Over the Divide

Winter in Prescott: this year, we’re not getting the voluminous snowfall that we did last year (at least not yet), and it hasn’t been too terribly frigid.  On the other hand, it is winter, and we do have a block of non-work time, so we are off and gone on our way to the Texas coast.

Will it be warmer there?  Probably, but no guarantees.  Will there be snowfall?  I would answer that one with a resounding no.  Will there be a large body of water?  Pretty much guaranteed.  Will there be places to explore and to add to our memory banks?  Most assuredly, plus a whole passel of avian creatures to quickly plump up our 2022 bird list.

No additional reasons needed: before we even set off, we deem it well worth the long drive, and it is a long one - more than 1,200 miles, but we will break it up a bit with stops along the way.

Against our grain, really, but Ike’s interstate system is right handy for this kind of travel.  I-10 will deliver us to our first night out somewhere between Las Cruces, New Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, a stop only long enough to rejuvenate ourselves with sleep and coffee.

As we commingle at ridiculous speeds cheek-by-jowl with big rigs and snowbirds, we cross the Continental Divide, indiscernible but for a highway sign alerting us to its location.  Vast miles of flat desert in every direction, punctuated by range after range of distant mountains rising high enough to be frosted with snow, we cross the Divide at 4,585 feet elevation.

Our journey through southeastern Arizona brings up a lifetime of memories from many past visits thereabouts.  We pass the directional sign to Cochise Stronghold, and I am reminded of seeing it as a child and asking my father to take me there (wherever “there” might have been; I really hadn’t the slightest idea what it was, but it sounded cool).  He amiably agreed yet somehow, that never came to pass.

Made up for that miss by going numerous times in my adult years.  Truthfully, I continue to be drawn by the area, must have felt the energy way back when.  As we drive, we come in sight of the double mountain peaks called Dos Cabezas, and I am reminded of the summer(s) Dad & Uncle Lewis were logging in those mountains.  My cousin Johnny & I moved ourselves into an abandoned ranch house and set up housekeeping.  The two of us ran wild during those months, driving at a very pre-license age on every back road we could find and tearing cross county with abandon.  We swam in cow tanks, found desert tortoises, and just generally risked life & limb with our antics, both out on the plains and up the mountain in the midst of the logging operation.

There was the time a chokered log swung around and hit Dad in the head, rendering him a bloody mess.  You might think an adult in the crew would get him to the hospital, but no . . . loggers work around the clock during the season, so it fell to ten-year-old Johnny to drive him miles down the mountain on precarious logging roads and even more distance to a hospital.  That trip was made even more memorable when the fan belt broke out in the middle of nowhere; he repaired it with baling wire and saved the day, possibly also Dad, although the pupil in his eye remained dilated for the rest of his life.

It becomes painfully obvious what occurs when I occasionally set fingers to keyboard with no agenda whatsoever.  I shall stop for now with photos taken when we stopped at “The Thing”, advertised to be an “all new museum”, something about aliens vs. dinosaurs, thus highly educational and illuminating, I am sure.  I would even tour that bizarre place once again except for the call of the Gulf of Mexico.

I couldn’t resist getting a shot of a pickup loaded to the gills in the most bizarre way.  It appears to be headed to Mexico with who-knows-what-all within that mound.  I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how someone got all those articles to remain in place long enough to be tied down.

Adios New Mexico, hola Texas, frozen crocs . . .

I don't wear shoes in the trailer, leaving them stashed just outside the door.  It was a bit of a shock this mornig to slip bare feet into icy crocs as we prepared a quick getaway from our eastern neighbor and into our destination state.

Woofy's noisy heater kept us snug and warm last night, but very much awake on my part.  Happily, I am not driving the rig, so if I doze, it gives the señor a break from my prattling.

Might as well begin right away with the bird list for this journey; I'm anticipating a much expanded version as we proceed.  Ha - thus far, we have identified raven, turkey vulture, house sparrow, great-tailed grackle and rock dove -  millions of 'em.