There was one final stop, right on the way, I did not want to miss. Saguaro National Park, home to the greatest concentration of the tall, tubular Saguaro Cacti in the world. Like many other national parks, Saguaro preserves a flora-filled terrain found there alone. It was just the respite from the road I needed to propel me onward to Texas.
I began at the visitor center where I got a rundown on the trails. One of the rangers I spoke with said that to her each of the Saguaros appeared to have a personality.
In the three remaining hours of sunlight, I drove the unpaved scenic loop, parking about a quarter of the way in to hike a decent portion of the Hugh Norris Trail. The trail climbs a red mountainside teeming with Saguaros and runs along a high ridgeline for miles. I only did the mile-long ascent up the mountainside and wandered atop the ridge about a mile or so.
After exploring the stalky environ, I agreed with the ranger that each of the cacti projected a certain attitude or persona. Tired. Observant. Drunk. Excited. Stoic. Pugnacious. A population as diverse as we humans.
I spent New Years eve in Tuscan, Arizona and began the long drive home early the next morning. Most of it was spent powering through the vast flatlands of southern Arizona and New Mexico before hitting Big Bend Country upon passing through El Paso and entering Texas. For almost the entire route from California back to Central Texas, the road is Interstate 10. The Southern Desert Highway.
A few highlights from the drive home immortalized in photos: a New Mexico sunrise, fog over Las Cruces, New Mexico, a sign welcoming drivers to Texas and informing them it is 852 miles across the state, the mountains of Mexico across the Rio Grande in El Paso, the colorful walls of Interstate 10 in El Paso, an immigration checkpoint, the roiling hills of West Texas (it all looks like Big Bend National Park!), and a map at a rest stop showing Texas' seven ecological regions.
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