediately went into Indian tracker mode.

Indian Tracker - Testing
The first thing a good Indian Tracker does is feel for warmth. The heat coming off this feces indicated it was between 1 minute and 8 hours old.

Indian Tracker - Test 2
Based on the sight of the feces it appeared not to be more than 60 minutes old.

Verdict
That mountain lion is in those hills over yonder. Jasons lessons prove invaluable again. I continued on with much confidence knowing the mountain lion was not near.

Saguaro Cactus
I really didn't think I would see a lot of these cacti on the trip. I was wrong they are all over the place! Pretty cool!

Me Riding a Horse
I didn't expect these horses to be this wild.

Giddee Up
Time for a little giddee up!

Me Riding A Bull
That horse was so tough riding I thought a bull might be better. I was wrong.

Bull Wins
This guy crawled out of the ring with some assistance. If he came away from that with just a few broken bones I would consider him lucky.

The Winner
This little girl rode this bull for 5 minutes and won the bull riding competition. A guy walked up to me and said you know who that is? I said no. He said that there is Calamity Jane. I said ummmm!

Hey Partner
I learned that this here is the 82nd annual Tucson Rodeo and that kids are let out of school the Thursday and Friday of the Rodeo. I thought that was cool. See the kid and his 10 gallon hat?

Recognize these guys?
That would be Todd Helton and John Mabry!

John on 3rd
Whose on First?

Eat,, Spit and Be Happy!
Sounds good to me.

Comments

[Jason]

poop
Strong work on the fecal matter...the student has become the master!