Alamo Lake State Park, AZ

This stop wasn’t on our original itinerary. We decided 2 nights in OPCNM was adequate, although we had planned on 3. So, we decided to add a third stop plus an extra night to make it worthwhile. We’d not been to Alamo Lake before and it’s kinda on the way to LHC (Well, not really. If you were lost it would be on the way, though. If you’re lost, anywhere and everywhere is on your way, is it not?). Actually, this park is not on the way to anywhere cuz it’s in the middle of nowhere - at the end of a long dead-end road. You gotta really wanna be here to get here and there isn’t much here when you do get here, but that’s neither here nor there, so there.
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The Lake abounds with pan fish and that’s why the campground is full. That, plus there’s a fishing tournament today. Plenty of bass boats, 250 HP motors on flat little pissant boats that go fast enough to make your nose bleed and stretch your ears out so far they flap and bang into each other behind your head. It was 48 degrees here this AM and the boat is out on the water, doing what? 60 MPH? What’s the wind chill? This is called ‘having fun’.
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Since it’s spring break, the park is swarming with rug rats, here to experience nature, hear outrageous fish stories, enjoy campfires, hard ground and cold tents, and to witness the effects of copious beer consumption. There are wild burros here, as there are in many areas of AZ, the offspring of those that escaped from, or were let loose by, prospectors about 100 years ago. The donkey serenade is heard throughout the day.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

 Sunrise with saguaro.

Sunrise with EDGE.

Sunrise with saguaro and cholla.

Cholla cactus.

Organ pipe cactus.

Cholla in foreground. L to R in rear: organ pipe, 'hands up Black Bart' sagauro, sunbird in spring plumage.

Cholla and mesquite, organ pipe in left rear.

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OPCNM is part of the Sonoran Desert and is located on the AZ/Mexico border. Most of the Sonoran Desert is in Mexico and includes nearly all of the Baja plus a goodly portion across the Gulf of California on the mainland; a smaller portion is in SE CA and a somewhat larger portion in SW AZ. OPCNM was one of the first in the national park system, established by FDR in 1937. This is the only place in the US where the organ pipe cactus is found.
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The Sonoran is bordered by the Mohave Desert (LHC is in the Mohave) to the northwest. The Sonoran gets more precipitation and as a result is more diverse and abundant in its flora and fauna than is the Mohave. Indeed, OPCNM has dozens of varieties of cacti and other desert plants, so attractively spaced that it looks professionally landscaped. However, Mother Nature is the landscaper here, not man. Mother carefully spaces the plants such that each can draw enough water from the parched soil to survive.
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The namesake cactus is not as dramatic and imposing as the saguaro - which can reach a height of 50’, weigh several tons and live for 200 years. Organ pipes are aptly named in that they are armless, upright and bunching; they average 15’ in height at maturity. They first blossom around age 35, and do so only at night. Come morning, the blossoms have wilted: one night, that’s it, game over, see ya next year. Bats somehow know when it’s time for the annual event: they boogie on up from Mexico to party, drink the nectar from the blossoms, pollinate. It’s the bat version of spring break.
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The brochure says that bobcats sleep on the tops of the saguaro cactus. Huh! A thorny proposition. The topmost thorns must be a lot softer than those further down. Cats are great jumpers so they would have no problem hopping up onto the tops of the shorter saguaros - but I can’t imagine them climbing to reach the tops of the taller ones and becoming puddy tat pincushions in the process.

Glider Woman

 Approaching - carefully and stealthily.

Getting briefed by the handsome studly pilot.  Actually he was neither one, had a beer gut and needed a shave, but he was a nice guy.

The tow plane.

 Where's the barf bag?

The launch.

YEAH BABY!  She liked it!  No barf.

They're Baaaack!

