Flying back to Michigan crowded into steerage. Time for snacks. Would you like a pretzel, a peanut, or a cookie? Completely packed airplane with no room to move. This has got to be something like a CIA secret renditioning base. I’ll talk, just tell me what you want to know. Molly just heard, through her headphones, that flight attendants will be coming through the cabin with headphones that cost a couple bucks. You can’t hear the message unless you already have headphones plugged in. What’s wrong with this picture?
I used to love flying. Anymore I think I would rather take the extra time and drive. TSA in Detroit let Molly’s container of skin lotion go through. In Phoenix they confiscated it. I’m having a hard time seeing how a half empty container of skin lotion can take down an airliner. Meanwhile I go through with enough electronics to drive up the stock value of Best Buy and it isn’t questioned. Maybe they didn’t want the lotion and the electronics too close together. I could have taken a phone charger, powered by my laptop USB port, and used it to ignite the hand lotion. I easily could have made something powerful enough to really make a mess on my keyboard.
We did not have easy internet access while at the condo in Green Valley. To get on-line we had to go down to the grocery store. So the following is a bunch of random musings on our time in Arizona.
We had some great birding. Picked up about 60 new species for the year. Lise and I have some different species and I haven’t had time to sort out the differences yet. I picked up 19 new life birds; white-throated swift, Bendire’s thrasher, gray hawk, ferruginous hawk, broad-billed hummingbird, Lucy’s warbler, hooded oriole, vermillion flycatcher, rufous-winged sparrow, canyon towhee, Abert’s towhee, lazuli bunting, Brewer’s sparrow, magnificent hummingbird, rufous-crowned sparrow, ash-throated flycatcher, Northern pygmy owl, and yellow-eyed junco.
Birding and photography don’t mix. You can do one or the other, not both. I would hump around my camera and big lens on a tripod. We would see something flit around but by the time I could set the tripod down the bird would flit away.
Ed wondering what everyone is seeing.
We went to Patagonia to visit a Nature Conservancy preserve and try to find an Indian flute maker that makes traditional Indian flutes. We took what looked like a short cut on the map. The road was a solid line, not the dashed line one would think of as an unimproved road. Our shortcut turned out to be a narrow dirt road hugging the side of a canyon. At the bottom of the canyon there is the wreckage of the last tourists that tried birding while driving. Next time we rent a SUV, not a Chevy Cruze. I think the Cruze is the follow-up to the Yugo. Not that I’m trashing the finest in Serbo-Croatian engineering. I just want some suspension and a little steel protection around me next time we take a shortcut.
Our shortcut
Wreckage
Don’t bird on shortcuts.
Patagonia has a great little coffee shop called Gathering Grounds. Good coffee and good food, with a side serving of local culture. A hard looking lady walked in wearing spurs. I didn’t see any horses out front so God only knows what she was riding with those spurs. I think the same ladies were sitting in the same corner when I was in there eight years ago. A few other interesting looking characters wandered in and out. This is the gathering spot in Patagonia. The staff knew the directions to the Nature Conservancy preserve and to the Indian flute factory. I was surprised that they knew it was a TNC property too, not just some preserve.
Culture in Patagonia.
The flute factory is at the end of dusty, mostly one lane, road that screams rural poverty. We passed some real hard scrabble homes. But they did have bird feeders up, including oranges for orioles.
I bought a beautiful cedar flute, in the key of E. Not like I can play it or anything. While in the showroom Molly picked up a flute and played Hot Crossed Buns. Since it is an Indian flute I guess the song is Hot Fried Bread. Anyway, the flute sounds beautiful when played correctly. Not something that will happen in my hands. I was going to practice while waiting in the airport but Molly wouldn’t let me. I believe her words were, “This just isn’t going to happen.”
At the TNC preserve we struck up a conversation with the volunteer working the front gate. She and her husband are retired and live on the road in their RV. They travel from refuge to refuge, spending a few months at each one as volunteers. From Arizona they are going up the Delmarva Peninsula. I am so jealous.
About halfway between Green River and the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge is the town of Arivoca. Almost right in the town is a desert wetland called a cieniega, managed by Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. The wetland is a great birding spot. We picked up about 15 species there and saw javelina too.
Arivoca really is out in the middle of nowhere. There doesn’t appear to be more than a hundred people in the town. The place appears to be a liberal bastion within a sea of gun nut open carry conservatism. Being in the middle of nowhere should not imply there is no culture. Arivoca has Gadsden Coffee Company, a great coffee shop where they roast and grind their own beans. Doesn’t get much better than that. We saw broad-billed hummingbirds and hooded orioles sitting on the veranda having coffee. 
