Tombstone had its St Patrick's Parade this morning at 11am and since Sierra Vista cancelled its own parade that had been scheduled yesterday (allegedly due to lack of sponsorship) I opted to check out the parade. There had been enough Irish settlers in town back in the mining days of Tombstone to warrant a parade in honor of the Irish.
Kevin was supposed to go as well but opted out when he saw Sara limping badly.
"I can't leave her here alone. I'll stay behind and rub her belly for an hour" he said. Bless that man. His love for animals and nature is why I fell in love with him nine years ago. I still remember that day: May 18, 2000.
But what a parade it was. I was at the main street right at 11am and saw perhaps four or five groups walk past: belly dancers, the Tombstone High School girl's soccer team players, a few renegades dressed in the 1880s regalia. That was it? The highlight for the dogs was spotting an ugly Chihuahua dog dressed in a green sweater. Both dogs wanted to run up to it and sniff its tiny, ugly little butt and I had to hold them back.
It's a shame the parade sponsors couldn't find an Irish setter in town to walk in the parade. A chihuahua, and an ugly one at that, has no business in a St Patrick's Day parade.
I didn't spend any more time in town than I needed and headed with the dogs to the San Pedro river off Charleston. This was my real reason to come out here: to walk in solitude along the river with the blooming cottonwoods.
Apparently everyone else had left Tombstone after the "parade" and decided to walk with nature here as well. The parking lot was packed!!!
I parked on the north side of Highway 90 and headed toward the Millville ruins, but then cut across an immigrant trail toward the river.
The dogs by now know my antics. Both were well-behaved and stayed nearby. As soon as we got to the river both Sadie and Sammy splashed around, even chased each other until Sadie started whining at Sammy: he had been jackknifing across the grasses, throwing Sadie's concentration off. For as old as he is, he can still outsmart the "youngin" in Sadie.
About two miles along the river we came across a man sitting quietly along the riverbank, leaning against his backpack in the "sand" and reading a book. I felt bad for violating his solitude, and he took to the dogs well. But we didn't stay as I value my own solitude and kept on walking north along the river.
The river is beautiful here. The river bank is wide, the river shallow and cottonwoods line either side.
There were few obstructions along the immigrant trail. The river glistened in the early afternoon sun. Birds twittered from tree to tree, swooping low between landings. Many of the cottonwoods were already in complete leaf. I was going to walk along the river for as long as I could.
How far I really went I don't know, as shortly after meeting the unknown man I walked underneath a cottonwood grove and then the riverbank became narrow and obstructed with snags. It was already past 1pm at this point, time to turn around.
We took another immigrant trail away from the river back toward the rail trail. Not too far off the river we came across an abandoned immigrant encampment, with black backpacks and trash strewn all over the area. This was the first time I noticed so many unopened jars of "mantequilla de cacahuete," or peanut butter. Where were all the cans of tuna fish and frijoles the illegals normally bring with them? The backpacks looked suspiciously of the ones the narcos use for their cocaine bundles.
My wanderlust was now ruined and I was compelled to clean up this site. I used all the backpacks as trash bags, collected all the plastic wrappings, bottles, feminine hygiene bags (!!!) and gallon water jugs and stuffed everything I could into the backpacks. Then I carried everything up to the rail trail for the BLM guys to pick up. Hauling the trash was heavy enough; I didn't have the energy to haul everything back for two plus miles back to my truck.
I hate seeing trash in the wilderness. It's bad enough we have locals throwing their Keystone and Bud Lite cans out their car windows along the highways, but all these illegal encampments along our beautiful rivers and hiking trails really ticks me off.
Leaving the four black backpacks behind on the trail looked menacing. Had I not the dogs, the leashes and my camera around my neck I would have carried everything back myself.
The San Pedro Railtrail here is a pretty trail, but the many times I've been on it I've never seen any cyclists. It's an open and exposed trail. The dogs' paws were getting hot from the sun-heated slag along the trail. The one escape now was taking a quick detour to the petroglyphs near the Millville ruins.
Two men came from the opposite direction as I continued south along the rail trail. "I've been walking here for three hours looking for my horse!" said the taller and heavier of the two. Sweat trickled down his reddish face as he wiped it off with a red bandanna. I believed this man, as there was plenty of horse shit along the river trail. But he was fibbing and I took it well. And he sure did look like he'd been out for more than just three hours looking for his imaginary horse.
We got back to the parking lot at 3pm. The parking lot on both sides of the highway now was packed with vehicles. A large group from Colorado was reading the historical markers at the trail head as we walked past them. Sadie was off leash, refusing to get strapped in at the trail head, but I was proud of her as she didn't bark at anyone. That's twice now today she's restrained herself after my reminding her to be "nice"...and to refrain from acting like a German.
The last sigh of wonder in nature's beauty came when I spotted my first patch of Arizona poppies along the roadside.
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