Hola chicos y chicas! It is 97 degrees in Marion at nearly 3 PM where we’re camped at Gilbert Ray Regional Park near Saguaro West National Park in Tucson. Friends Holly and Rabbit are our neighbors. We’re camped in Site #A68 near the bathrooms. It is quiet here with views of ocotillo, cholla and saguaro cactus framed by Tucson Mountain Park peaks. Since I’m hot spotting from my iPhone and data is limited, I’ll keep this short. But I do want to say Fare Thee Well Dr. John Magnell, who passed from his body recently. His birthday was today. He was a fun man, and great as an in-home chiropractor.
Highlights of the week? Patagonia Lake State Park, where we camped nearby the restroom. The campground hosts the social Great-tailed Grackles. We put out black sunflower seed and bowls of water for them.
Bill was up and out birding one early morning and saw this Northern cardinal.
5:30 PM murmuration of Red wing and Yellow headed blackbirds at Patagonia Lake State Park’s cattails was a sunset pleasure:
And…we finally met the renowned Penny Cabot–one of the early history makers of the Whidbey Island Waldorf School and a friend of Gretchen Lawlor’s! She filled us in on the activists protecting ‘The Magical Kingdom of Patagonia,’ where she lives with her husband Robert, now into his 100-plus year.
Then, by Friday Nov. 7 we were on our way to Tucson. We learned that Rabbitt B., a friend from library days would be camping nearby our site at Gilbert Ray Regional Park. She pulled in just as we left to swim at the Oro Valley Aquatic Center–refreshing! We were invited to dinner with my Uncle Orland, my dad’s brother, who has many of the same kind qualities my papa had. Uncle Orland treated us to delicious barbecue ribs, baked beans, cole slaw. The ribs and slaw were made by a Chicago chef who runs a food truck.
Sunday morning we took an early hike with Rabbitt to the David Yetman West Trailhead along Gates Canyon. We marveled at the vistas of saguaro, cholla, ocotillo and wildflowers, along with the mountain vistas.
Afterwards we drove into Tucson to meet Lisa Harris at Tumerico, a Latin vegetarian restaurant whose food is great for my sensitive tummy. We met Lisa two years ago after she reached out and told us she reads This is Whidbey. We’ve since enjoyed her company, and I’ve written a few stories with her in it.
After the Nov. 9 sunset we sat around Rabbitt’s rig eating a potluck feast of roast chicken, pasta, salad, roasted eggplant and fruit. Nice to have folks to have a meal with while camping.
Monday–Nov. 10–we rose early to hike the many stepped Hugh Norris Trail up to a saddle in Saguaro National Park. The late Hugh Norris was a respected police chief of the Tohono O’odham people, who live in the Tucson area today. Saguaro National Monument was created in 1933 by a proclamation of then President Herbert Hoover. A link on the Saguaro National Park’s history page notes: “Wrenched by the Great Depression and awaiting a new administration, few in Washington paid any attention to Hoover’s action. But it was a victory for both botanists and boosters in Arizona who’d worked for years to protect this grandest stand of saguaros. And it was a far-sighted accomplishment that would have incredible benefits for future generations of both Tucsonans and tourists.”
We hiked up more than a thousand hand-hewed granite blocks, built by the Civilian Conservation Corp., a New Deal program created in 1933 by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Then with so many out of work, FDR invested federal funds to train young men, 18-25 in skills such as trail building, construction of public buildings and planting of trees, all while earning $30 a month.
While we did not hike all the way to 4687–foot high Wasson Peak–a 10-mile round-trip journey, we did hike to the saddle, about a 600 foot elevation gain. It took about 90 minutes hiking up through saguaro whose arms seemingly showed all sorts of emotion. Rabbitt loaned me one of her hiking sticks, so with our late friend Fred Bixby’s magic hiking sticks he made for us and one of Rabbitt’s, I found the walk less grueling while lifting my feet up to 18″-to 24″ -high granite steps.
So. That’s the story, Morning Glory! Till next time, adios from Cactus Kate and Bajada Bill