A Day of Rest in a Desert Place

We are in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (should be called a National Park and I don’t know why it isn’t) for a day of rest off the road. It was quite warm yesterday afternoon when we arrived and we donned our shorts in order to soak in as much of that warmth as we could.  In the back of our minds is the knowledge that we will, eventually, return to the mid-Atlantic where shorts will not be in style for several more months.

I was quite perturbed as I drove down Route 85 (south) yesterday and saw the immense “waste” strewn along the side of the road. It disfigured the face of the beautiful Sonoran desert.  Plastic bottles and bags clung to the mesquite and cacti like foreign invaders.  We spend a lot of time these days talking about “illegal aliens” but we seem to be unaware of the illegal and alien material with which we are desecrating our environment.  It is illegal in every state and there are signs everywhere indicating that littering the landscape is prohibited, but apparently few of those who travel our nation’s highways are law-abiding folk.  (Come to think of it, the same can be said about the use of cell phones while driving).  This problem of illegal aliens (and by the way, I do not use that term for human beings) invading our countryside must be stopped.  What if we built giant walls all along every highway in the nation (which would of course make corridors of toxic fumes which always happens in closed-in places) that would protect and secure us from these invasions of trash? 

While I’m ranting and raving I might as well get this “other thing” off my chest as well.   I love this desert land and can’t help raving about it.  At this very moment I am surrounded by hills, some covered with a forest of cacti and desert shrubs and others, which appear at first glance to be sheer rock, yet upon closer examination reveal a cactus plant of one kind or another showing up within its many crevices.  Behind me in the distance I can see the pinnacles of the Ajo Mountains, forming a wall more beautiful than any human could design or build.  I hear the birds singing as the sun begins to warm this desert place and some are making staccato sounds as they tap into the cacti to find a morning breakfast.  As David W. Toll wrote, “The Arizona desert takes hold of a  man’s mind [and spirit] and shakes it.”

Arizona Sunset at Organ Pipe National Monument
January 30, 2018