#62 - Saturday, 20 May 2017 - Rodeo, New Mexico

Good morning and Happy Saturday.

I realized that I forgot to include the promised map in my last blog entry. I've corrected that, but I assume that most of my readers are seeing the posts within the first 24 hours so I will duplicate it here.

The red star above shows the location of Rusty's RV Ranch. It is on Hwy. 80 just north of Hwy. 9, which heads east to Animas, Hachita and beyond. As you can see, you could walk into Arizona from Rusty's. Animas to the east is 16 miles or so and there Valley Mercantile is my closest source for fuel and groceries and other sundries. West into Arizona, Portal is where the cafe I have had breakfast twice is and is the entrance to the Chiricahua Mountains.

The orange stars represent frequented destinations. In New Mexico the stars designate the Whitmire Canyon Wilderness in the Peloncillo Mountains where I have found the scorpion Diplocentrus peloncillensis, which is my new favorite U.S. species, and where I have unsuccessfully searched for the tarantula Aphonopelma peloncillo (in the green in the extreme southwest), and the road north of the Antelope Wells port-of-entry into Mexico where I have road cruised and found four Painted Desert Glossy Snakes so far.

The orange stars in Arizona are random spots (approximations) in the Chiricahuas, with the farthest northwest being the Chiricahua National Monument (CNM). The black pen lines show my frequent paths and shows the big loop I made when I drove to the top of the Chiricahuas, then visited the CNM and drove about two hours back to New Mexico and camp.

I had really wanted to meet back up with arachnologist Dr. Brent Hendrixson and his three students doing scorpion research. Yesterday I made plans to leave Rusty's one day early and drive 500 miles to Lajitas, Texas and Big Bend Ranch State Park to see them again. The plan was to then return to Big Bend National Park the following day and once again black light for scorpions in Boquillas Canyon. This morning I began to further make preparations, and yesterday I told Rusty that I would be shortening my stay here by one day and leaving tomorrow at dawn. This morning I called my sister Lisa (no cell signal here, but I drove 16 miles to Animas to make the call) and told her everything and hearing myself say it made me realize just how crazy an idea it was. My pace is more slug-like than that of my tent-camping friends who only have a few weeks for this field trip. I plan to revisit everywhere I've been, but I need to do it at my own speed, on my own terms. If I had my tent and sleeping bag I might have just left my RV here and camped with them (I will get them when I return to Chicago!). Without that option, I sent Brent an email explaining the situation. As much as I'd love to spend time in the field with him again, it will have to wait until another time. He's headed back west in July and that might be another opportunity.

Now that I am remaining in New Mexico I have done some more reconsidering. My original booking here at Rusty's RV Ranch was to leave Monday morning, and I was then going to head back to the Deming area and visit Rockhound State Park for a few nights. Instead I think I will stay at Rusty's for one more week. I love this area and want to enjoy it some more. I also want to just relax. Today I think I will just read and play guitar. Staying here for another week would require some more groceries and my next big decision is whether to be limited by the meager selection and expensive prices in nearby Animas, or to just drive 100 miles roundtrip to Lordsburg, New Mexico, which is the closest town of any size.

Take care, MJ

#61 - Friday, 19 May 2017 - Rodeo, New Mexico

Apologies for yesterday’s heaviness. I am a dark, introspective and philosophical man. I don’t often share my feelings (read: almost never), but yesterday was intensely reflective and meditative. I spent much of it driving and thinking, and listening to the powerful and haunting voice of Chris Cornell.

Before I move onto sunnier topics, I must admit that I am still shaken by Chris Cornell’s death. To learn that it has been ruled suicide is bewildering. From what I’ve read he performed, greeted fans afterword and spoke of the next night’s performance in Columbus and was from all reports behaving “normal”. How could anyone be in the state of mind to take their own life then? I did read that his wife (or other family) had called another friend to check on him so there must be something missing from the story.

My day of driving began when I headed back to Arizona for the day. I don’t know if I commented on it before, but when I arrived in Arizona initially, after spending some time in New Mexico, I was really confused by the time. It took me days to realize that Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings time and that is why my automatically time updated devices didn’t jive with those requiring manual change. Both New Mexico and Arizona are in Mountain Time, but two different mountain times! Arizona is one hour behind New Mexico, sharing the clock at this time of the year with Pacific Time. That has become even more confusing now that I am right on the border. I’ll add a map below for those of you who might not know where I am. I have been in and out of both states so many times over the past four days and my iPhone keeps changing time. 

The red star represents Rusty's RV Ranch, just north of Rodeo, New Mexico. The orange stars represent areas I frequent. The black lines roughly show the roads I travel in the area.

Yesterday’s route took me back to Portal Cafe for breakfast and then deeper into the Chiricahuas. I drove up the mountain roads to the highest elevations of Barfoot Park (8300’) and Rustler Park (9000’). I am not a fan of heights and this very rough and narrow winding road had plenty of drop-offs that made me a bit queasy. I was so glad to have my amazing 4x4, and even more glad to encounter almost no other vehicles. I can’t imagine driving up these roads when there is any traffic at all. There is often no place to pass or pull over and certainly no guardrails to prevent you from falling a few thousand feet. I laughed when I would see a “one lane bridge” sign. The whole bloody thing is one lane … It was white knuckle at times, but the views were breathtaking. Presumably, I was headed up there to “bird”, but I have a real love-hate thing with “birding”. First of all, I am a reptile and arachnid guy. Birders are geriatrics in funny clothes (haha). The day before when I went to a few birding hotspots (among the best spots in the country), I encountered so many birders and it’s not a club I want to join. Secondly, birders carry binoculars not cameras. I don’t own binocs (yet!). Bird photographers have $20,000 lenses. I’ll never own one of those. I did enjoy the birds though and at Barfoot Park I once again encountered wild turkey. I saw them in Kissimmee Prairie Preserve S.P. in southern Florida, I saw them in Madera Canyon, Arizona and now have in the Chiricahuas. The two I encountered yesterday weren’t that bothered by my presence. I was truly alone in the woods and saw no people at these high elevation points.

