Hiking - day one......

Mark and I took our first hike in the desert yesterday. I love to hike and have been begging him to accompany me for years. It was a difficult prospect as when we were younger there were small children who either did not like to hike (Livi and Loran), were too damn wild to let loose someplace where there were no walls (Kimmy & Matthew), or would slow us down by stopping and discussing all aspects of every piece of nature he observed (Brandon).
It’s different now that we have successfully thrown nearly all of them out of the abode and are working furiously on the ones left. Those still in residence require minimal daily care, can feed themselves and dial 911. That frees Mark and me up a lot.
Getting my husband out for a hike was easier this time, as well, because we are now hiking in the desert. Mark loooooves the desert. I always have too – in a, let’s look at all the beauty from a scenic vista point we can drive to, sort of way. After surviving four Buffalo, NY winters, however, the beauty of the Arizona desert appeals to me in a manner I’d never have believed. The warmth is, of course, a plus, but it goes far beyond that. The land touches something in me that is deeper than my thoughts or anything I can describe. Heading out in the cool stillness of a morning sounded like just what we needed.
We chose Sunday for our first hike, but discounted the power packed by the Margaritas poured at Nando’s Mexican Café on Saturday night. I only had one – and maybe a couple sips of another – which meant that Mark had his plus most of my second and all of his second. He hit the snooze button on the five o’clock alarm so hard Sunday morning that it didn’t freaking dare go off a second time and I never even heard it the first. We rescheduled for Monday.
Monday morning we made it to the trailhead at 7:30. We got up at five and moved like a herd of turtles toward our destination. Once there, though we were jammin’ down that trail. I made Mark go first, of course. His vision is better than mine and I knew he’d be better at keeping an eye on the trail. He and my dad did a lot of desert camping and Javelina hunting back in the days I mentioned above, when taking our kids out into the desert would have turned into a tragedy – for the desert. Anyway, Mark had lots of experience.
After about half an hour I’d grown confident enough to take the lead. I had my hiking boots protecting my feet and my walking stick – made out of a shillelagh – to assist at the steepest points along the path. Plus, it’s a weapon and just right for killing zombies……. Yes, I watched, THE WALKING DEAD, again on Sunday night… and felt dirty afterward…… I figured the shillelagh would come in handy if I did run into a snake. Though, really, what are you supposed to do with it if you come across one? It’s just a stick. It’s not something you can hide behind. I got to thinking (nearly always a mistake) that maybe my particular stick, as it is a little thicker than your usual walking stick, and black with sharp, pointy little nubs sticking out of it, might look like one of those kinds of snakes that are good to have around to keep rattle snakes in line. As not one single rattler showed its diamond-backed head along our way, my confidence in the stick, and my trail vision increased.
We came out into a clearing that another hiker we talked to along the way called, “Garden Valley.” It’s a place that was once occupied by Native Americans. They farmed the land and grazed cattle there, from about 700 A.D. to 1300 A.D. At which point they simply disappeared.
“Nobody knows what happened to them,” our new friend told us.
After the guy left I told Mark it was probably aliens who took them. He gave me a look, just like I knew he would. But, really, there we were in this great big area, flat and sitting between a bunch of mountains in, what back then would have been the middle of absolutely nowhere and these people just disappeared. They went with aliens or…….. Or they frigging moved to Phoenix, just like everyone else……
We moved on.
About 20 minutes later, we were walking through a sandy wash.
“Woah!” Mark’s exclamation wasn’t alarmed – more amazed. I thought maybe he saw an alien. I turned around and followed his gaze to the ground, afraid I would not like what I found there.
“It’s a stick,” I said.
“It’s a snake,” he corrected. “You stepped right over it.”
I didn’t faint, because I had to squint to realize that he was right, it was, indeed, a skinny little, sand colored rat snake, frozen in place in his instinctive abject terror.
“Huh,” I said. “My stick works.”
We’re headed to the mountains for more hiking this weekend. I wonder if the shillelagh works on bears.