Isaiah 40:3
A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
We landed in California late at night on Tuesday, October 21st, then drove about an hour to Oceanside to overnight in a hotel. We were tired of driving the route to and from Palm Desert, so the next day we decided to go south on Highway 8, hugging the US-Mexico border on our way to Pheonix to see Michael’s friend, Brian.
Arizona: Our drive from Oceanside, California, to Yuma, Arizona, was uneventful but very memorable. We were now some three weeks into the government shutdown, but clearly money continues to be spent because the paramilitary force known as the Border Patrol was very present. I think we saw five border patrol vehicles to every one police car. The old border patrol station off of the highway was completely closed and instead, they were implementing two pop-up immigration checkpoints right in the middle of the 70-mile-an-hour highway. This brought the highway to a complete stop, twice, for at least an eighth of mile. It was definitely racial profiling at its finest. Michael and I, even though we were tan from returning from Hawaii, were not mistaken for someone living south of the border. (Instead, we want to live across an entire ocean where we will be mistaken for English or Australian 🙂 ). This journey allowed me to see The Wall. Yes, THE WALL. Because we were in Arizona with lots of rolling hills and sand dunes, the wall looked an awful lot like the worms in Dune. This long black body slithering in and out of the sand for miles.
But wait, it gets better. I have been asked on a few occasions whether the primitive camping is intimidating or even scary. I used to answer no, but after my night in Yuma (is that a song?), I am a bit more cautious.
We headed out to Mittry Lake, just outside of Yuma. There was a fair amount of people primitively camping and we found a spot somewhat close to someone, as the crow flies, but we could not see him, or hear him, at first. In fact, when we drove by his campsite, I thought it was empty. Michael knew better. We had a lovely dinner and then so did the mosquitos. We called it an early night and headed up to the safety of the tent. It took us several minutes to dispose of the many mosquitos that came in with us, we didn’t get them all.
Then, around nine, maybe ten in the evening, the camper from the other site started yelling, “Molly!!” At first, we thought he might have lost his dog, but the cries of Molly continued on through the evening. I was pretty nervous and could not fall asleep. At around one-thirty in the morning, he started crying for Molly again. This time the voice was moving. I thought maybe he was coming our way. I was pretty scared. Michael and I started discussing whether or not we should stay. Most of our stuff was packed already. We would just have to pack up our table and get our leveling blocks from under the car, and of course, close the tent. We decided at two am to make a run for it. When the man missing Molly heard us packing up, he turned on his car lights and yelled in a very sinister voice, “Molly, get over here.” I was freaked out. We hightailed it out of there and at two-thirty am we went to Yuma looking for another place to sleep. We were both a bit wired so driving to Pheonix was on my mind. We didn’t want to get a hotel for just four hours! After a failed attempt of what we thought was an RV park that turned into a pretty upscale mobile home park, we ended up spending the night in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. Apparently, that is a thing, along with Walmart and Bass Pro Shop parking lots… in case you were wondering. We share the lot with three other campers, but Michael, at least, was out for the count as soon as his head hit the pillow, despite the road noise.
My sister Deborah asked me how many nights we have changed from our original plans. I didn’t think many, but there have been a few. Not counting the 23 nights from August 15 – September 11 that we were supposed to spend in Utah, our plans have been modified eleven times, and a few more since Yuma.
Pheonix was lovely! We swam, did some printing of documents for our visa appointment and met a co-worker of Michael’s from Cross Catholic Outreach. Because of the remote culture of the company, they had worked together but had never met in person. Michael and Brian created a bond in a few months which was nice to see the two of them meet in person and happily chat. It was our fifteenth anniversary on this day.
Our Phoenix night was spent at a very nice campground called Cave Creek Regional Park. We must have hit is just right because the weather was perfect and the views were stunning. I could have stayed at this campground for a few more nights, but we were headed for a retreat at the Christ in the Desert Monastery and we had a long road ahead of us.
Our next night was spent uneventfully at a hotel in Gallup, New Mexico because the overnight lows were going to be in the twenties and I just didn’t want to be that cold. The day after, we drove into Albuquerque and did some errands before heading to the Monastery.