Gadsden Coffee, the place to be in Arivoca.
The place attracts an interesting mix of people. Bicyclists, motorcyclists, tourists, birders, locals and other assorted souls seem to find their way there. I met a bicyclist complaining that every time he arranges bicycle tours he has to compete with birders for motel rooms. I guess we like the same places. He mentioned that he arranged a tour to the Pa. Dutch country. As a rule cyclists tend to eat healthy. In the Lancaster County tour they suspended the usual dietary rules to go native. Not sure they went native enough to eat scrapple though. Their loss I guess.
Personally I liked just sitting on the veranda, drinking coffee, birding and listening to the clientele. I think the only way it could have been better was if they also served gin and tonic.
Good birding.
Getting there isn’t difficult. Take a left at the Longhorn Grill and drive about 30 miles. This place reminds me of the entrance to a temple in an old Tarzan movie.
Enter if you dare or you wear a leopard loincloth.
Sue and Roger introduced us to a great restaurant called Wisdom’s. Wisdom’s is south of Tubec at a place called Tumacacori. Tumacacori is known for an historic Spanish mission, established in 1691. It would be tough enough living there now, with luxuries like air conditioning. I can’t imagine what it was like in 1691. We got Bewick’s wren and ash-throated flycatcher at the mission.
Tumacacori photos
Tumacacori also has a spice shop where they grind spices and they own Tom Mix’s hat. While we were there someone took a picture of Tom’s hat with a measure of awe and reverence. I’m not joking. Tom by the way, was born and learned to ride horses in Pennsylvania. Probably ate scrapple too.
Wisdom’s is now in the fourth generation owners. Best beef enchiladas I have ever eaten. When asked what kind of tequila they use in the margaritas the waiter only said, “lots.” The second time we ate there we watched the bartender mixing the margaritas. He just dumped large quantities of ingredients together, no measurements taken. On Wednesday they serve slow smoked ribs. You have to order them the Saturday before they serve them. Now that is slow smoking. We were there on a Wednesday and the smell permeated the place. Made me weak at the knees.
I believe the Border Patrol is the largest employer in the area. I learned what racial profiling is like. Maybe I should say reverse racial profiling. The Border Patrol looks at us with our pasty white Northern European skin, blasted to a rosy glow after a half hour in the desert sun, and waves us on without questions. The guy with wrap around sunglasses and his hand on his pistol belt casually used two fingers of his other hand to wave us on. He didn’t want to waste energy using a whole hand wave on us. Molly thought he was pretty hot stuff. I wanted to stop and yell that I was illegally smuggling Molly in from Ireland but thought the better of it. The last thing I needed was a Wisdom’s margarita giving me enough liquid courage to get rowdy with Border Patrol. Getting deported back to Pennsylvania was not on the itinerary.
Most of their vehicles were obvious Border patrol trucks but they also had an unmarked pickup truck. We followed this truck on the road to Arivoca for several miles. There were no obvious signs this was a law enforcement vehicle. Nothing would distinguish it from the regular good ol’ boy four wheel drive cowboy cruiser. Nice wheels, a regular license plate, detailing,…… Probably had a horn that plays some Hank Williams Jr. song. When we came up to a Border Patrol stop, a row of red and blue flashers across the top of the rear window suddenly lit up and he pulled over to park behind the regular patrol trucks. Luckily I didn’t try to pass him. I might have ended up being deported back to Pennsylvania.
All in all we had a great time. More will follow about Arizona but right now I need to adjust back to our time zone and go back to work tomorrow. I think we crossed a time zone just getting from the terminal back to our car. One final note though. We had a great time being outdoors, birding, hiking, doing photography, and learning a new place. What really makes things great are family and friends.
This trip we had the pleasure of chumming around with the McCoy clan. Didn’t get pictures of the whole clan but got some of them. The trip just would not have been as much fun without their company.
Part of the McCoy clan.
The last night we spent in Phoenix we got together with Molly’s buddy Ashley. She moved to Phoenix over a year ago. Michigan’s loss is Arizona’s gain. She applied for a physics camp at MSU this summer. Hope she makes it so we can visit again. Her folks better have a big stick for beating off the boy physicists too.From personal experience I know you can’t trust a male physicist.
Chillin’ in the hotel pool!
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 