Happy Anniversary of Bin Laden's death, where last year Seal Team 6 went by helicopter into a Pakistan compound and went through different levels in all their body gear and shot Laden, who was hiding behind one of his wives, the coward he is...was. It was a wonderful day for America but we all hope that nothing happens this year by al Qadea to be evil, blowing up bridges, body bombs, the whole deal. Alright, now to the blog.
Mom was sick, and everyone knew it. Her nights and days were comprised of sore necks, coughing mouths, and Advil after cough drop after Advil. She had gotten this disease in New Orleans area after a swamp ride, and might of gotten it from a stinky Cajun or an allergy in the trees of the marsh. We don't know exactly how the illness was concocted. Well, anyway, even though she was trying to be strong and make sure we didn't use time for touring to do the doctor (such a nice lady), but we insisted and so the day I am talking about she decided to do it. It was a very slow morning, and we didn't think that much touring would be achieved today. I texted a few people after blogging my head off, and skyping Venati as he showed me his laser show footage he did for Russia's fair. Dad basically was on his computer and Rebecca played barbies and the dogs lounged around for eons, as they always do. They stretched out their legs, glad to be out and about, under beds and on pillows as Emma and Rocky do. They were glad that they had a day of lounging with not being in the crate, and I was glad of having some time to blog and take a long shower and do other things. I sat outside, walked the dogs in the construction site, still a little stale from all the noise last night. What was Mom doing?
She had driven herself to the doctor and was going through all the regular stuff, and I'm sorry I can't tell you about all that.
Well, also, I talked to Zoe, one of my friends, about my favorite presidents, who are Theodore Roosevelt, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Reagan. Great guys who did a lot for America. If Franklin was a president he would probably be among the list. But anyway, I told her that and also wondered about my bed, which had a hole in it and was flat beyond belief, very sad indeed. Every night it sank like a jello and I was sinking beneath it's covers. I needed something firm, a new one perhaps, you know. It was killing me, but not as much as Mom's cough was killing her. As I pondered I looked at the trashy campground we were in, with the cabins and the weird Indian dude on the pipe, something that stuck in my mind and really scared me. And when I say trashy, I mean trashy. We had a dumpster right by us, were right on the exit to a freeway, were in front of a train track and a construction site. Very well the loudest R.V. spot of them all. As the T.V. flashed and I did some homework after doing another blog post, Mom returned in the jeep. We asked how it had gone. The next day she would be awesome 'cause Mom would get better, a very good thing.
Getting jeans on and a red shirt before we left, we got some books and video camera and camera and phone and stuff, as we put in the GPS the address to a museum that Mom had found, Saguaro National Park, which had a lot of science and history of the Saguaro Cactus that engulfed the area of Tucson. She thought it would be a good learning experience, since we hadn't done anything really museum-like. I hoped it would be fun as Mom stopped, told the people we were staying more days in the office, and then talked to her Mom on the phone. We were finally ready to leave, going away from the town of Tucson on these "smooth"roads that had little dips, making your stomach lurch as you go up and down the humps. Every time we went down Rebecca and I would, like we were on a roller coaster, say "Whoo!" and then Rebecca would later say as we passed it and went down and then went up that another dip was coming. It was quite a fun game. On either side were prickly saguaro cylinder cacti, and they had various shapes, like curved hands going around, down, and with little parts that had brown blotches and poky sticks. I had always wondered what a cactus felt like, having all those sticks and everyone avoiding it. Also animals going around in it and being full of water all the time. Pretty crazy.
Rebecca educated us on that a cactus didn't need water from roots or even precipitation, because they held their own water and supplied it. A lot of desert animals and plants are quite self-sufficient and adaptive.
I wanted to go to a plane graveyard which was my third favorite thing at Old Tucson, where we had gone into planes, Air Force One, and where Blueman's (my superhero I pretended to be) arch nemesis Winder who was wind powers was conceived and first fought me. I also created a pun of Air Bourne, which I liked. And that day I also wanted to go to Sabina Canyon, which Mom remembered clearly and said it was an awesome thing we did last time but for some reason I didn't remember. I wanted to replenish the memory and then write it down in the blog, but we would go to the cacti national park place first and learn about the iconic plant of Tucson. I wasn't REALLY excited, but I wasn't REALLY excited about Carlsbad Caverns or Gila Cliff Dwellings either and they had been totally awesome, so maybe this thing wouldn't disappoint. Maybe.
