I always tell the booking agent upfront that I’m interested in the History, Geology, and flora and fauna of the area. At Red Rock Western Jeep Tours, that caused the booking person to say, “Oh, we’ll need to put you with The Professor.” I had noticed that the tour company dresses its guides in cowboy hats and Western gear and promises that they are all characters. They are not kidding. The Professor’s real name is Cody, which was also Western appropriate.

Somehow, within 5 minutes of me clambering into the Jeep, Professor Cody and I were talking wine. Turns out, he’s an extremely knowlegable oenophile with a blog that focuses largely on Arizona wines, about which he is passionate. His blog is The Wine Monk, a nod to his past as a seminary student. He takes a wider focus with his podcast, Make America Grape Again. After the tour, I fell into his blog and podcast. You’ll find both well worth your time. He tends to look at smaller production and lesser known wines, honestly rating them by their merits (we are both great enemies of the Robert Parker point system), suggesting great food pairings, and generally amusing the reader and listener with tales of how he and his buddies conducted their tastings.

In this great company, how could I not have an excellent tour? Well, Professor Cody kicked it up several notches from what you might even imagine. He regaled me with local Native American legends and tribal customs, as well as historical events in Sedona, all with a great stage actor’s command of drama and accents to embellish the tales. He had an equal command of geology which he discussed at every view point. Did I mention he also seems to be an avid birder, identifying various bird calls, and usually finding and pointing out the avian singer. Ditto his knowledge of local trees, cactus and insects.

Oh and as we jounced over slick rock up to the top of the mesa, he frequently burst into snatches of liturgy or let out a Wild West “YEEEHAAAAW” at particularly high bounces. Although I had my notebook out and was wildly scribbling down his commentary, while also attempting to photograph everything, I’m sure I don’t remember the half of it.

One of the highlights of the tour was a great vantage point of one of Sedona’s iconic formations, which White settlers named, The Teapot.

I believe, going from left to right, the four formations are The Eagle, The Woman, Wolf Boy, and The Warrior. But don’t quote me on that, except for The Wolf Boy, who became a great shaman and whose legend Cody told.

Just an aside, but why do White people always have to ascribe things — especially in the West — to the Devil. Apparently, it pisses Native Americans off no end, especially when such monikers are affixed to sacred sites like Devil’s Tower or The Devil’s Postpile. In any case, this sink hole is still breaking off around the edges which seems to coincide, along with the original sink, with large earthquakes in California.

After an informative, enlightening and amusing tour, Professor Cody brought me back to the office and directed me to one of his favorite tasting rooms. Against my better judgement, I went. Not that I didn’t think his advice was sound, but seriously, the last thing a winemaker should do on vacation is more wine tasting. But Professor Cody lured me in by telling me about all the Rhone style varietals that were being grown in the Verde Valley (a new appellation) and the Willcox area. I should note that these varietals are not being grown next to cactus. Arizona has a number of what are called Sky Islands, which are basically mountains surrounded by deserts or more arid landscape. On the sides and tops of these “islands” the terroir is much much different and apparently conducive to heat loving Rhone varietals.

I have to say, the Barbera was excellent, and I’m not usually a lover of many Italian varietals. The Refosco was equally pleasant. I realize I’m not giving extensive tasting notes, but I’m still scrolling through Professor Cody’s blog looking for his remarks as I’m sure they will be more amusing than mine. The Tannat, which they are billing as “Arizona’s answer to California’s Cabernet”, well, I’d have to say, “Yeah, if you’ve never actually tasted a California Cabernet.” The Petite Sirah was too punchy and one-note for my tastes, but then I never understand the mania for bottling Petite Sirah as a single varietal instead of part of a blend.

I’m glad I did the tasting and would encourage anyone visiting to do the same. Although the tasting room should immediately hire Professor Cody as a consultant or trainer. The very nice and personable young lady who handled my tasting couldn’t answer many of my questions including the curious trend of Arizona winemakers to bottle Rhone varietals and blends in Bordeaux bottles. Hey, it’s high shoulders for Cabs and sloped shoulders for Rhones! I realize many of the featured winemakers are trying to blaze their own unique paths and perhaps that involves bucking tradition, but seriously, getting the wine in the right bottle gives an instant visual cue on the shelf as to what’s inside.

All in all, an excellent and unexpected first day in Sedona. If you are this way, you must book Professor Cody’s tour. Or invite him to a tasting room as your Guide des Vins.

