Dryness- and the alien wildlife- are what impressed me most about Arizona.
From the air the earth looked moon-like. I saw no signs of human life, no roads and no water for hundreds of miles. The ground seemed to consist of black and brown sand and gravel. I marveled that anything could survive down there.
We flew past two high, snow-covered, extinct volcano-mountains, which towered over the topography. From our window they seemed to have skins of smooth gray granite- very different from the black, pointed, cindery, much smaller pseudo-mountains that dot the desert landscape around vast, sprawling Phoenix (the sixth most populous city in the United States). It was easy to picture these snow-blanketed monsters coughing out the desert’s ‘sea’ of dark sand and boulder-rubble, eons ago.
On vacation for a week, Joe and I lived with his sister Nan and her husband Jim in their large, lovely desert home near the edge of a big subdivision, twenty-five minutes north of the city of Phoenix. At dawn on our second day we two woke very early and tiptoed outside to our big, quiet machine. We’d explore a little bit of the massive Sonoran Desert. Its landscape shone a dull gold as the sun crept higher, accenting countless tall saguaro cacti framed by numerous pointy, pseudo-mountain ‘cinder-cones’ (my term) that poked out of the mostly flat, parched earth. House-huge, smoothly worn boulders in varying hues of pale gray and black appeared to defy gravity as they clung to the steep sides of those black ‘witches hats’ that climbers and walkers love to tackle.
Water exists in dam-lakes created by the mighty Colorado River. One, Lake Pleasant, is just north of Phoenix. (Here’s a fascinating fact: Arizona boasts more registered boat owners than Michigan!)
Bottled water is often free, and available at every store. People here down lots of it, to avoid ‘dessicated prune’ syndrome, or even heatstroke. Temperatures can reach 122 degrees, and often linger for days. The only time to safely explore the desert is very early. (The motorcycle’s thermometer read 57 degrees at 7 a.m. By ten o’clock that number would rise to 70; by two o’clock it would be 90+. And spring was still a week away.)
We moved along on an asphalt road that wound on and on past scorpions, snakes, coyotes, puma, lizards, pigs, jackrabbits, and a plethora of other strange and wonderful creatures who eek out a decent existence in this unforgiving place.
Arizonians have learned to co-exist with its wildlife, which has adapted very well to human encroachment. Serpents, for example, seem unfazed by every home’s very tall, smooth, thick stucco garden walls whose solid foundations are laid deep under the iron-hard terrain. Nan’s son Todd, who walks his property daily, found a decent-sized rattlesnake on the patio, right outside his living room’s sliding doors, only the week before we arrived. How could it have gotten there? That serpent was a magician. Those walls were impenetrable. And unclimbable. Weren’t they?
His careful inspection yielded not one entry clue.
Todd and his lovely wife have two young children and a collie dog. Imagine an annoyed rattlesnake objecting to the vibrations generated by their boisterous play…
(There are firms, by the way, that routinely deal with these- visitors. They’ll come immediately to remove and relocate.)
A few folks who live much further into the desert keep mongooses. “I sleep better when Phil is around,” commented one grizzled oldster. “He loves to battle rattlers; it’s a deadly dance that Phil always wins. God, he’s fast. He sure earns his keep.”
In last week’s column I mentioned the feral pigs (havelinas) in Nan’s front pebble and cactus garden, busily devouring every potted geranium.
Coyotes sing lovely, eerie songs in the wee hours, and trot down suburban streets most nights, making themselves at home- in their home.
Nan grabs a special black light flashlight to regularly scour the house’s interior for scorpions. We heard a satisfied “Aha!” when she found one under their bed in the east wing, during our stay. (Scorpions are flesh-colored, making them easy to spot with black light.)
Imagine stepping on one in the middle of the night, on the way to the bathroom.
(Again, I can’t imagine how they find their way inside. These houses are no older than ten years, and solidly built.)
Our bedroom was searched, too, just before our arrival. “It’s not a bad idea to do a morning shoe shake-out,” she commented.
Oh.
I wondered if the creatures could get into our bed. But I never did ask. Instead, I put that query right out of my mind. We were there to relax and enjoy Arizona life. And, by golly, we did.
