Just when I’ve begun to despair (which is a bit of a dramatic exaggeration but only a bit) of ever going on an adventure again, I somehow manage to invite myself or get invited along on my mom’s birding trip/commemorative anniversary trip.
Mom’s going for the variety of hummingbirds and some other photographic catches like the elegant trogon and the yellow-eyed junco. I’m going for the mountains and the chance to officially add Arizona to my visited-states list (I had a layover in Phoenix once but, in the unwritten traveler’s code, airports don’t count as a location visit).
I tick off the days on my calendar and wrap up my work as best I can. For once in a long time, I’m leaving all my work behind. I’m taking a vacation. I can’t wait.
Finally, the day arrives. We pack up the car, bid the house farewell, and zip away.
We drive across West Texas (which is prettier than I expected), stopover in Roswell to check out the aliens (the actual crash site is 70 miles away from Roswell, but Roswell has charmingly capitalized on the occurrence, extraterrestrial or otherwise), and, after crossing the full width of New Mexico, arrive in Portal, Arizona in time for a dark-cloud, mountain-menacing, large-raindrop downpour.
We love it.
Welcome to Arizona.
After the storm has passed, leaving the air cooler and the parched world water-touched, we unpack. Mom takes her camera, I take my book, and we sit on the back porch and drink in the view.
The mountains calm something within me. I settle and am soothed.
It reminds me of when I moved to Colorado, those long years ago, and felt like I’d come home. Like I’d finally come home.
I’m not meant for the city. Not long term.
The days pass too quickly, of course. But they are lovely. I spend the majority of time outside reading, watching birds, lizards, clouds, and laughing at the quail. Top knots bobbing, they come in like a committee let out of a conference room, making sounds like ridiculous videogame creatures, and dashing around like they have important places to be and essential actions to perform. I’m sure they do.
When they come, the thunderstorms blow in mostly from the west, though one arrives with fury from the east, bringing in lovely, lower temperatures and showy clouds.
The mosquitoes, as mosquitoes should if they must do anything at all, only come out at dusk.
And then there is the hiking.
One day, I tag along with my mom to a trail she’s said is supposed to be one of the best in the area for birding. Not having done my usual amount of location research, I hadn’t known we would be within a stone’s throw of the Coronado National Forest and the Chiricahua Wilderness.
With the knowledge and the evidence of both forest and wilderness in front of my face, I am filled with a sudden trail-lust. Or perhaps it’s love. Perhaps it’s always been love. I want to walk all these trails. I want to hike them until they’re familiar and well-known. I want to summit each of these peaks and see the views from the top.
This time, this day, this trail, we trek like proper hikers, fording the river again and again. On occasion, I leave my mom behind so she can stare into the trees until the bird she’s after cooperates enough for her to photograph it. Moving ever onward and then back the way I came, I breathe in the pine, the high-altitude air, and the spirit of the mountains.
Perhaps inspired by a recent post I’d made with the John Muir quote, “The mountains are calling and I must go,” or perhaps only by a coincidence of timing, one of my friends, still in Colorado, sends me a picture of a place we’d hiked together a lifetime ago which she, her partner, and two of their kids have just revisited, and asks, “When are you moving back to Colorado?”
Not soon enough. Maybe one day. Hopefully one day. I don’t know.
But I’ve got some mountains now.
After dark, I slip outside, careful to check for tarantulas, rattlesnakes, and other creatures, and stare up at the sky. The Milky Way films over the star spangled and black velvet backdrop of space like a wispy, elongated cloud. There is Scorpio and Sagitarius. In the north, the Big Dipper is easy to spot as well as the Little Dipper which pours into it. The familiar shape of Casiopeia twinkles back at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the bright, brief flash of a shooting star.
The next morning, I drop my mom off at a hummingbird site and go to take on the Silver Peak trail on my own.
There is no river to cross on this side. The path is rocky. The shade sparse. The views spectacular. I climb steadily up and up. I’m the only one on the trail. I’m the only one in the world as the sun beats down upon my bare arms, marks my neck, and tries to get my face where my ballcap doesn’t shade it enough. When I stand still, when I listen, I hear nothing and no one until the wind makes the grass speak or an insect goes buzzing by. The whitest cloud I’ve ever seen rises from behind one peak, growing bigger and bigger.
I could stay here forever.
But I don’t.
Tucking the joy of the natural world in around my heart, I go back down and retrieve my mom.
When we drive to the Chiricahua National Monument to see the hoodoos, the changing mountains, the scrubland, cacti, beargrass, prickly pear, cholla, and yucca is every Louis L’amour I’ve ever read (I’m pretty sure I read them all). If I close my eyes (which I don’t do since I’m the one driving), I can almost imagine I’m the cowboy hero riding my trusted steed and following the tracks in the desert sand.
And if I’m not seeing and imagining a Louis L’amour landscape then it’s Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage.
While I scramble up the large rocks into the heart of the grottos and sit again in a blessed cathedral of silence, my mom ambles farther down the trail to let fly a stardust handful of my dad’s ashes. It’s their anniversary day. Fifty years they had together. Three years now that my dad’s been gone.
The next day, my dad’s death day, we, once again, take him along and drive to Paradise.
On the narrow, rocky road up, my mom has to squeeze the car over to the very tightest edge as a truck barrels headlong down the path our way. Coming alongside, with only inches to spare between vehicles, the cheerful driver rolls down his window, asks us if we’re looking for the Walker house (we weren’t, but we could be), says it’s great for birding, tells us how to get there, and encourages us to talk to his wife Jackie who will show us all around.
When he’s managed to slide past without going over the side of the mountain or scraping his truck or our car, he trundles down and we continue on up.
Two seconds later, we encounter another car. This time, there’s more room though.
The driver rolls down his window and with gushing excitement he and his travel companion tell us about the lucifer hummingbird they’ve just photographically captured on an agave plant.
“It’s the bird of the trip, for me! I can’t speak for him,” the driver says pointing to his friend. “To get it in the wild, not on feeder…” He’s nearly speechless with joy.
Speaking over each other, they spend the next expanse of time telling us how to park and then climb down into the dry creek bed if we want to try to find the bird for ourselves.
But, having worn ourselves out the day before at the Chiricahua National Monument, we are not wanting a creek bed adventure today.
Instead, we go up to the George Walker house and get taken in hand by Jackie who points out birds for my mom while I sit and stare off into space, half listening, half watching, and very occasionally saying something.
On the way out, with a view that makes me catch my breath, we stop and once again, my mom lets loose another cloud of my dad’s ashes to fly out and stay forever in Paradise.
Winding our way back down the road, this time without meeting anyone else, we drive away from Paradise.
The last morning in Portal, as I’m packing up, I feel sad. I didn’t expect to be quite so blue about leaving. But I am because there are still trails to explore, birds to find, and mountains to be made speechless by.
But for now, we have to leave it all behind.
We drive away, saying goodbye to the mountains as we go.
We drive back across the width of New Mexico and into Texas.
Despite being horrified by the crowded and unsightly cities of Sunland and Odessa, the trip is a success. Mom got her elegant trogon and a number of different hummingbirds (as well as plenty of other birds). We didn’t go up to a high enough elevation for her to find the yellow-eyed junco. So, for that, she’ll just have to plan another trip.
And if I’m lucky, if I’m not already in the mountains somewhere else, maybe I can invite myself or get invited along for that too.
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