Several of the kids I went to school with bragged that their grandfathers and great grandfathers had been deputies or rustlers (and were equally proud of relatives on both sides of the law.) It was still not uncommon to see someone riding down the street on a horse, and men tended to wear cowboy hats and bolo ties while greeting women with “Howdy, Ma’am.” The kids at my school were a wonderful mix of Tucson’s heritage. There were Latino kids, Tohono O’odham kids from the reservation, ranchers’ kids, even a few Mormon kids from a polygamist compound that had been raided. (Although I didn’t learn until years later why we suddenly had an influx of girls in prairie dresses and long braids in our school.) Everyone got along. Of course, now Arizona’s politics are much different and darker. But, at the time, having come from a segregated-in-all-but-name Southern school, I thought Tucson was wonderfully exotic. I traded my peanut butter sandwiches for the Tamales my friend’s abuela made and learned to love Native fry bread. And I went to places like Tombstone, the Old Tucson movie village, and Wild West forts and homesteads that were still standing.

Tucson even had the modern day equivalent of a bordello district. It was called Miracle Mile and was developed in the late 40s as a strip of neon bedecked motels and restaurants to entice the cross-country traveler into entering Tucson to spend a few bucks. By the time I showed up, it had degenerated into a boulevard of strip clubs, liquor stores, honky tonks, and dive bars. Some intrepid parents would drive us kids down Miracle Mile at night to see the neon, but nobody ever stopped. In fact, none of us kids knew of anyone who had ever gotten out of the car on Miracle Mile, but we surmised that anyone who did was a thoroughly dangerous type. I’d heard that the city fathers were so embarrassed by this blight that they’d cleaned it up and renamed it Oracle Drive. I saw the turnoff to it as I drove into Tucson, but wisely chose not to explore. I wanted to remember it as the dangerous place, I’d never really seen.

Another place I wisely left unvisited was our old apartment complex. My brother, who has a trove of letters my Dad wrote from Viet Nam, found our old address. I decided to keep my memories of a great faux Adobe complex with a huge courtyard where we all rode our bikes. I also remember being fascinated that the main road was slightly U-shaped. My Tucson friends told me that was to channel the waters of the summer monsoons. Someone’s much older brother had once, during a particularly massive storm, rowed a boat down the center of the road.

I do have a vivid memory of how we ended up at those particular apartments. My mother, even to this day, believes that the correct price for anything is what one would have paid back in 1938. She’d figured out her price and was driving the real estate agent crazy demanding a safe neighborhood with nearby elementary schools, parks, good shopping, all with a pre-WWII price tag. In frustration, the real estate agent finally took us to Tucson’s worst Barrio — a patch of adobe huts with no glass in the windows and chickens and goats running loose. She told my mother, this is what she could get in that price range. Which is how we ended up on Country Club drive in the tony Catalina foothills. Presumably for contemporary prices.

Anyway, in my quest for revisiting a favorite part of my youth, but not being too disappointed, I headed for places I was pretty sure would still impress.

First and foremost was the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, an innovative outside living museum covering the biospheres, plants and animals of the area. It’s clearly been expanded and was much better than I even remembered. It was also conveniently located in the extensive Tucson Mountain Park, a huge swath of preserved landscape of Saguaro, Ocotillo and Sagebrush. The park is on the other side of the mountains from the city of Tucson, so it gave me dark skies for stars and the lunar eclipse.

The Old Tucson movie set, which is also in the park, was closed, but I probably would have skipped it anyway, as I did Tombstone later. I walked the OK Corral as an Elementary School kid. Doing it today wouldn’t have compared. However, I did want a taste of kitschy cowboy experience. So I headed to dinner at our favorite restaurant back in the day. Tucson is not exactly a foodie Mecca. Even the Mexican food — unless you know where to go (which I didn’t) is pretty Anglicized and covered with yellow cheese (which real Mexican food never is). Your best bet is always a steakhouse. When I was a kid, that was Pinnacle Peaks, where every family ate. It was set in a kitschy Old West town, complete with a real miniature train, staged gunfights on weekends, and sometimes actors wandering around dressed as gunslingers and saloon gals. For my brother and me, one of the best things about Pinnacle Peaks is that they didn’t allow neckties. If you wore one, the staff would come out banging pots and pans, cut it off, and hang it on the wall. While ties were common wear back when I was a kid, I bet it’s been decades since Pinnacle Peak’s staff has cut off a tie. But there they all were lining the walls.