We arrived at the building, which had a large patio which stones, a ledge, and nice cross-patch wooden poles that were in between two brick structures, one a bath house and the other the National Park building, with windows and all. After parking we came out, ready to embrace the beautiful day that was there: a blue sky with barely no clouds in the sky, the dark green sticks all around us like army men at Vietnam, the brush slightly moving because of the gentle wind, the dryness of it all, the lush greenness but the barren dirt and dust underneath, all is centered toward a unique desert environment which both embraces and rejects the looker, the beauty and tranquility, but the spikes and barriers the plants have made. Flat little cacti that were all in a bunch beneath the large saguaros of the open plain, and the upward hill with sandy rocks made an epic proportion of this different habitat that I had only experienced one other time, when I was eight, and was rejuvenated with the beauty it produced the second time around. That's why Arizona was so known, so sought after, even with the pioneers of the 1800's, the mystique, the glory, the splendor and interesting spectacle which Arizona holds. Something in a dream, but realer than most politicians.
Well after going to the restroom and releasing the Dasani water that had been drank in the ride, we walked into the main place, which was a National Park so we brought along our National Park stampbooks, where you get a stamp from every national park you go to. We've been doing that for a long while. The room had a cool counter with some people and a desk on the left, followed by a big area with a door to a movie, and further on doors and windows reflecting the beautiful scenery around us. Then you had on the left a table with some animal artifacts, and a lounge with some chairs to sit down in. There was also a gift shop and a table horizontally going the room, where a lady was. A few panels that we could look at. After Mom and Rebecca did that whole stamp thing, or while they were doing it, I looked at some Javelina, another Tucson icon, bones and also snakes and things like that. But the bone wasn't from a javelina, it was from a piggery, which is kind of like it's cousin the javelina. I asked a girl at the counter what was the difference, and she gave me a sheet which had some interesting info on their distinct differences, teeth in the front, ones a pig and ones a piggery family, and weight differences. It was interesting.
It was time to go to the movie after we had milled around, and were waiting for the other one to finish. Mom had also talked to the nice lady who had talked to me and she told her about the various trails that we could go on. We went into the theater, which had nice long benches and a sign that said the presentation was a thought provoking....and then Dad led us in and I couldn't read the rest. There was a glass window, huge, taking up the whole front wall, with trims that were separating it. We walked in and sat down as a projector came down and curtains also, totally darkening the place. This place was definitely tech-savy, and the effects of all the cacti, brush and desert being hidden by this curtain from either side and the lights dimming was truly a cool effect. A man with dark skin, a park ranger outfit with the cowboy hat and beige pants, and a grey haired pony tail. He came over and said he would give us some background before we saw the movie. He slowly spoke and used his hands a lot, expressing everything in a huge way. He told us that the Native American people in this area believe that they were a part of the Earth, and in a nutshell they believe that when you hurt the Earth by pollution or cutting down trees you hurt your ancestors, and that you come from the Ground, go to the sky, and come back down to the ground. He continued to tell about Indian ritual and burial stuff.
So what was the point? Sure, we respected the views of the Southwest Indians, but ummm...what did it have to do with the saguaros of Tucson? And the movie? I really hoped this wouldn't be a recreation of the experience in San Antonio, where we saw a creepy Indian movie with weird voices and a lot of ghost translucent images. Really weird. So would this movie be about science and history, or something that expressed a religions ideals of Native Americans and had thought stuff. Time would tell. The man left after answering questions, and I was forced to laugh at the INTERESTING things they believed in. Dad told me not to laugh as Mom said they wouldn't show a movie about the thinking of Christians or other ones, but that the Native Americans were forcefully taken off their land, a shameful time in U.S. history, and that we were still trying to repay them. It's terrible that we did that to the poor Native Americans, but there was a movie that could be made for science or history, not this. But let's just get to the movie and stop my arguing and making stuff said that I've already said before. There was very good cinema effects but it kept interviewing Indians and them saying that Indians were people, the ones with hands up in a curve, were waving to you and the ones that were damaged were maimed. Interesting.
I guess it had a good message, to protect and preserve wildlife because it was a part of you, but I learned really nothing about Science or History, and I was really mad about that. They had spent a lot of money on the theater and the technology it had, but it was for a religion we didn't share and understand, but sure I guess it was food for thought. I so wish that I had learned something that I could share with you in the blog, how cacti work and all. But I couldn't. So, let's escape from this subject as we go into the little gift shop area, rows of stuffed animals, park ranger dolls, and books, lots of different books about nature, history, backpack, and globes and trinkets. Even though it wasn't that big of an area, just a little rectangular place with windows and four shelves, back to pack, they had a pretty good selection. Rebecca, Mom, and I looked around. I saw some books about life on the frontier, particulary "Arizona Adventure" by Marshall Trimble and "Old Arizona" by the same author. They were action packed true tales of early Arizona and life on the trail. I was very interested and thought they would be a good book, but however, I knew our mass in the R.V. was getting smaller and I had already bought things at recent places so I didn't get it. I took a picture of it though.
