I slept in today so the dogs didn't get an early walk. I doubled their mileage into one later. We walked north, starting from the Millville site where there were fewer cars, then cut down to the river at the wash. The water here at the railroad bridge is always flowing fast and deep, something for Minnie to enjoy. I hadn't been here yet this year and saw a lot of flood damage from the Christmas storms. The pronounced social trails that were along both banks were now non-existent and we were walking over overturned dead reeds, snags, flood debris. It was actually easier to walk in the shallow water.
This route was once popular with drug smugglers who would walk the railbed at night to get to Benson and I-10. There was always abandoned items here. Not anymore. While we did come across a few plastic bottles, there were no black backpacks or clothes anywhere. One thing we all noticed were yellow signs on the west bank, warning that this was a former military training area and that unexploded munitions may be found. These signs weren't here the last time I rambled through.
As for relics along the river, we stumbled across a rusted vehicle with an original chrome bumper. Its sides were badly bulletholed. Part of a chute stood near a rock wall but we couldn't tell what that was. We bypassed the millsite on the east side of the river, as well as the Petroglyph site. We could have turned around there for a pleasant three-mile loop. We continued on until we hit a wide flood basin, cleared of trees. Minnie was tired now and we had to turn around. That she lasted this long is impressive. She was a real champ.
We never came across anyone. We saw a pair of mallards and a blue heron that seemed annoyed that it had to keep flying farther away from us. A red Vermillion flycatcher flitted among the branches. We spotted a pair of Cooper hawks and several butterflies. All the flowers were higher up, along the old railroad bed.
I have lots of fond memories of my time along the river. So much has changed since 2005. The nearby railroad bed, once the former route of the Southern Pacific and then in the early 1990s, San Pedro and Southwestern Railroads, traveled between Benson and Cananea, Sonora. When we moved here I remember reading news about a proposed rail-to-trail here, but that never materialized. The tracks have been removed but the thick layer of ballast remains. The thick ballast is unpleasant to walk on. Otherwise I would have walked along the railroad bed for other explorations. It also gets hot and uncomfortable in the sun, but today's cool temperature made the return walk on this bearable. We walked the last mile on this old railroad bed to shorten the mileage Minnie needed to walk.
We got back to the cars at 4:35pm. We had walked 4.42 miles in a little over three hours. There were still people in the main parking lot. The dogs all jumped into the car, clearly tired. They had their dinner when we got home. All of them slept soundly during the night.
The evening was uneventful. I read and listened to my news online, scanned through my Facebook feed. One disturbing news was the daily update of Dr Missy Chamberland. She and I both graduated from the same high school, only she graduated 15 years earlier. We met at a 2015 all-year reunion in Austin. She caught Covid-19 over 21 days ago and decided to make daily video diaries on YouTube of her experiences. Tonight's update was not very optimistic. Missy makes this coronavirus pandemic real. I hope she makes a full recovery; she has despair in her voice in this video. The illness has aged her a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KrkYi_0aZc
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Global cases: 1659,467
Global deaths: 102, 527
US cases: 500,946
US deaths: 18,734
Arizona cases: 3112
Arizona deaths: 97 (#20)
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