Whenever I come back from trips I usually feel a momentary dislocation; that is, I recognize everything, but as if I had stepped sideways, if anyone out there gets that reference. When I came back from New Jersey, oddly, I didn't really get the feeling from location; I think to me New Jersey is place made up more of people than terrain; the cute copper-skinned girl working the counter at my Aunt Maha's deli is much more vivid than the fog-shrouded walls of trees and dilapidated brick buildings. When I come back from the Mojave or, as per this time, the foothills north of the Catalinas, however, my family's neighborhood and then the university are off kilter. That feeling always makes me suspicious for a while, like I'm looking through someone else's eyes, but they're sitting right next to me.
      Peppersauce Canyon was certainly different than the day to day norm. Its silly name belies the general harshness of the area. At the same time, contrarily, it was gorgeous, if only for moments. Half of the ridges are sunbaked, nothing but grass and cactus, though when the dawn hits them they go from blue to rose to orange and gold. Their shady lee sides are generally generously coated in stunted mesquite and cats-claw ("Ow! Why the OW hell are OW the thoOWrns curved? Don't they OW want to OW keep the herbiOWvores away? Hey look I'm bleeding" - Wyatt). Oh, and also century plants, like the one that thrust the spiny tip of one of its spears in the way of my fingertip (and my bodyweight behind it) as I fell. Sonuvabitch that hurt. And bled, profusely. The ravines between the higher ridges were alternately dense scrub and juniper or what seemed to be a fire-blasted wasteland of the same. The tree-skeletons were elegantly dead in most cases, however, bonewhite on one side and coal black on the other for the most part. From the highest ridges and peaks (did I mention we covered a huge amount of ground?) there's a view of a valley big enough to hold another city in, mirroring Tucson to the north, with a similar northern range of mountains bounding it in the distance. Moonless night and before dawn were also interesting, if only aurally; coyotes were distinctly and periodically present, and the thundery crashing and stamping was revealed to be cattle when the sun came up. There was also the shrieking bark that paralled us for some distance in the darkness (no, it wasn't coyotes, they were barking a different bark at the same time), that was kind of worrisome for a bit.
      One of the last places we found by tracking a group of deer up and down several ravines was a sort of deer-Shangri La (or at least seemed so, judging by the Grand Central Station of tracking marks we found). There was an incredibly dense shadow-ridge perfect for bedding down, but staying high for look-out-age. Opposite that was its equivalent, sun-ridge style, and at the bottom there was a riparian area with a relatively steady spring. The only trick about that ravine was this gargantuan skirling, swirling wind that was funneled through it in the afternoon. We could actually hear it eddying and spiraling long before it got to each of our respective places, and we could track it by sound well enough to brace just before each wave blasted whatever tree we were hunkered down behind. The weather's odd 'behind' the Catalinas, let me tell you.

-mmm come to daddy...

-how to throw cards (also some reviews of unusual knives)