Snowbirding 2018 – 2019 – Page 5

Dust Devil & Dani

I had seen dust devils prior to this trip and they can be impressive. Essentially, a dust devil is caused by hot and cold air mixing and form the widest part at ground level; an inverted tornado that just appears. I saw a few on this trip.

I met Dani and her dogs Bonzai and Calisto while at Saddle Mountain BLM. Technically, met Bonzai, first, as it ran towards me barking away. The woman in the distance quickly called Bonzai away from me but Bonzai was actually friendly. The next day Dani was walking the dogs past my site and we met. She mentioned a YouTube interview of her, which is here:

As shown in the video, Dani has a large gazebo and it takes her 2 days to pack up. One day, I noticed the gazebo was gone so went over to her site to say goodbye, except …

When I got to her site, something wasn’t quite right. The dogs always, and I mean always, would come out barking at me … but not this time. They are her early warning system!!

As I approached closer to her camper, I can see a total mess of belongings on the ground where the gazebo used to be. Not what someone would do if they were packing up. Called her name several times, but no response. Very unusual since I could see her camper door was wide open too! I was really starting to get apprehensive that something was amiss … and it was. Dani, finally made an appearance, along with the dogs as I got close enough that they could hear me. She was listening on earbuds and the dogs were asleep. Then Dani told me what happened.

Her site, specifically, the gazebo, had been hit by a dust devil which picked up the gazebo and many items within it and sent them flying. Neighbours were picking up and returning items to her. Apparently some items went to the other side of the mountain. I asked her when and what time this happened. It was the previous day, in the afternoon. My campsite was about 1/2 mile away from Dani’s, I was there at the time, but neither heard nor saw the dust devil. Amazing how precise the dust devil was; it picked up the gazebo and items within it, but, light as a feather items, only 2-3 feet away stayed as they were. They weren’t at the site when the dust devil hit so no injuries to report.

Christmas in Tucson

Didn’t happen!

Back to that quote from “Of Mice and Men.” It was just too cold in this area in December. I did spend 5 days at a formal campground with water, electricity and a dump station (such luxury!). This was where I realized my expensive lithium batteries had bitten the dust. I put in a warranty claim with the company, but never heard back from them (not a big surprise). I was able to do some mountain biking here and go to Saguaro National Park (pronounced Sawarro).