The other cool thing about Pinnacle Peaks was that all the wait staff dressed as cowboys and had famous cowboy names. The kitchen would call out: “Belle Starr, your dessert order for #4 is up. Billy the Kid, entrees for table # 12 are up.” My young waiter was Josey Wales and even bore a passing resemblance. And the food? Surprisingly good. The mesquite grilled steaks were excellent and the Charro Beans (from a 60 year old family recipe) were fantastic.

However, my trip through memory lane was not completed even as I left Tucson the next morning. Anyone who’s ever traveled the I-10 between Tucson and New Mexico probably knows of the roadside attraction known as The Thing. For at least 50 miles in each direction, large yellow billboards every mile tell you that The Thing is just up at Exit 366 and can’t be missed. My father was a big proponent of “making good time” on a roadtrip, but my brother and I begging to see The Thing for dozens of miles must have worn him down. We stopped and viewed the exhibit that was heavy on morbid things like Hitler’s staff car and the Bonnie and Clyde death car. Then, you were ushered into a darkened room where you saw The Thing and were sworn to secrecy.

Once I saw the billboards, I knew I had to go. In the extensive gift shop, I chatted with the two elderly cashiers — one of whom bore an uncanny resemblance to Leon Russell, complete with top hat. I told them I’d seen The Thing way back when I was a kid, but had only a hazy recollection of what it was. They excitedly told me that the whole exhibit had been completely upgraded and that I would love it.

They were NOT kidding. The gist of the new exhibit is a walk through the history of the Earth from dinosaurs to the present day, with the spin that most of the key historical events were the result of two tribes of visiting aliens, the benevolent Ammattria and the evil Mylzerath. First these two races battled it out causing the extinction of the dinosaurs and a changed climate. Then the Mylzerath took off, leaving the Ammattria to manipulate human development and history. That includes helping Egyptians and Aztecs build their pyramids, bringing about the rise and fall of empires, and putting their thumbs on the scales for the Allies in World War II. Throughout this time, a few human leaders have been contacted and privy to the work of the Ammattria, who spent most of their time controlling things from underground caves. But of course, leaders like the Founding Fathers and Winston Churchill covered it all up. Occasionally, the evil Mylzerath would show up again and cause some catastrophe like Krakatoa, but largely, our progress has been guided by the benevolent aliens. I don’t know the works of L. Ron Hubbard enough to say this is out of some of his sci-fi novels, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Which brings me to The Thing. I can tell the secret, because apparently now there is no secrecy oath and you can take pictures. But if you want to remain in denial, stop now.

The Thing, when I was a kid, was billed as a mysterious mummy that a prospector stumbled over in a nearby cave. I didn’t examine it too closely as I was freaked out that I was possibly looking at a dead person. Now The Thing has a decidedly alien head, although it does look kind of ape-like. It’s also holding a child, which may or may not have been there back then. I was kind of freaked out again at The Thing, but for different reasons. If the mummy is a long-dead Native American, it should be given a proper burial. But I suspect it’s a latter day Feegee Mermaid, probably a gauze-wrapped mannequin with an ape head attached. It is is certainly way too tall for an ancient Indian, looking to be well over six feet.

Well, for thrills and chills at the low price of $5.00, it was well worth the journey. I might add, that for the traveler, there are extremely clean restrooms and an excellent gift shop.

Having concluded my walk through childhood, I pressed on to the Chiricahua National Monument, where I’ll stay for two nights in the famous mountain stronghold of the Chiricahua Apaches. I won’t need to worry about Gila monsters up here, but there are bear boxes and warning signs everywhere.

And then there are possible aliens…

On the agenda were Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Saguaro National Park. Organ Pipe, a UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserve, is the only place north of the Mexican border where the frost-sensitive Organ Pipe Cactus can grow. As I learned from the Visitor’s Center, where I fled to bring my core temperature down, the Sonoran Desert is a “green desert”. It has two rainy seasons a year, a lighter one in the winter from prevailing winds from the Pacific and a heavy monsoon later in the summer from hurricanes coming up the Gulf. It certainly looked lush, for a desert, and I just happened to hit it when the iconic Saguaro Cactus were in bloom. If you get a kick out of reading the many compendiums of clueless Yelp reviews made by visitors to National Parks, several tourists have complained that Organ Pipe has too many Saguaro. Yes, it has thousands, whole forests of Saguaro, but if you are coming to see the desert, wouldn’t you be interested in seeing ALL cactus, not just the one mentioned in the Monument’s name?