After driving all the way to the top of the Chiricahuas I did question my sanity. I even began flipping rocks hoping for a cool scorpion or lizard. I had driven to these heights, and at times the drive was anything but relaxing, to photograph birds and found myself just watching. Then I wished I could find a mountain king snake or something much cooler than a winged annoyance. Just like butterflies and dragonflies, photographing birds requires patience that I can rarely summon. I decided I definitely didn’t want to descend the same way I had come so I took the road that leads you down the other side and toward Highway 118 and Chiricahua National Monument. It would have been easier to visit this park when I headed back east from Tucson toward Rodeo, but now I had a second chance. The park really is a “must see” with incredible rock formations (e.g. “hoodoos”). I even took a couple of bird photographs there. Afterward, I might have reversed my path back into the Chiricahuas and toward Portal, but I instead took the direct route on Hwy. 118 toward Willcox that led to me basically doing a large clockwise circle yesterday. I took a bit of a shortcut through the Ft. Bowie National Historic Site (Apache Pass), but I don’t do history or culture so I didn’t stop. This eventually led me north to Interstate 10 and then I headed east back to New Mexico and Rusty’s RV Ranch the same way I had earlier in the week.

I was tired and sick of driving when I got back to camp. I also was hungry as I had brought no lunch with and the omelette I had for breakfast had exhausted its fuel. I made some pasta and had a Jameson’s and ginger. But one of the reasons I was in the “boot heel” of New Mexico was to road cruise for snakes. It may be a little early in the year still and the nights are still cool, but I headed east on Highway 9 through Animas and on to Hachita where I headed south on Hwy. 81 toward Mexico. As with many times in on this road trip, it was just me, Border Patrol and black-tailed jackrabbits. I watched the sun set over the Animas Mountains and the roadsides became increasingly populated with both jackrabbits (a hare, not a rabbit) and desert cottontails (a real rabbit). It is quite the trick to avoid running them over and it gets worse as darkness falls. There is a small port of entry at Antelope Wells and I headed that direction. I found four glossy snakes crossing the road in a short stretch about twenty miles north of the border. Two were adults and two were young. I photographed each and recorded GPS data and released them off the road. Not many others would be driving down here at night, but I doubt the Border Patrol officers care about hitting the jackrabbits and cottontails, much less snakes. In their defense it becomes almost impossible to not hit hares and bunnies.

I was exhausted and now more than a couple hours from camp so I turned around sixteen miles north of Mexico. When I passed one Border Patrol agent he turned on his truck lights and turned into the road behind me. He didn’t speed up to catch me, but just continued a distance behind me, which forced me to increase my speed past the 25-35 mph I road cruise at. In retrospect, I should have just pulled over and let any encounter happen sooner rather than later, but I drove for miles and miles and miles with him about a half mile behind me and me going about 15 mph below the speed limit. I passed another parked Border Patrol vehicle and hoped that my follower would stop to chat with his colleague, but my follow vehicle just continued behind me. I focused on the road looking for snakes and weaving or slamming on the breaks to avoid killing jackrabbit. It’s not easy and I know a few must have got beneath my wheels. When I got back to Hwy. 9 and turned west the BP truck was still in pursuit. I saw a snake in the road and pulled over as soon as I could. There was no shoulder so I had to pass it a bit. Sure enough the BP vehicle pulled behind me. And sat. I waited for him to turn on his flashing lights or do something and finally I just waived my arms in a disgusted “do something” gesture. Then he turned on his “cherries” and eventually got out. He was not what I expected. I wouldn’t give this guy a crossing guard job. He was this lazy-eyed, fat young very-Caucasian kid who could barely speak English much less Spanish. The way he approached me would get him killed if I was a violent felon. No flashlight. No guarded or defensive posture. No extreme awareness. I could have drawn my .45 and shot him a thousand times. He just waddled up and I finally just shouted “How ya doin’ man?!” He stammered and I launched into what I was doing without him asking. I told him he had forced me to go too fast and asked if he wanted to stop me why he didn’t FIFTY miles earlier. He apologized and was so “aw shucks” I felt sorry for him and wondered how long he’d last in his job. He told me that my behavior is exactly what the illegal immigrant runners do. They drive into the deserted area at night fall to the port of entry after it closes and then drive back out sooner than most drivers to the area would. They pick up people who have snuck across the border and take them into towns. There really aren’t any towns to speak of for many miles. I told him about the four glossy snakes I had photographed and asked if he even noticed the one not far behind us. He said, “well, it’s dead out here so why not turn around and look for it?” I did. It was dead-on-road (DOR). A Sonoran Gophersnake about four feet long. It was fairly fresh and I was forced to wonder if it was alive when I avoided it and passed, but was killed by Officer Clueless. I still had over an hour to drive back to camp and found one more DOR gopher snake. It remained very difficult to avoid killing jack-rabbits and it seemed like there were a million. I crashed hard after a long day of extra-attentive driving as soon as I made it to camp. 

– All the best, M