For me, a little selective ignorance can be a very good thing.
From the air the earth looked moon-like. I saw no signs of human life, no roads and no water for hundreds of miles. The ground seemed to consist of black and brown sand and gravel. I marveled that anything could survive down there.
We flew past two high, snow-covered, extinct volcano-mountains, which towered over the topography. From our window they seemed to have skins of smooth gray granite- very different from the black, pointed, cindery, much smaller pseudo-mountains that dot the desert landscape around vast, sprawling Phoenix (the sixth most populous city in the United States). It was easy to picture these snow-blanketed monsters coughing out the desert’s ‘sea’ of dark sand and boulder-rubble, eons ago.
On vacation for a week, Joe and I lived with his sister Nan and her husband Jim in their large, lovely desert home near the edge of a big subdivision, twenty-five minutes north of the city of Phoenix. At dawn on our second day we two woke very early and tiptoed outside to our big, quiet machine. We’d explore a little bit of the massive Sonoran Desert. Its landscape shone a dull gold as the sun crept higher, accenting countless tall saguaro cacti framed by numerous pointy, pseudo-mountain ‘cinder-cones’ (my term) that poked out of the mostly flat, parched earth. House-huge, smoothly worn boulders in varying hues of pale gray and black appeared to defy gravity as they clung to the steep sides of those black ‘witches hats’ that climbers and walkers love to tackle.
Water exists in dam-lakes created by the mighty Colorado River. One, Lake Pleasant, is just north of Phoenix. (Here’s a fascinating fact: Arizona boasts more registered boat owners than Michigan!)
Bottled water is often free, and available at every store. People here down lots of it, to avoid ‘dessicated prune’ syndrome, or even heatstroke. Temperatures can reach 122 degrees, and often linger for days. The only time to safely explore the desert is very early. (The motorcycle’s thermometer read 57 degrees at 7 a.m. By ten o’clock that number would rise to 70; by two o’clock it would be 90+. And spring was still a week away.)
We moved along on an asphalt road that wound on and on past scorpions, snakes, coyotes, puma, lizards, pigs, jackrabbits, and a plethora of other strange and wonderful creatures who eek out a decent existence in this unforgiving place.
Arizonians have learned to co-exist with its wildlife, which has adapted very well to human encroachment. Serpents, for example, seem unfazed by every home’s very tall, smooth, thick stucco garden walls whose solid foundations are laid deep under the iron-hard terrain. Nan’s son Todd, who walks his property daily, found a decent-sized rattlesnake on the patio, right outside his living room’s sliding doors, only the week before we arrived. How could it have gotten there? That serpent was a magician. Those walls were impenetrable. And unclimbable. Weren’t they?
His careful inspection yielded not one entry clue.
Todd and his lovely wife have two young children and a collie dog. Imagine an annoyed rattlesnake objecting to the vibrations generated by their boisterous play…
(There are firms, by the way, that routinely deal with these- visitors. They’ll come immediately to remove and relocate.)
A few folks who live much further into the desert keep mongooses. “I sleep better when Phil is around,” commented one grizzled oldster. “He loves to battle rattlers; it’s a deadly dance that Phil always wins. God, he’s fast. He sure earns his keep.”
In last week’s column I mentioned the feral pigs (havelinas) in Nan’s front pebble and cactus garden, busily devouring every potted geranium.
Coyotes sing lovely, eerie songs in the wee hours, and trot down suburban streets most nights, making themselves at home- in their home.
Nan grabs a special black light flashlight to regularly scour the house’s interior for scorpions. We heard a satisfied “Aha!” when she found one under their bed in the east wing, during our stay. (Scorpions are flesh-colored, making them easy to spot with black light.)
Imagine stepping on one in the middle of the night, on the way to the bathroom.
(Again, I can’t imagine how they find their way inside. These houses are no older than ten years, and solidly built.)
Our bedroom was searched, too, just before our arrival. “It’s not a bad idea to do a morning shoe shake-out,” she commented.
Oh.
I wondered if the creatures could get into our bed. But I never did ask. Instead, I put that query right out of my mind. We were there to relax and enjoy Arizona life. And, by golly, we did.
For me, a little selective ignorance can be a very good thing.