Day 7, Part 1: Friday, April 28th, 2006
Tucson, Arizona to Ontario, California

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After Tombstone, I drive to Tucson in the waning hours of the day, passing by freight trains in the sunset and seeing my first saguaro cactus about 25 miles east of town. A wing of fighter planes roars through the sky as I pull into town. I came here about a year ago, for a linguistics conference, but the place makes more sense to me now that I've driven the whole way, rather than flying.

Jeff and I hang out for awhile at a Mexican restaurant that I became particularly fond of on my last visit, and then we spend the rest of the evening playing with his pets, looking at the stars in the southern Arizona sky, and thinking about playing music.


Here's Jeff and his dog, Hudson.

Here's Jeff's snake. I didn't spend a lot of time playing with it.

Here's Jeff's stuff. Back in the day, Jeff and I used to play in a band together.

I can't stay at Jeff's place too long, since I need to get to the LA basin by nightfall, and I'll be taking the scenic route to get there. Thus, I say farewell to Tucson early on Friday morning and drive west on state route 86, towards a mysterious place called "Why" that I first noticed on my road atlas map many years ago. On the way there, I pass by Kitt Peak Observatory, which you can see on the mountain top in the distance.

Another Saguaro stands proudly over the scrubby desert floor.

Next to the Saguaro, a patch of prickly pear cactus waits for Wile E. Coyote's rear end to fall from the sky.

Eventually, I start driving through the Tohono O'Odham Indian Reservation--or "Nation", as they call it--and enter a veritable forest of saguaro cactus.

At their feet stand some remarkably large trees of bristling Cholla cactus.

At the western end of the reservation is the town of Why. I have come all the way here just to get a picture of a sign saying "Why" in the middle of nowhere, but, now that I've arrived, I've discovered that the townsfolk have ruined the effect by placing a blue Gas-Food-Lodging-Camping sign underneath the name of their town. Why did they have to do that, I wonder, as I get out of the car and take my long sought-after picture. Why?

A bright, golden flower, growing in the rocky soil at the base of the sign, seems to hold the answer to all of life's persistent questions.

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