In Arizona, you must hydrate. Three of America's four great deserts converge here; the Mohave, the Great Basin, and the warm one, the Sonoran. And if you don't want your skin to dry up and your pee to be alarmingly golden, you must drink more water than beer. This has been difficult, but I am muddling through.
Locals here don't say it this way, but they are experiencing some weird shades of climate change.
The summer heat has become unbearable. RVing, they say, is impossible in summer months as the weather maps invent new colors to describe exactly how hot it is. Similarly, this winter is unseasonably warm, 60s and 70s every day, with a brilliant sunshine. Last year, in these high plains, there was snow. Local park rangers are describing how the deserts are enduring a drought. One might think the idea of a drought in a desert is ironic, but water here, indeed all over the Southwest, is precious. To a visitor, signs in the desert warning of a flooding wash or arroyo are strangely out of place. "We've had a quarter of an inch of rain this year," said one park ranger. "That's not much for a monsoon." "Monsoon?" I said, incredulous. But I was assured that heavy rains have typically fallen here in mid-summer. Monsoons, actually. And that Alamo Lake can suddenly replenish it's now missing 20 feet of water level. Rivers spring up out of nowhere and they can be dangerous. But not in 2024, apparently. I've not seen a drop of rain since Thanksgiving and we're heading into the semi-finals of the college football playoffs now. When you walk out in zero humidity, which, again, is weird for a rain-soaked Pennsylvanian, you can literally feel the moisture going out of your skin. If you suffer from a stuffy head, like me with my interminable allergies, your head clears up quick and you can suddenly breathe freely again. Then your nose cracks and starts to bleed. Imagine being one of the famous Saguro cactuses hereabouts. In many places without a ground water source, they are drying up into a rotted husk and falling over. Even cacti need SOME moisture.
This area has seven "annuals." These are rivers which flow year-round regardless of drought or heat. You can see from miles away how the Verde River cuts a green swath, oasis-like, through the state. Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has over 80,000 miles of streams and rivers. So it's a different world here. Some fun notes.
As if to buttress this point... about it being a different world in Arizona... I had always wanted to go to Meteor Crater. It's a big hole dating from 50,000 years ago and is regarded as the best preserved "meteorite" crater on earth. It hit during the time of mammoths and giant ground sloths. Today it is about a mile above sea level and 18 miles due west of Winslow, where I did, indeed, go, and did, indeed, stand on the corner. Had this meteorite struck Winslow, AZ, we'd have been robbed of great songs by The Eagles and Jackson Brown.
There are bigger holes to see in Arizona (sorry, Lake Mead and Grand Canyon) but there are few more interesting.
There are a lot of wild donkeys around here. They'd been brought to the desert during mining booms and they remain today. In many places they're protected. Wild donkeys poop perfect charcoal briquettes. They subsist mainly on the green bark of Palo Verde trees, which strangely resort to producing photosynthesis in their bark. So donkey poop is basically wood. Some dogs I have noted think the substance is a treat. I just use it for campfires. Burns like nothing else. Oh and a baby donkey (a foal) is the cutest thing on Earth. Very fuzzy in the face like a plush toy. But ya shouldn't try and pet 'em because a Jack (a daddy donkey) can mess you up.
There are javelinas here. Wild pigs (but not pigs: okay they act like pigs and look like pigs but they are not pigs. Closer to deer, I'm told. Well, that's hogwash.) Again, to a visitor they look cute but, again, dangerous. There are roadrunners here. It turns out that coyotes run about twice as fast as roadrunners and could easily catch them and eat them. But roadrunners are scrawney. Cute. Not dangerous. But, if you want something with more meat on the bone, you can grab a Gambel's Quail. They run around like tiny people and the males have this single feather protruding from atop their heads.
There is the town of Brenda.
We were down in Quartzsite, which is known for its annual gem show. I bought a rock. It spoke to me. But the best part was going to a pretty good watering hole, Silly Al's. Silly Al's features a very good kind of pepperoni pizza called "Cup & Char." They put small, thick slices of copious amounts of pepperoni on it so that they curl into a charred cup shape full of the good grease.
The regional beer I've found is by Four Peaks Brewing Company and it is called Kilt Lifter. I'm not sure which side of the kilt it lifts, but for me, if fills my body with a column of poo-stink that can result in delightlfully long and safe farts.
Here in Cottonwood, smack dab in the Verde Valley, the good bar is The Krow, which is owned and operated by the staff and they do a great job. Out here, all the east coast sports teams start early, like 10 a.m. or so, so the bars are open early and they make sport of day-drinking.
Me and J were at The Krow, day drinking and watching Penn State whip up on SMU back home in sub-freezing temperatures and decided at half-time to get tickets to the upcoming Fiesta Bowl, which would be a home game to us. $500 later thanks to the ridiculous fees we were set to go to Glendale, AZ for the big game.
It sure seemed as though the entire state of Idaho drove down for the occasion and we wished good luck to all their fans we met. We did, however, leave at the half due to the abuse of their fans. Prior to the game we were routinely booed and derided by groups of them walking around the lovely Westgate area of State Farm Stadium.
Went inside to our noseblead seats in section 436 and struck up nice conversations with older Boise fans around us, but some of the kids; you know the ones whose mommies and daddies paid for their tickets? Yeah, those. A row of them decided they had to stand in front of us as much as possible. From behind, ketchup packets were being thrown.
There was a guy beside us wearing a Penn State shirt and a Boise hat. He was getting the ketchup packet assault. Turns out he had connections to both universities and was so excited for this matchup.
When you give up a $250 seat at halftime of an historic game, it speaks to the class of the people sitting around you. Now, I'm sure PSU students can be pretty outgoing too, but what I experienced was kids that were bereft of respect or courtesy. Turns out they were the ONLY dim spot in our entire southwestern adventure this winter in this beautiful, beautiful place.
Now, I will tell you that The Blue Band was a sight to behold. But all you Big 10 folks know that already. And it turns out the Lions are doin' ok themselves and they've got a date with Notre Dame in what is sure to be a wild Orange Bowl.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 Eastern on January 9th in Miami. It'll be mostly sunny with temperatures near freezing in Boise.
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