High Deserts and Hi Jolly

Give me a hug you spiky devil!

The Tumbleweeds have broken new ground, forged a new path, gone where no man has gone before...not really, but I did hug a cactus.


We don't often get off the interstate. Sadly, back roads tend not to be the shortest route. The drive north out of Flagstaff, AZ on US 89 is one of the most beautiful we have driven. We were just east of that big, wondrous hole, the Grand Canyon. It was gorgeous high desert country, the colors all muted and wind washed. Those fabulous saguaro cactus that you thought only existed in Roadrunner cartoons, dirt in every color of the rainbow, a big blue sky (with clouds, *squints* at Los Angeles) and hardly any people. It's heaven!




Glen Canyon Dam Bridge
Near Page, AZ



These pictures don't do the land justice. The sand under these vibrant orange cliffs is green, pink and purple.

It is illegal to blow up a saguaro with explosives (called plugging) but I don't know
how else you would do it. 

The road less travelled

This is just like the fake tunnel Wile E Coyote puts up
for Roadrunner. 

Later, coming out of California in western Arizona we stopped in Quartzsite. This is where every old person in an RV comes to drive slowly. It's also the grave site of Hi Jolly. 

In 1855 the government had the idea to use camels to help build and supply a wagon route from Texas to California. A Syrian camel driver named Hadj Ali was hired to teach the the new US Camel Corps the finer points of camel driving. Hadj Ali soon became Hi Jolly to the army guys and things were going swell until the Civil War, which hogged up all the attention and the program was abandoned.

In typical ADD style, the government left the camels to fend for themselves in the desert as they went on to play war. The last wild camel was seen in 1941.

The only camels left are man-made. At least they don't spit on you.

I could climb it if I really wanted to...

Leaving the sunset behind.