Showered, shaved and eating breakfast by 8:30 a.m. First thing I checked at breakfast was the waffle maker. It was generically customized…meaning not customized for New Mexico but definitely for Best Western or possibly any person whose initials were BW. This one had a BW stamped in the middle of a heart of a round waffle.
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Met George,
a very friendly gentleman, in the hotel breakfast area. He’s from Mississippi
on his way to Maricopa to meet up with some Air Force buddies he was stationed
with back in the 50’s. Although he
didn’t specifically say it, I’m assuming this was during the Korean War because
1. He spent time in an airplane but not as the pilot and 2. He was in security
(whatever that means in this context). Anyway, two of the buddies are twins and are
celebrating their 80th birthday…George is showing up as a surprise
guest. The wife of one of the men knows
he’s coming but has promised to keep it quiet.
He’s staying for a week and is very excited about the whole adventure. I love it when people share their joy with
random strangers in random places.
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Anyway,
the more I looked at them the more the taller specimens started resembling
strange human forms: an actor taking a bow…a dancer with hands lifted skyward…a
parent with little ones gathered around…a family…two friends talking, etc. Seeing human qualities in a plant was all
about distance and angle of sight; this little game kept me occupied for about 60
miles.
Eventually
I wondered out loud what kind of cactus it was; Kim replied that he didn’t
think it was a cactus and suggested that I google ‘desert bushes’. I’m on
the job! An entry from a blog called
The Danger Garden popped up. The entry
was from 2012, was entitled ‘Yucca Highway’ and it detailed the writer’s
fascination with the very plants I was curious about on the very same stretch
of highway we were currently driving. Fun how
these Google searches turn out.
So
whenever I’m on the section of I-10 from Tucson to Deming, NM, I’m going to
keep my eyes open for the Yucca People.😎
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Stopped at the rest area just past the Arizona
state line and because the air felt so delicious I took the time to find a
geocache. It was cleverly hidden near
the entrance road to the rest area and it was very hard to act casual about
what I was doing so as not to attract unwanted attention from ‘muggles’.
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There’s a section of I-10 that I’ve always found intriguing…the Texas Canyon. Wikipedia says it a
The road
through the canyon is maybe 10 miles in length and what’s notable about it are
the huge boulders and stacks of boulders that line the roadside. I marvel at
the way the biggest boulders balance on smaller boulders and how some boulders
manage to stay vertical when they’re obviously top heavy. There is a rest area so a person can get out
of the car and take in the size of the boulders but the real fun occurs in what
you see as you’re driving through the area.
Can’t pull over and it’s about impossible to get pictures as we’re
speeding by but it never stops me from trying.
This
is what the website azfamily.com has to say
about how The Texas Canyon got its name:
Around 1880, a man named David Adams moved to this part of Arizona
from Texas and eventually brought much of his extended family to join him. Local lore says all those newcomers from the
lone star state quickly gave the canyon its name, and it’s been stuck on area
maps ever since. I’m not
sold on that as a full explanation…it’s lacking the ‘why’ component. I’ve always thought maybe it’s called The Texas
Canyon because the rocks are so big and Texas has the reputation of bigness. Perhaps
that’s the ‘why’ behind the Adams family’s reason for calling it that. But I guess I’ll never know.
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