photo: Kyle Hammons; Cholla Gardens Sunrise

Please Don’t Pick the Cacti

Meg
Bullshit.IST
Published in
3 min readNov 3, 2016

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Half the time we don’t know where we’re going.

That’s not to say we don’t have a general idea of direction or a rough idea of time. It’s just that the process is organic. We like it that way.

We block out some time, pile dogs, maps and bags into a vehicle, and head on down the dusty trail, lost in America. Our only objective: new roads, new things, new people. We have no itinerary, no reservations, no pressure. We just go. We follow whim, word of mouth and weather.

(I think this is where I am supposed to suggest putting Fastball’s The Way on repeat.)

However random these road trips begin, they always seem to develop a thrust. We see something that sparks our interest. Before we know it, we are tracking a trail of breadcrumbs across the landscape, chasing themes such as: Strange Rocks, Towns Time Forgot, or Mound Builders.

When a friend hosted a reunion at his Texas ranch near the Rio Grande — we drove, of course — we saw an opportunity. Let’s check out the border!

This concept led us westward along the river, or as close to it as we could get, to Big Bend National Park. There we learned about Chihuahuan Desert Biosphere, one of Earth’s 193 distinct ecosystems. Cool! And, alternately … Hot!

Our imaginations took another turn. Let’s see how deserts differ! So began our Desert Flora adventure.

We headed north through Texas to the Davis and Guadalupe Mountains. We turned west to Tucson’s Saguaro National Park, then back to the border to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Pointed north again, we went to the Sonoran Desert, then headed west to California.

Having read every pamphlet and botanical tag the Department of the Interior offered over a thousand miles, our truckload of xerophyte scholars and trusty hounds rolled into Joshua Tree National Park.

Mid-park was an amazing sight, an entire landscape dominated by cholla. The Cholla Cactus Garden, as it is named, is a natural forest of these extraordinarily prickly, short, tree-like cacti.

Cholla branches detach easily when bumped, sticking to whatever unfortunates touched them. Broken bits, carried away on fur or clothing, take root, regenerating the plant.

At the trailhead, the large sign shouted, Warning: This Cactus is Hazardous. Do Not Touch For Your Safety And The Protection Of The Resource. Travel Is Restricted To The Trail. No Pets.

I had two thoughts: “The National Park Service needs to brush up on the rules governing capitalization,” and, “Are there really people who need to be told not to touch cacti?”

Hard to miss, no?

Off we went down the trail, the dogs, per sign, safe in their shaded kennels. We wandered slowly, looking for different cholla varieties — matted, silver, pencil, and teddybear — admiring their forms. The teddybear cholla, their tight-packed spines appearing soft as stuffed toy fuzz, glowed in the sunlight.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my husband stoop. “Look at this!” he chirped with enthusiasm, right hand reaching out.

Before a coherent thought could cross my lips, he pinched up a tiny teddybear arm which had fallen in the path.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” he exhaled, dancing around, shaking his hand to no avail, cholla clinging like a burr.

“I can’t believe you did that,” was all I could say. No Florence Nightingale, I.

In desperation, he grabbed the bristling nugget with his left hand and ripped it free. “Ahhhhhhhhh!” he yelled as the skin tore, the cholla now Velcroed to his left hand.

Wising up, he squatted, hand to earth, pinned the cholla with his sneaker and peeled it loose.

Hands bleeding, tenacious ball of barbs imbedded in his sole, he stood patiently as a horse with a farrier while I scraped the bulk of the problem off with a rock. Back at the truck, we broke out tweezers and ointment.

Driving away, palms on the wheel, aching fingers dangling, my husband had but one observation, “Thank heavens they’re not poisonous.”

For BHD. I hope your be-spined eye is feeling better.

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