5/25 Surprise AZ to Deming, NM

Clear skies and a cacophony of bird calls greeted us this morning. We learned that many of the calls were mockingbirds just imitating other birds, but there were some woodpeckers, cactus wrens and morning doves, which Horst referred to as “roof rats” because they are so prolific and widespread around here.

There are some citrus trees just behind our guest house, or “Casita”, and I picked a grapefruit to sample. A few minutes later, when Horst and Gay were out for a morning tour of their yard, Gay picked about a half dozen more, and prepared some fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for us. There’s nothing better than juice from freshly picked fruit.

Soon it was time to go over to Mike and Claudia’s place for breakfast. They live just around the corner from Horst and Gay, so it was just a short walk. The table was set, and Claudia was in the kitchen making blueberry pancakes. We were also served bacon, bananas prepared in a brown sugar and butter mixture with a dash of OJ, and a bowl of mixed fruit. It was all delicious, and more visiting time ensued.

We eventually said goodbye to our breakfast hosts, and walked back to Horst and Gay’s, where we finished loading the car and got underway. We had a great time visiting in Surprise; thanks again to Horst, Gay, Mike and Claudia for their gracious hospitality.

We headed out for Tucson, taking some back roads here and there, but eventually heading down I-10 for a few miles to the exit for the Pima Air and Space Museum. Here in the desert, hundreds of civilian and military planes are mothballed, free from most of nature’s destructive forces in this low humidity and dry climate. We spent a couple hours viewing the exhibits both inside the hangars and outside on static display. Among the interesting exhibits inside was an aerobatic plane called the Bumble Bee; it once held the record as the smallest airplane – to carry a human pilot, that is. It was basically an engine with a cockpit attached to it – the stubby wings were probably only 2 or 3 feet long. There was also a replica of the Wright Flyer hanging from the ceiling, an SR-71 Blackbird, and many unique looking helicopters. One of them I recognized, because when I was 9 or 10 years old I assembled a plastic model of it. It had twin side by side rotors that counter-rotated, eliminating the need for a tail rotor.

We eventually found our way out of the museum, only to head down the road a few miles to Saguaro National Park. We followed an 8 mile one way loop through a forest of Saguaro cactus, stopping for photos and walks at many of the turnouts. We learned there were many more of the saguaros here back in the 1930’s, but a freezing spell did many of them in. Research shows that a frost of over 20 hours can do serious damage to them, to the extent they may not survive. Cattle grazing in the area prevented many new starts from taking root, but the grazing is now prohibited and the saguaros are on the rebound.

Once we were done with our touristy activities, it was well into the afternoon so we headed on down I-10 towards New Mexico to see how far we could get. At first we planned on stopping in Lordsburg, but after refueling there, continued on to Deming to find lodging for the night. It turned out to be a little later than we thought, as we didn’t take into account the time zone change. Arizona is actually on Mountain Time, but they don’t advance their clocks for Daylight Savings – New Mexico does, though, so we were well into the evening before we stopped.

Tomorrow we’ll head on over to White Sands National Monument, and possibly on to Carlsbad Caverns.