Living Rootless: Arizona: Y2K.2

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

Twenty years ago, give or take 70 days, I took the second solo road trip of my life. (The first was here.)

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

The second solo road trip was to Organ Pipe National Monument. The occasion was the turn of the millennium. You can read that story here. My Major Millennium Fail on that trip always makes me laugh.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

It hit me not long ago that it would be fun to return to Organ Pipe for this coming new year's birth. A reunion trip. The reunion of me-now with the me of a generation ago. Not that I'm self-centered or anything.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

The other day when I was ready to take my Prius out for its inaugural camp trip, it hit me: Why not just go to Organ Pipe a little early?

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

So I did.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

There are showers now

There were no showers at Organ Pipe 20 years ago. There are now showers - solar showers! I didn't try them out, so no review here.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

The park is still very, very quiet

My typical camping experience at park campgrounds is that they can be rather noisy. Music playing til quiet time. In recent years, people bring movies that they cast against a hanging sheet. There's the chatter of folks around a fire, sometimes soft and low, not unpleasant; sometimes loud and raucous, depending on the quantity of adult beverages alongside the campers' chairs. Sounds of generators.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

Organ Pipe National Monument is quiet.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

There are some sites where generators are permitted, but the time slots to run them are circumscribed sharply to 4-6 pm and 8-10am. There are no hookup sites at all, which also contributes to the quiet.

Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona. October 2019.

In addition to the addition of showers, it gladdened my heart to observe that those NO signs of 20 years ago are entirely gone.

I saw the Milky Way

It wasn't as cold on this night as it was on New Year's Eve 1999. I sat in my camp chair, leaned my head back against the chair back, looked up, and in remembrance of that wine I did not get to drink at Y2K, I sipped the canned wine I brought for my almost-Y2K.2.

(Coincidentally, the canned wine I chose was the exact same as that pictured in the above link. It was unworthy of the Milky Way, and I'd select a different one in future.)

One of my campsite neighbors had brought an impressive telescope/camera, which he'd set up earlier in the day. He told me it was to gaze upon the Triangulum Galaxy, which I'd never heard of. At first, when my neighbor uttered "triangulum," me being a child of the original Star Trek, science fictiony things such as tricorders came to mind. (Which reminds me of the trogon story.)

I've since learned that October is a splendid time of year for Triangulum peeping.

Triangulum Galaxy (Messier 33), taken by Kanwar Singh. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The border, The Wall

Being only seven miles away by road, I popped down to the border town called Lukeville, which abuts the Mexican border town of Sonoyta on the other side. My original plan was to park on the US side, then walk over to Sonoyta, as I did 20 years ago.

The border between Lukeville, Arizona, USA, and Sonoyta, Sonora, MX. October 2019.

Twenty years ago, I was an enthusiastic cigarette smoker, and back then, I walked over to Sonoyta to buy two things:

Several cartons of cigarettes
Some ballyhooed burritos or enchilada, I forget which, for breakfast

I also paid for a shower in Lukeville, after several days of camping. Looks like that resort is now closed.

I did not go over to Sonoyta this trip because parking in the lot adjacent to the border was 10 bucks. No, I wasn't into that, not just for a quick pop over to Sonoyta. Heck, in Nogales, it's only five bucks. In El Paso, three bucks, if my memory is correct.

Later, on my way back home, I suddenly remembered: I didn't hunt down any point of the under-construction Wall build that's currently garnering news attention. Should I go back?

And then I thought: Wait. You've seen The Wall.

You lived within daily sight of it in El Paso. You've seen the new version of The Wall in Puerto Palomas. You've seen its scar across the land in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. You've touched The Wall. Even on this trip, you saw The Wall from the road, burning its acidic trail through Organ Pipe. You've looked up into The Wall's razor wire, that which is favored by such as the Soviet gulags, the Berlin Wall, and Supermax prisons.

It depresses your soul just thinking about it now, while you're driving back home. [And it depresses me while writing about it for this post.]

No, Mzuri, you don't need to turn around and find this particular, malevolent stretch of The Wall, designed to keep the riffraff from the would-be gated community called the United States.

The hitchhiker

When I left Lukeville to return home, I passed again the entrance to Organ Pipe National Monument. I smiled, "seeing" the hitchhiker I picked up at the entrance twenty years ago. She was a woman in her fifties, I think, who'd flown over from the UK to walk the Appalachian Trail solo, who'd decided it wasn't as she'd imagined or liked, and who switched gears to a cross-country bus and hiking trek across America.

The woman had a bus to catch somewhere in Arizona, and I carried her as far as Why.

Little green things

Periodically, along Highway 86, I saw flourescent green sumthin'-sumthins' on one side of the road. What the hey?

Finally, I pulled over to check it out.

Pink bollworm trap, Highway 86, Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona. October 2019.

Pink bollworms. A rather thrilling story about the fingers-crossed eradication of the insect in Arizona here, which required cooperation from Mexico.

Donkey, Highway 86, Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona. October 2019.

The donkey

In Tohono O'odham Nation, a pretty donkey stood along Highway 86, perhaps thinking to cross, perhaps just looking at the passing cars, perhaps eying a tasty clutch of greens, perhaps reminiscing about a recent tryst that she, a jenny, enjoyed with a handsome jack.