The Daily – Sunday Sundying

Sunday 5/5 Lake Roberts, NM – Saguaro National Park, AZ

We slept in the Gila Wilderness so we could go to the Gila Cliff dwellings, but woke up less committed. We drove down 5 miles of uncommitted road, going back and forth about whether we should go. The pros and cons are monotonous and I won’t share, this dilemma faces us all in one way or another. Men with vests and orange flags stopped us to ask what team we were with. We said Alamogordo, but only in our heads.

They said the bikes were coming. We heard the banjos. We took a different route and, to this day, I have not seen the Gila Cliff Dwellings. But Matt, a sweet stranger we met, recommends it to you.

The day that followed was one of the first we have wanted to stop being in the car. Slugger was tired, we drove into the sun, the road was flat, the gas was expensive, the podcasts were weary and the music could never suit us both. I don’t know. Some days can’t be done right.

We tried to stop at “The Thing”. $5 for a surprise in a “museum” that’s 90% gift shop, attached to a DQ. We might’ve paid, as an attempt to reset the day but, we made a mistake. We googled the thing. Supposedly an alien, actually a freaky decayed mummy type figure. We decided it was not worth $5. The day continued to decay and we embodied the thing.

Salvation comes in endings. The day died. The sunset while we cooked pasta in Saguaro National Forest. Saguaros are your quintessential clipart cacti, so you think they’d be prolific, but this national park seems to have a monopoly. We did not see them till we entered the park and we’ve seen few when we left. They threw their arms in the air, ranging from one to seven, and shrugged off with us. The sunset was purple and the desert was pink and the cacti were blue and we painted away the day.

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Gunshots rang in the night. Nearby. 4 shots at 10pm. 8 at 12:30am. 6 at 2:30am. The day died but it went with a fight. The morning rang in quietly.