travels with the golden falcon: From Rusty Water Tank (decomissioned) Camp Feb 28th 2013

From Rusty Water Tank (decommissioned) (N32 17.183 W112 51.132)

As my present location is very pleasant and there appears to be little interest in overdue camping enforcement by BLM Rangers, I am staying put for a while.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been a little more active than usual. Hikes of 4.3 miles and 3.3 miles, plus a couple of 10 mile bike rides have sweated off an ounce or two. These have been in company with Steve Wilson, on his Honda for the rides, with his walking stick for the hikes.

Various friends have announced intent to visit the region, though not necessarily my specific campsite here at Rusty Water Tank. The Richards, Hugh and Christine, have returned to Mica Mine Road in company with Dave and Gail Lewis.

They are about 6 miles away as the cactus wren flies, longer by road. Darch and Kiki (his lab), along with friends, plan to come and shatter the tranquility of Rusty Water Tank for a few days as well. Dog lovers, though welcome, should probably keep their pets away from my campsite as the cholla cacti are omnipresent and unforgiving to errant (unleashed) pet-paws. Dave and Gail came to visit in the ATV and I went to them in the truck for an afternoon firepit session.

Gayle and Don Weyers, along with their semi-pro-scrabble-playing-friend were also slated to visit Rusty Water Tank for a game of boondocking scrabble but a recent severe-weather alert, plus the fact that Gayle’s friend has to catch a plane back to Albuquerque, meant instead that we postponed for a day or two..

Life is still very quiet out in the desert. Other than Border Patrol vehicles going by in the distance, one rarely sees or hears anything (other than the howling of wind at the moment).

Of course, coyotes also howl at night, mourning doves coo, owls hoot and cactus wrens chatter, so at least the desert is alive with some noise.

The anticipated storm did arrive with significant rain pelting down during the one night and part of a day. When I went to Ajo on a milk run, there was plenty of pooling on roads. I even saw snow in the distance up on some hills to the East. The power went out and flickered back on while I was in Ajo but cell service and Internet were out on arrival back at the trailer (back again at 6.00). Apparently, there are two companies providing power to different sections of Ajo. At some point their lines cross each other, so it was only bad luck that the lines of one fell over on top of the lines of the other. Ajo residents were very upset because there was little information to be found. In retrospect, it turns out that one of the companies has what I consider to be a common sense rule that workers can only work for 15 hours at a stretch. The problem was that the power line issues were almost sorted out when workers downed tools and went home for their mandatory rest. Here in the desert, we who live under solar power happily ignore the problems of those “on the grid”

En route to town, I checked various camp sites up and around MM Road. I think that, RWT, if one discounts the abundance of Cholla, is the best. Some of the ones where I could get Internet and cell access were not very level and possibly too rough, even for me, to get to with the trailer.

A week or so ago while Steve and I were sitting on the Astroturf lawn enjoying the sun, along came a Border Patrol Officer on his ATV. He told us that he was tracking a group of Mexicans who weren’t very far away. After he left (driving between 11 o’clock and noon on my carefully-constructed sun dial rocks, we went to check but could see no tracks – maybe he was on a make-work project?

February 22nd - Darch arrived with his friends, Richard and Linda, from Whistler/Powell River in tow. He had lost them several times on the way, breezing through amber and red lights and then overshot the turn here at RWT. According to them, they were in the dark as to where to go much of the trip as Darch disappeared into the distance ahead.

On the shoulder of the hill above camp is a cave. With Darch, there is always a requirement for activity, so we climbed to this cave, to find that it had been inhabited at one time. Signs of a fire pit, along with a spatula and sardine tin were evidence of other climbers, possibly a centuries-old Tohono O’odham Shaman or, more likely, a modern day drug-smuggler’s lookout?

Richard and Linda stayed one night and headed off to see London Bridge at Lake Havasu. Darch stayed an extra day and then went home to Apache Junction. Thoughts of a bike ride were in the air until Darch discovered that his padlock key for the bike chain was MIA, presumably left behind at home. We settled for a fire and BBQ, finally using some of the wood that I have been carting around since Plomosa Road. As an activity, I decided to take a few pics of local varieties of cactus and shrubbery as several of you in the Great White North have been inquiring.

I thought it would be a good idea to buy a few Jalpeños with which to spice up the stewpot. Tastewise, this was quite successful but I did learn that one should avoid rubbing one’s eyes after chopping peppers – the sting is longlasting and painful.

Finally, the other day, I had my first win at Scrabble – a great moment in sport! I was lucky to get most, if not all of the high scoring letters, so skill was likely not a factor.

Temps nowadays 70/40, about perfect for me with cool nights and pleasant days. One of the by-products of warmer daytime temperatures is that a small, quite aggressive variety of bee smells out the water that I carry in the back of the truck.

They seem especially partial to the red 10 gallon rubber bladder, possibly because the moisture aroma seeps through the material or maybe just because it’s colourful – I don’t know. In any case, there are afternoons when it receives attention from the “swarm”.