In addition to the Organ Pipe Cactus, which are abundant in Mexico, there are many other reminders that Mexico is just a few miles away. To get to the Monument, I turned off the I-10 and started following the signs to Mexico. In gentler times, the border towns did a brisk trade with Gringo tourists. When I was a kid in Tucson, I can remember driving to Mexico for lunch. There is one nearby border town, Algodones, called Tooth City because of the dozens of dentists who line the main street. It’s a destination for RV nomads, retirees, and those seeking inexpensive dental care. I’ve talked to RVers who claim the services are excellent. The Trump border frenzy, Covid and increasing xenophobia have shut a lot of that traffic down. As I entered the Monument entry town of Ajo, every other building was an office hawking Mexican insurance. No one seemed to be doing much business.

Another blight on the area has been the crack down on border crossings in big city areas in Califronia and Texas, which hasn’t stopped illegal passage, it’s just moved it to remote areas that are much more dangerous to crossers and much more difficult to police. I wanted to go see the border wall that Trump was building smack through the Organ Pipe Biosphere — and through the sovereign nation of the Tohono O’odham, who strenuously opposed it. Besides bisecting Organ Pipe from its sister Mexican Bioreserve, the wall is blocking traditional Tohono O’odham gathering grounds, separating Native families who live on both sides of the border, and disrupting animal migratory routes. This article takes a deeper dive into the destruction.

There is no doubt there are issues at the border. The namesake of the Kris Eggles Visitor’s Center at Organ Pipe was killed in the line of duty pursuing cartel members who had fled across the border after committing murder in Mexico. One of the best examinations of the issues at the border was written years ago, but still seems to hold true. The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea tells the story of one of the deadliest border crossings: 26 men attempted to cross this stretch of desert. Only 11 came out alive. The ordeal was horrific with the dead men literally cooking to death. Urrea tells the story from the viewpoint of everyone involved at all stages of the tragedy. Close to the event, he finds no villains: not the Border Patrol who break down in tears telling him about finding bodies of women and children in the desert. Not the men who attempted the desperate crossing to find a better life and work that would support their families. Even the Coyote is just a Tijuana street punk and gang wannabe. The cartels don’t waste valuable skilled members on transporting people across the border, especially since they pay their fee up-front and there are no refunds if they are caught or die. Certainly this coyote had no orienteering skills, no wilderness survival ability, and no clue where he was going as he led his group further into the furnace of the Sonora Desert. If there are villains, they are far from the action. Callous government officials on both sides of the border and cartel members who see the refugees as “pollos” (chickens): easy money to be made with less risk than their main business of drug dealing.

But back to the cactus. After a wonderful scenic drive up to Ajo Mountain to view forests of Saguaro and Organ Pipe Cactus, I took a short sleep, and got up at the crack of dawn to continue my journey. I also wanted to see the tightly closed blossoms of the Saguaro open up, which they only do in the relative cool of the morning.

For my first stop south of Tucson, I moseyed over to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, surely one of the best natural museums in the United States, maybe the world. Ninety percent of it is outdoors and it covers all the bioregions in the area with displays of the native animals, insects and plants. I stopped by the Mountain Lion exhibit and learned that the cat on display was from San Jose! He’d been prowling around people’s back yards and kept returning even when taken to remote areas. So now he’s in Arizona at the cat habitat.

The museum also has extensive displays recording the history of animals in this area from the dinosaur era to today. No matter how many times I read it, I’m always amazed that the Southwest was teaming with horses, camels, and elephants before they mysteriously died out. At least the horse was reintroduced. As were camels, briefly, with the ill-fated Camel Corps during the Civil War.

I was also thrilled to see an excellent display on one of my favorite extinct Southwestern animals, the Giant Shasta Sloth, which was the last animal that could effectively disperse the huge seeds of the Joshua Tree. When the sloths went, Joshua Trees could only grow where the seeds fell.

After the ranger at Organ Pipe had scared me to death with stories of marauding hordes of Diamondbacks, scorpions, and Gila Monsters, I was glad to confront these critters behind glass.

I ended the tourist portion of my day with a trip out to The White Dove of the Desert, Mission San Xavier del Bac, on the Tohono O’odham Reservation (which I’d traveled across to get to Tucson from Organ Pipe.)

