Tucson, Organ Pipe Cactus Nat Monument, Phoenix, Four Corners

We have seen a lot of museums. This is at the U of Arizona @ Tucson - Indian masks...

Entrance to the University.

A Puma; A Ringtail (I think).
At the Arizona Desert Museum: Far right, Saguaro Cactus; Near, Baja Firebarrel Cactus.

Saguaro looking vaguely like something out of Muppets. Saguaro with a Cactus Wren in residence.

Kit fox; Victoria Regina Agave.



A cave fish. Some of them are blind; don't know about this one, which kept following Barb as she walked past.

A 'Lifesaving' Cactus, which supposedly leans to the North and can help you tell which way is North (needed when the sun doesn't shine, which is never). Juice is not drinkable.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Right at the South end of New Mexico, and very hot. An Organ Pipe Cactus.



Right, a Cholla. Below, Stwo aguaros.

Phoenix: Performing Atrs Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Even more impressive from inside.

Aloe Dorotheae, Tanzania.








On the road again: A failed attempt at a tourist trap - looks a bit like a giant dodo skull...Would you like to sleep in a house with a roof like that?

Williams, Arizona, having a small motorcycle rally (The Big One, in Sturgis, ND, draws 500,000, they say. Have to see that).

Williams was named after Old Bill Williams. a famous (and occasionally infamous) Mountain Man.

The Four Corners, where Arizona, New Mexico, COlorado and Utah meet at a point. You have to stand in line to have your picture taken. After that, there are a couple dozen stands selling jewelry etc.:

New Mexico: Malpais and Gila Pueblo

The Malpais (French for Bad country, not to be confused with South Dakota's Badlands) is a miles-wide lava field left by some prehistoric volcanic eruption. Competely barren; no food or water. Indians hated to cross it; whites who did would wear out a pair of mocassins in one crossing.

The lava would pour out of the volcano, sometimes in a flat flow which would solidify on the surface first and perhaps keep on flowing underneath. This could give rise to tunnels (below) or sinkholes; or if too near the surface the tunnel could collapse and leave a ravine (Next below).





Sometimes cracks would form. This photo also shows flow lines. Left, a 'lavafall'.




Beautiful vistas. Photo on right below shows 'waves' of lava as lava solidifies, then is overrun by molten lava which in turn solidifies etc.

Volcanologists really get into it and classifiy everything. Aa lava is the kind they mostly have in Hawaii (if you do crossword puzzles you knew that).

Above: did you notice the snake?

Gila pueblo: one of a great number of cliff-caves built and lived in by Indians at some time or other. A great number ceased to be occupied about 1200 AD, before the White Man got here. Nobody's sure why - Hostile neighbors, religious reasons? Most likely guess is reduced rainfall, perhaps coupled with overpopulation. Nobody knows where they went, although residents of still-occupied pueblos (there are 14 in New Mexico) say they are their ancestors.

Ruins of a Kiva, a religious meeting room. Usually, though not invariably, men-only. The little 'hearth' in the center is for aq fire. There is also a hole in the ground, which is connected with the legend that man originally lived underground, in four worlds; They progressed upward from the bottom to the top one (ruled by the Ants) and then emerged into the the upper world. At left is an opening into the outside; there would have been walls and a roof with an access hole (you'd climb a ladder to get to it) but no windows.

Right, a petroglyph; again, they generally assume ancient Indians left them but don't always know who, when, or what was meant by them. Some are clearly modern; all of them seemed to us slightly suspect.

Left, climbing up to inspect a building. They appaently lived here and climbed up to the mesa or down to the river valley floor to cultivate crops or hunt. T-shaped windows appear every so often, and seem to have some sort of religious significance.

Left, metates - shallow depressions for grinding corn using another stone. Indian women spent a lot of time doing this. One theory is that the rock dust in the corn wore down Indians' teeth so that by the time they were 40 or so they couldn't chew; for whatever reason, they didn't tend to live much beyond 30-40.




A neat little lake. We'd brought a rubber inflatable boat.

Texas: Big Bend Country

Texas' Big Bend country is truly beautiful, and very little visited. We particularly wanted to go in the Spring, when the cactus blooms. Unfortunately, there having been very little rain for the last four years, it didn't bloom much.
But, where there is water, it's pretty neat...



A Sure-nough Texas Longhorn cow. They stand the heat and dryness much better than Angus or Shorthorns, but have as much meat on ten of them as on one Angus. So, what they raise to sell are cross-breeds.


Langtry, Texas was the home of Judge Roy Bean, who said, "West of the Pecos, I am the law!"
When he read about Lily Langtry, famous British actress, friend of Oscar Wilde and the London in-crowd and mistress of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), he wrote her fan letters and named the town after her. She responded by suggesting she do something nice for the town, like maybe donating a fancy water fountain. Judge Roy responded that Texans didn't consider water something for people to drink. He used to hold court in this building, which was also his bar; he'd sometimes sentence miscreants to buy a round of drinks for everybody (a slight conflict of interest).

Below: Wildseed Farms, a plant nursery/tourist trap. Boot planters (Texans mostly wear high-heeled boots even if they don't own a horse).





Then, we get down into the big country. Big Bend National Park is right at the bottom of Texas, where the Rio Grande, and therefore the US-Mexico border makes a big bend.
Below, Javelinas, the local wild pig. Don't mess with them.

Prickly Pear Cactus flower. There is so much desert - nothing but Prickly Pear and other cactus, and a bit of wiry grass - that one flower is suddenly the most beautiful thing in the world.

Claret-Cup Cactus

A Mexican crossing the Rio Grande. Not very Grande - should be called the Rio Piqueno. Cause is that everybody takes water out of it for irrigation. Some years, there's no water at all coming out the bottom end, at Brownsville. They used to call Mexican migrant workers "wetbacks" (politically very incorrect), but this guy just gets his feet wet.

He crossed over the set up a display of carved hiking poles and jewelry, then came to check when anyone went past to see if they left money. We bought a hiking pole (carved from Ocotillo cactus, I think) , which was 1/3 of the price the National Park shops charged for ones that were no nicer.

An agave cactus. They grow for 30 years or so (not a century, as they say), and then in the course of a couple of weeks this tall spike grows up. It blossoms, has to be fertilized by moths or hummingbirds, in only one night in some species; then it goes to seed and the whole plant dies.

One species of agave is also the source of Tequila; which is as big a deal - and can be as expensive - as fine Scotch.

And - more country. It grows on you. After about the end of April, it's really hot - maybe 110 deg - so nobody much goes there until autumn. (There is a more mountainous part, tho, that's a lot cooler and a big tourist draw all year, especially for Texans.)

This is the remains of a hotel, built over a natural hotspring. Water temperature was 105 deg, which turns out to be just right, even when the air temperature is that or hotter. Very relaxing.