Since April, we have been caretaking a day-use area for the Bureau of Land Management. This is a volunteer position, that we have done for the experience. One of our responsibilities is opening the gates at sunrise and sunset. This is where I usually see the sunset when it’s closing time, and almost daily, I take pictures from this spot. We will leave here on September 30, so I’ve been reflecting.
This has been the roughest location after a year and a half of living in an RV. I joke that if Naked and Afraid ever want to do an episode in Arizona, this is where it should be. While we are in the Sonoran Desert, we are in a riparian area, which means we are near the banks of a river. We have a large fenced-in compound on the edge of a thick mesquite forest. It’s the first fenced area we’ve had and the first time we haven’t been around a bunch of other people.
Having lived in the desert, I thought I was familiar with monsoon season, but it’s nothing like it’s been here. I would compare it to summer in Florida, and I’ve lived in Florida! I wish I had kept a record of how many days it rained, but it rained more days than not. The humidity is horrendous, and I’ve spent most of my time indoors. Humidity has been over 70% nearly every day, it’s probably higher but I try not to obsess over the number, I just know it’s unbearable to be outside. I’m conditioned for DRY heat. It’s not like that in the area around us, and it’s not reflected in weather forecasts. In this valley, We truly are in our own tiny ecosystem.
When you drive here from the surrounding desert, you go down into this big GREEN valley where we are. Along the banks of the river are giant, gorgeous cottonwoods, but the rest of the forest is mesquite. Mesquite trees, if you didn’t know are considered to be invasive. I thought I loved all trees until I lived on the edge of a mesquite forest. I spend a lot of time weeding little mesquite seedlings full of thorns.
There are a few hiking and riding trails, but the forest is dense and lacks visibility. I dislike being in the wild with little visibility, so we only explore a little. It’s been a hike to nearly the same spot every day lately and it’s getting repetitive.
The trails border old farmland, and what grows there now is taller than I am. Over the past six weeks, we had extensive flash flooding, which washed out a lot of trails, and we’ve had to close a portion of them that have been thoroughly washed out. What has yet to wash out has become so overgrown the trails that once were wide enough to drive a car down are just narrow footpaths with 3-foot-high vegetation on each other side. It’s been fascinating to watch nature take over. If there is one thing I’ve learned, nature will always win. They will need heavy equipment to repair, but for now nothing is being done, mostly because ‘there isn’t money for that’ – something I’ve heard since we arrived here. I don’t believe the trails will be repaired before we leave.
This place is blooming with life and BUGS. There are lots of biting bugs. I am covered with bites and bite scars. My skin looks awful. We’ve gotten so annoyed with bugs circling our heads when we are outside. And out of all the bug bites I’ve gotten, I’ve yet to see a bug or mosquito biting me. I don’t understand it. The humidity is horrendous, and I’ve spent most of my time creating.
Despite the challenges, it has been good. I needed to be in a place with few distractions, and I’ve gotten to focus on what I need to. I’m working on the next chapter. I still don’t know the hows and whys but next year at this time my life will be entirely different. I’m grateful for the experience and how good this has been my healing. This is exactly what I needed. Few people get to live so immersed in nature. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve grown a lot, but I’m definitely ready for what is next. I hope it’s bug-free and I can sleep for a week straight when get there.
