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Mark's Pasture

This is one of my favorite photos because it gives me a chance to tell you about Mark. Mark was the only other camper that was at the Alamo camp. This camp is a "primitive" camp according to national park standards. That means basically no RVs. No RVs means no generators or motors running late at night or early in the morning. It means peace, quiet and a sense of "roughing it".

Well on my first morning at Alamo camp I slept in the back of the Tahoe. The hotel on wheels. It was a little chilly so I started up the Tahoe to warm up in the morning. Mark was not happy about this. But he was clever and kind about his approach. He quickly boiled some tea and then brought it over in a thermos and politely knocked on my window.

"Would you like some tea to warm up?" Translation = can you shut that damn engine off. "No thanks... just charging up my battery after listening to music all night last night." "Oh... well the coyotes are making music out this morning." "Ok... I get it. I'll be out in a bit" So I felt pretty guilty after a few minutes and then cut the truck back off.

Turns out that Mark is one of the most interesting and kind people I've ever met on the road. We did this day hike and enjoyed trading stories about desert travels and ex-girlfriends and other tall tales about life. Mark gets up at 5am to listen to the coyotes. He comes to organ pipe every year for what seemed to me like 20 years worth of stories of back-packing and traveling with his family and kids.

He tells stories about Edward Abbey and reminds me a little of a modern-day desert-loving Jack Kerouac. He packs three styro coolers full of frozen soup from his favorite local Pho kitchen all the way back in Albuquerque, NM - brings it with him on a flight to Phoenix, and then rents a car and drives down to Organ Pipe. He offers me half of whatever he is having - an orange, avocado, chocolate, peppermint tea, and even his prized soup (although I did notice that he hesitated just a second before offering the soup).

He likes to take baths in the natural pools of water called tinajas, even though the high temperature was around 55 degrees. He almost talked me into climbing Mt Ajo, even with the sore knees, and I'm a little sorry we didn't get up there. Next time!

Mark tells a story about back-packing up to Bull Pasture about 20 years ago and being blown away by the "pasture". We top out and see the sign "Bull Pasture". Mark insists this isn't it. We trek around the valley for a couple hours before he finally gives up and admits this must be it. I don't mind one minute of it. We found this patch of grass and I made him stop for the photo.

It was a pleasure getting to know Mark and I hope our paths cross again.