Bored after reading the museum stuff in the lounge and Mom was talking to a lady at the counter with books in her hands, I played with Rebecca with these two park ranger dolls that looked exactly alike, Erin and Anita (Brown hair that was yarn and very long, tan face, flat, regular ranger outfit, with binoculars). They were the names of two park rangers at Carlsbad Caverns who gave us the tour...well, Anita took the tour and Erin was at the end to make sure everyone was in front of her and took notes. Anita the doll was the smart one and Erin the clumsy and clueless one. We went among the shells and were attacked by stuffed animals, bats and armadillos and stuff. Pretty fun after a while. Mom came over to me and showed me a book called These is my Words saying she didn't get books often and asked me if I thought she should get the entire trilogy. If she felt strongly about it I said sure as she asked the woman at the counter again what it was like. She would later tell us in the car that she asked if there was any Indian religion kind of weird stuff and she said no, it was just about a strong woman on the Arizona frontier.
"Do you not like that kind of stuff?" the lady with white bushy hair said.
Mom explained that it seemed a little odd to get this information at a National Park, etc.
"I believe in reincarnation. Well you know in the Bible that Jesus was asked if he was John the Baptist and... he didn't answer."
Whoop-dee-do! He didn't answer! Your basing an idea on maybe forgetting to answer or pushing a foolish question aside. Whoop-dee-do!
Mom didn't say anything, bought the books, and Dad was outside as I finished up in the museum and saw they left me. They were in the restroom though.
Mom has finished These is my Words, and the next one, Sarah's Quilt. She is yet to read The Star Garden, the third and final book to the trilogy. Anyhow, we went on as Dad was in the car, and we crossed the small parking lot to some other really awesome cacti, all in the most grotesque and awesome forms, waving, punching, hugging, or the ones with a lot of arms and with delicate motions of their cylinder green, holding babies. Some were bending down, and one, one that was really beige, had faded straw coming out of it, was dead with brown blotches and had the two khaki arms that had prickly pokers on it, reaching up like in praise to God. Mom turned around a Native American belief into a glorification of God, and posted that on Facebook. She is so clever and kind and and great. I love you Mom. I know I don't say it enough.
After taking pics we moved on into the car, and were very starving as it was like three. We went over the dippy roads again and then came to a Subway where we picked all our items while looking at subway maps of New York and lots of dramatic photos of vegetables and cheese... interesting. We would eat it at a picnic, and then go on an uphill trek up a little hill where some cool photo spots would be. I looked at all those cylinder curved plants with upward hands, usually, the lines of silver prickly stuff going all and around their bodies. The table had bases of rock square columns, and then wooden poles holding that up, and a wooden poled roof with a stone table and floor. We ate, trying to hold down all our food as the wind blew. I drank with one hand while holding down my food and vise-verus. It was a really great family moment of talking about everything, bonding, and just relaxing as we ate our sandwiches. The wind started to blow slightly as we took in the great day we had spent out and the wonderful scenery that surrounded us. After eating we put our trash in the trash, and then I got up on the table and started dancing, and we did many other things also along the way. We made a lot of poses as Rebecca and I competed for the laughs, and maybe Mom will show them.
I accidentally hurt Rebecca's face when I spread out my hands, and, despite my constant apologies, she thought that I had done it on purpose and would not forgive me.
We drove to a parking lot on the left with a dirt trail down through all this shrub on either side, a desert jungle. There were a few wooden steps, but not many. Dad talked to someone on the phone in the car, and we thought we would just go up and then come back down. We started off, and my shoes were more burdened than ever, going up this uphill path, with my video camera also weighing it down. It was very sick, and at Gila Cliff Dwellings it was only old, at Old Tucson it was having a cold, and now it was about done. It's days were truly numbered, all the laces gone and it being so dusty. But we went up, Rebecca still not talking to me. I looked and video taped all the long handed brush and then the short little bushes that were all around this area. Ah, yes, very pretty. We went up one, not taking the shorter route which was on the left and then coming to a downhill one, where Rebecca said something really mean to me and I turned back. I felt like she wasn't punished for what she said and that I was unwanted there, and started going away, turning my back on them. I cried a little, I admit, and Mom told me to come back and explained she did want me here... a lot actually. So, I reluctantly followed back down and then up and around another one trail, to the right.
There was a hill that had tons of cool rocks and bones but it said not to get on it because of the possible threat of rattlesnakes. So, we avoided that and continued up, as the trail got to me more of a burden and I regretted having drank so much water as the water gushed around in my tummy and gave me cramps. I was a moving Solo cup. The trail was pretty hard from then on out, but the view got better and better and it seemed it got way more worth it. We saw rows and rows of cacti, green and lush as ever but forbidding and rough as so much, in all different shapes and sizes, little toddlers, tall football players, you name it. We, even though we didn't share the beliefs of the Indians, gave motions and told what they were doing about the cacti, and we continued to do that now. It was so beautiful, all that desert brush and the faded green, dark green, prickliness of the setting, all made a grand spectacle, especially the miles of cacti and the tumbleweed rolling on the ground like a ball, and the black and brown mountains in the distance. This was the Wild West of the movies, the L'amour books, the trademark environment that at least has been seen once by every person in the U.S., the west that men died in, children were born in, that pioneers made their mark in, the Wild West of the United States of America!
