Sonoran Desert

It's seven thirty in Why, and I have plenty of time to get to Tucson and meet up with my cousins so I decide to head down 85 south to Mexico, just to check out what a border town is like. I drive through Organ Pipe Monument with its closed campground and watch saguaros roll past me on the hills for a half hour or so until I get to the border town of Sonoyta. There are no stops at all as I enter Mexico, and I drive around for a few miles on remarkably unimpressive roads with unimpressive sights. It's not a town like I was hoping for, which I guess I could only describe as a old west Mexican town with Mexican style saloons and whatnot. I guess there are Mexican style saloons here, but they aren't the sort of establishments that look interesting enough to enter. There are bright pink signs on buildings that look like they should be abandoned used car lots with beer banners. I stop to get a drink and use my rusty and mediocre Spanish to ask if it's okay to pay with American dollars. It is, and I drink my PowerAde and head back to the border. I am briefly stopped going back into America but they let me through with a quick glance at my passport and the guy also asks what is in the long, flat black case across my backseat. A guitar, I say. I drive right back up the road I just came down and fill up my tank in Why before turning east on 86 towards Tucson. As I am enjoying the ride, which isn't nearly as hot as it was yesterday, I am also getting pelted with more bugs than I have ever scraped off my visor before. For some reason, I like having a lot of bugs plastered to my helmet in their own guts and blood. I feel like it shows that I am riding a lot, or something nonsensical like that. Anyway, it's an easy, stress-free drive into Tucson for a couple hours, passing through some tiny towns and watching the grassy plantlike slowly thicken along the roads. I get to the outskirts of Tucson and follow a sign towards the Desert-Sonoran Museum, which I recall was recommended to me by my uncle who I will be visiting after I leave Tucson. I stop to eat at the Coyote Pause Cafe before checking out the museum, and have a nice chat with one of the waitresses who was interested in where I was riding to and from. It turns out that her husband bought her a motorcycle for an engagement gift, which seems like a much more thoughtful and practical gift than a polished rock stuck in some melted metal. The short ride to the museum is really fun because the road dips and rises and turns a lot. I spend a couple hours at the museum, which is almost more of a zoo than a museum. I walk through an indoor section that houses various snakes and spiders and reptiles, and I learn about rattlers and coral snakes and tarantulas, all native inhabitants of various parts of the Sonoran Desert, which reaches up from Mexico into Arizona. Outside, there are pathways that bring me around to various plant and cactus enclosures, and enclosures for Mexican wolves, pumas, coyotes, javelinas, and river otters. I take my time, walking around in the heat with my boots and jeans, carrying my jacket the whole time, and actually learn a few things which is nice. I am pretty thoroughly coated in sweat towards the end, when I check out the hummingbirds, which is pretty cool. I have to walk through two different doors, like an air lock to enter into their hood, and sure enough there are dozens of the little creatures hovering in the air. When I get back on the road towards Tucson, I soon discover that there is construction along the interstate that's bringing me into town, and all the exits that lead into downtown are closed. This is very annoying. I get off north of town and look up a rock climbing gym in the phonebook since I still have a couple hours to kill. I take the frontage road all the way into town, and have to deal with more construction to get to the right road, and still have to ask directions a couple of times. I finally find it, and at this point I stink like hell, but I figure I am about to go into a gym and start climbing and no one will notice. Rocks and Ropes is a pretty massive place, but I am only interested in the bouldering, for which they have pretty nice facilities. There is a large chunk of fake rock with a natural feel and pseudo-natural features. There are cracks and huecos and crimps, sidepulls, underclings, jugs, pinches, everything. On top of this there are bolted holds so on this one chunk they have a huge selection of routes. I certainly don't have enough time to work the whole thing, or even the more conventional bouldering cave upstairs, but I get a good workout for an hour and a half.
I make it to my cousins house and he and his wife are still gone, which is fine by me, as I want to shower before I see any human I know. I feel pretty rank after a day of riding around southern Arizona and Mexico, walking around in the desert, and climbing indoors.