This first one is almost my favorite; a wheat field down the road from Steve's property down south of Tucson. It's actually just a few miles from the Mexican border.
I had read in a magazine recently that Wyatt Earp's younger brother Warren was buried in a remote grave yard near Willcox Arizona. Funny, Steve never knew that and Willcox was one of his stomping grounds in his younger days. We asked for directions from the only upright living person we saw in Willcox, and we easily found the cemetary. It was a lonely, desolate, sandy field with several wooden grave markers. Warren's grave was in a corner by itself, surrounded by sand and sticker bushes.
Not far from there, we checked out the mountains which held the Organ Pipe rocks. Pictures really don't do the scenery justice, but I clicked away...
The elevations got up to around 8,000 feet, and to the East of this range we could see Southern New Mexico. Incidentally, this is the area that Rambo is from. Bowie, Arizona is at the foot of the Cochise Mountain range. We just watched the latest Rambo movie and at the end they showed his home, in Bowie.
We eventually made our way to Steve's property, and we found ourselves amazed at the jackrabbits that seemed to pop up out of nowhere and run along side the truck. These friggin things were as big as coyotes. Couldn't get a picture, though, probably because they were "jackrabbit fast." Did take a photo of some unexpected friends I found as we looked thru Steve's childhood friend's abandoned home site. It was a burned up house with remnants of structures all around. As I went to look at a big b.b.q. grill I found this sitting inside:
Those are Great Horned Owl babies, and that likely means "mom" and "dad" were nearby watching us. Those suckers are typically 3 feet tall, with the talons to match. Yikes. It scared the crap outta me. I didn't expect to find those yellow eyes staring at me as I rounded the corner!
We then went to Steve's property, which is nearly 100 acres surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. He isn't sure if he wants to build on this someday, or just sell it when property values get good again. Either way, it's pretty cool that he has this property because it actually is quite pretty.
We came back home, which was a five hour drive. After working for a couple of days we went to my mom's property out in the middle of nowhere, and had a chili cookoff with her neighbors. This is Steve and Shay, watching the horseshoe throwing competition:
The desert always seems to offer such cool photo opportunities; I'm glad I've got a camera!