March is spring break time and LHC is a prime party spot for the college crowd as well as those who enjoy gawking at nearly nude young bodies. That includes everybody I know, or at least those who are honest with themselves. We can pretend we don't really care and that we're above all that but it's BS.  Nature did the programming so why fight it? Gazing at shapely young females wearing pasties and a g-string - now, that’s a stimulus package a guy can understand! Not to be one-sided, there’s plenty of beef cake for the ladies to appreciate also.
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The sides of the channel near London Bridge are packed solid with boats and people during spring break. Various activities are offered, including helicopter rides, slingshot bungee rides, paintball and a new one this year: a zip-line ride. We typically go down to the channel and observe the mating rituals for a couple hours one afternoon, sip a brew and thank the powers that be that ‘cruisin Broadway’ is naught but a dim memory. In this case ‘Broadway’ is the channel, and the ’56 Chevy is a 750+ HP cigarette boat.
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We’re off to Phoenix next Monday to attend a spring training baseball game (Rangers vs Dodgers) with old college buds Tom and Al, and for Trish to take a glider ride, her first. After Phoenix, it’s on to Organ Pipe Cactus Nat’l Monument on the AZ/Mexico border. Will camp there 3 nights, get up close and personal with the cacti, hike and mellow out. Was looking forward to having campfires but they’re not allowed. They have these small grills mounted on standards so you can BBQ with charcoal if you wish. We have a compact gas BBQ we use when we can’t cook over a real wood campfire.

Dwatted Wabbits

Elmer Fudd, here.  The dwatted wabbit population of LHC is ovaw the top.  The local coyote population is substantial also but obviously inadequate to ewadicate the wabbits.  Cats, dogs and coots seem to be the pwefuwed coyote cuisine, wascally wabbits awe just too dawned quick.  The pwoblem calls for wadical tweatment.  Weally!
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The fuwwy cwittaws awe all the time eating my Meditawwanean fan palms, the wotten wascals.  I've had to take dwastic measaws, stawting with cayenne peppaw genewously spwinkled awound the plant.  Nope, that didn't do it.  Now, I'm twying a spway-on cocktail of hot peppaw sauce, gawlick, dish soap and wataw.  Twish walked thwough the gawage when I was mixing it up, said it should dawn shuaw do the job.  The stuff could puke a snake at 50 feet upwind.
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The juwy is still out on the gawlick/peppaw cocktail tweatment.  I'm watching closely, can't wait to see dwatted wascally wabbit hop up to the plant, take a bite and stawt spitting violently - or pwomptly bawf its guts out.  Fwankly, I don't know if wabbits awe capable of spitting and bawfing.  Anyway, I'll keep you posted, twust me on that.

Beef Steaks & Quotes

"Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."  It's my second most favorite quote from a silver tongued devil who used to live in a large white house in the Baltimore area somewhere.  I'll divulge my number one favorite quote later in this post - if I remember; doubtful, but you never know.  I bring up this quote here cuz I got fooled twice, so he was wrong: you can get fooled again.
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Beef Steaks is how the package was labeled, and10 STEAKS in smaller letters.  I glance at it quickly, see the huge words and a picture of said item wrapped in bacon.  Yup, that's it - the last thing on the list - toss it into the grocery cart and I'm outta here.  Four days later, it's time to slap a couple of those Beef Steaks on the barbie so I open the box and remove a couple Beef Steaks.  Huh?  What's this?  These aren't steaks, they're hamburgers!  Oh.....I see: they're not technically hamburgers because the meat is 'chopped' instead of ground.  Whoop de freakin do!  Guess it's legal to label it steak if it's chopped instead of calling it what it is: hamburger.  Incredible.
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Yeah, fooled me twice.  Bought an identical box of Beef Steaks about a year ago.  Idiot!
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That other quote from Mr. Eloquence that I like a lot: "Brownie, you're doing a helluva job."  Yassuh, he sure as hell was!  Nobody, and I do mean nobody, could do it quite like Brownie.  We were truly blessed to have such competent leadership in our time of need.