Now to find a restaurant to wait out the rest of the day’s heat before I set up to see if I can photograph tonight’s lunar eclipse. Then on to higher elevations and more northerly areas, where, hopefully, it will be a bit cooler.

This trip I tried something I’d bet even some native Angelenos haven’t tried. I took freeways from the top western border of Los Angeles to the bottom, then cut straight across West to East on another set of freeways. Specifically, I drove down from San Clemente on I-5, then I rode I-8 all the way to Arizona. Believe me, that’s a lot of freeway driving in one day. The strange thing is that I encountered little traffic any of the way, despite driving through LA during morning rush hour. I find this happens a lot when I drive on LA freeways. I think I’ve finally figured out why.

Imagine the KTLA Traffic Chopper hovering over a freeway. The pilot starts his live report:

Anchor in studio: Hey Jim, how’s that commute looking?

Pilot: Well Stan, we’ve spotted something on the I-5. It’s that lady in the silver campervan. She’s in the slow lane doing about 53 MPH.

Anchor: Whoa, I remember when she was on the 210 back in March.

Pilot: She appears to be singing along to Country and Mariachi music.

Anchor: Uh oh.

Pilot: Yeah Stan, I’d tell our viewers to avoid that freeway.

Yes my LA Peeps, I do travel 55 MPH on LA freeways. I’m in the slow lane. Just pass me. And since I’m driving slowly, I have had the opportunity to make some observations on the freeways in the City of Angels. First of all, it is entirely possible to drive for hours up and down and side to side in LA and never take an exit. Seriously, every freeway merges into another and the signs give you plenty of warning. So if you need to switch from, say, 101 to the 405, you are told a few miles ahead that you will need to get into the right three lanes. Then you just continue on and magically, you are on your new freeway. Compare that to Bay Area freeways where traffic is madly whizzing by at 70 MPH and suddenly you need to exit to get to another freeway, but you are given no warning that you will need to cross five lanes to get to an exit…and whoops…you miss it.

Secondly, LA drivers are surprisingly undisturbed that I’m tootling along slowly. I’m theorizing that it’s because in the same lane with armies of taco trucks and landscapers’ pickups with trailers. And Angelenos love their tacos and their landscaping. We get a pass.

While rattling through a metropolis wasn’t the highlight of the trip, I’d always wanted to travel I-8. It’s the southern-most freeway out here and skims the Mexican border in many parts. I wasn’t quite prepared for how close it is to Mexico. For a good part of the journey, I traveled along a border fence, which seemed aimed at keeping out vehicles, not people. The fence was akin to what horse people call a buck fence, a series of poles in the shape of Xs with one or two cross poles between each X. Completely easy for someone to skin under or climb, but it would stop an off-roading jeep. I also noticed that the US Border Patrol was out in force. Still, judging by the highway signs, there are many legitimate trucking routes in and out of Mexico along I-8. With all the factories just over the border, this must be a major route for Mexican imports into the US.

I also wasn’t prepared for the landscape. It looks more like Mexico than any place I’ve been to in the US. Unless it’s Joshua Tree. On steroids. If you are familiar with the famous orangy brown boulders that make Joshua Tree a mecca for climbers, imagine if there were three times as many. Imagine the whole landscape was just those giant boulders piled on top of each other over every square inch of land. Sadly, I have no pictures of the most insane parts of the landscape. Like many roads in the West, there are few places to stop and take a picture. Let’s get the Secretary of the Interior on that!

I finally got myself to my destination for the night, which was a wide spot in I-8 called Tacna, Arizona. By that time, it was 95 in the shade, had there been any shade. Apparently the park is a big snowbird destination, but by now , they’ve all flown away. As I poked around the rec center, it seems they do a lot of quilting over the winter here. And also play a lot of billiards. But bless their hearts, the park owners have a full kitchen available, so I didn’t have to cook dinner in my sweltering van or under the blazing sun.

Although the snowbirds seem to be a sociable lot — as indicated by the signs announcing past ice cream parties and wine tastings, the few of us here now are not likely to break bread together. As I searched for the campground wi-fi, I found that my neighbor’s personal hot spot was called “fuckBiden”. I suppose it’s an indication that I’ve left California and am now in a Red State. Guess I won’t be sharing a glass of wine with those campers.

Tomorrow, I press on to the former mining town of Ajo, which has remade itself as an artists’ colony. And then to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.