Did I choose…. Poorly?
It's supposed to be in the mid-90s until tomorrow and Friday, when it's forecast to break 100°. Temperatures like that are going to push me out of the Sonoran desert and into New Mexico, where it's cooler. I'm in this area almost every April, and I don't remember it being this hot in the past.
I've been in Ajo for about 24 hours now and haven't seen or heard a single Air Force jet fly over. That isn’t very reassuring since I came here mainly to take pictures of the A-10 Warthogs flying over the old abandoned rodeo grounds. But who knows, maybe they're all over in the Middle East right now dropping bombs on the Houthis rebels in Yemen.
I'll have to go to the grocery store sometime this week, and I dread it. Ajo is a much smaller town than Wickenburg, and the grocery store isn't even a store anyone would recognize. In fact, part of the grocery store is the town hardware store. And if past grocery shopping in Ajo has taught me anything, it's that the selection is limited, and the prices aren't.
I always feel sorry for the folks who live here. It's a kind of poor town, and yet everything here costs more than it does anywhere else. We RVers who like to spend the winter in Ajo can pack up and leave whenever we feel like it, but the folks who live here are stuck with high grocery and gas prices all year long.
theboondork
My last night on Arizona trust lands near Phoenix.
My first night back at the old rodeo grounds in Ajo, Arizona.
The lights are dark at the old rodeo grounds in Ajo, as are the dreams of fame and glory shared by all the young men and women that competed in this faraway place. Their lives have moved on, and now they've raised their own families. The bright lights, the excitement, and anticipation of riding a galloping horse around the barrels, or pulling tight the suicide wrap that holds the bull rider to the bull is relegated to the old, and much told stories inflicted upon the bored grandkids.
But those once-young rodeo competitors have their stories and memories of how it used to be and how Garth Brooks sang about the rodeo and the mud, the blood, and the beer. These old-timers lived that rodeo life and were better off for it despite the endless injuries and sleeping way too many nights in the horse trailer.