Maybe I got a little too carried away there.
There were some rocks that were in the dirt path with the railing as we looked at the glorious horizon, and these Rebecca balanced on the whole time through. I read a little panel as Mom talked to some people who were waiting for the sunset to come down, and they said that they were from New Hampshire, a state we had been to. The man's sister was going down in a kayack down the Colorado River, a river we were yet to go to, and we said his sister was really cool. Mom told them about the trip, and they were very interested and asked many questions, and we told them so much more than we had told anyone else in Tucson that it was about time for the sunset as some trashy family came up (I'm sorry but they were really rude and trash-talkers) and we bid the NH people adieu. Rebecca and I raced each other down, but she was in the front in the beginning so it didn't really count, but I didn't want to try to pass her either, their was too many prickly stuff and rocks and... I didn't want to risk it. The adrenaline was amazing as my feet ran high into the air, bursting with energy, and my heart racing, I pushed my dying shoes to the very limit in jumping off stuff, running, and trying to not let my video case fall on the ground. It was a very fun thing.
I couldn't let a girl win. So, I took the route on the right that was on our left, still gasping for breathing air. It was in fact shorter, even though I didn't know it, however I had to go up a lot of stairs. Getting to the car and more thirstier than a cactus, (wait, that simile won't work, cacti have water in them!) I opened up the car and looked for some water as Dad chatted away on the phone. I found a hot one and drank it graciously and then... passed out.
Just kidding, that didn't happen.
I heard Rebecca's voice calling me and tried to answer and find it. When I finally did find her after looking around, and back, I saw she had fallen down and I helped her up, and she told me that I had gone the shorter way and didn't win the race, and she was trying to tell me that and fell. Back at the car we discussed further matters before I started reading my book, about the glaciers of Switzerland even though I was in such a desert environment. But after California, that desert and heat would disappear!(FORESHADOWING!)
Mom came down finally and we set off. In reply to the Facebook post that we were in Tucson, Mrs. Friedman told Mom to go to a place outside of Tucson that was a Steakhouse called Little Abner's. Well, if the Friedman's liked it then we probably would, and along the dipped roads we came to it, and parked as we looked at the yellow sign saying it, dark wood, and then a stage on the left, small with some picnic tables, and behind some people on a grill cooking was a large grill in pizza places that had a top on it. This was all outside, you know. Through a small door on the right we entered one of the noisiest restaurants in the Southwest, with a really smoky smell. There was a sticker decorated podium, some people in black shirts who were the servers, and wooden poles and deer heads and all this different crazy stuff all around, and the bar table decorated with names, the tables and walls with names, the smell of motorcycle grease, BBQ, cheese and someone's mother-in-law's cologne, man all this was a cowboy or motorcycle dude's heaven, HOG HEAVEN! (get it, like hog, BBQ, you know?) We were seated as we looked at all the license plates on the wall, and tried to name all of them and find GA, which we accomplished. After we were seated on the right side of the entrance in a booth, I needed to go to the restroom. This was a truly crazy and odd restaurant. And it was going to be a crazy and odd RESTROOM, too.
I asked our waiter and he said right ahead, and I looked for it and tried to go down the hallway where the cooks and the food were on my left, but they said the restroom was up on a platform through doors totally shown with all kinds of junk. It was an in-house, an outhouse that was placed inside. I went in and then washed my hands in quite a very tight space, and it was really dirty in there. I later ordered a half stack of ribs and then ate some of the beef off the bone, with all the sauce on my hands and face. I looked like a pig as I ate one. Dad also had ribs and then Mom got steak, with Rebecca getting mac'n'cheese. I made sure that my book got in the right corner away from all this mess. Then after the meal we paid and left. It was REALLY GOOD. I WANT ANOTHER ONE!!!!
Back at home we went to bed with sounds of construction, highway, and dumpster throwing. Only two more nights left!!
That day going to the National Park I could've done without, but we did see a bunch of beautiful cacti, Mom got awesome books she now loved, and I learned the difference between a piggery and a javelina. You COULD say it was kind of a day wasted, but I've learned that NO day is wasted if your with your family. :)
What if we said everything were our dead ancestors? A coffee mug, fruitcake, and scissors? Then we would be drinking out of, eating, and cutting with, our ancestors. Yikes!,
Andrew.
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