Waiting for the Last Gasp – Adam Overland

The Chihuahuan Desert is full of pointy things that want to stab you. There are more kinds of cacti than I can keep track of, but I snapped a ton of photos of the bizarre little creatures, which must develop their points because they retain moisture and moisture here is scarce—about 12 inches of rain per year here in southern Big Bend National Park. Anything looking to tap some of these cactuses for water is likely to pay for it in blood.

Cactuses are about the only kinds of plants I keep around anymore in my home back in Minneapolis. All other plants I keep tend to die, almost always from overwatering—essentially from too much loving. And so when I departed for this trip I had only one plant that I left with a friend, a small lemon tree that I’d really like to see make lemons. The dozen or so other plants around my house will survive without water for the next 3 months or they won’t. If they survive, I will know that they are my plants.

As I was hiking around Big Bend today, I was thinking how cacti remind me about a lot of aspects of my life. I think I’m attracted to things that seem likely to cause me pain. I like building things out of stones, for example, and banging on rocks with a hammer. I have a small shard under my knee as a keepsake, a ricochet from a hammer blow to a chisel 25 years ago when I was building a rock wall and scoring a stone to get a clean break. It’s a tiny thing and just scar tissue now. I think my body digested it. 

My love life seems to parallel cacti too. If I see an attractive woman, she is only that much more attractive if she seems slightly crazy and likely to stab me, figuratively, though perhaps literally, too. My thinking must go something like, “Hello, you seem a little bit off. I think I love you. Will you break my heart and leave me for dead, pointy lady?” And then we have some good times until one or the other’s heart bleeds a little.

But these cacti in the desert are no joke. Some of their little barbs and needles are several inches long and seem likely to puncture a steel-belted radial tire, so I keep my eyes to the trail.

A bobcat walked in front of me today, moseying through camp completely unconcerned. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one. It seemed maybe 2.5 times the size of a house cat, but perhaps even more devious. I also saw a road runner—they’re all over here, but this one came within a few feet of me and gave me the side eye for a few minutes. They can run 25 mph but they don’t say “meep meep.” There are wild burros and horses, too. 

In the mountains, a Mexican guy on a horse saw me on a hill and crossed the Rio Grande to ask if I’d buy some trinkets. I purchased a wire and bead road runner for $10. I didn’t want the scorpion. Another guy on a horse offered me two chicken tamales—the last two he had. He’d posted himself on a popular tourist trail and sold a cooler full through the day or evening, but not knowing when they’d been made, and not trusting chicken, I declined (I couldn’t ask him when they were made because I forgot to learn Spanish). 

I forgot my passport, packed into a suitcase I decided at the last minute not to take, or from the park I could cross over by a small boat ferry run by people from the town of Boquillas, Mexico. When you get there you can rent a donkey for $5 or walk, your choice, but I guess I’ll be staying on this side of the river.

I hit some nearby natural hot springs today too, discovered by a man more than 100 years ago who left Mississippi in search of something to cure his repeated bouts of malaria. How he stumbled upon this place, desolate even now with precarious one way roads, I can’t understand. But he found 105 degree water coming out on the edge of the Rio Grande and claimed he cured himself in 21 days, then made himself a 3 story bath house and a tourist attraction that became his livelihood. Today, all that’s left are a couple stone buildings and the foundation of the bath house, which serves now as a 3-foot deep hot tub. 

My dad turned 78 today. Hard to believe. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye on about anything except maybe fishing, but that’s about half of his life and 10 percent of mine. Despite it all, I’ll miss him when he’s gone, I know that. Today I’m going to do a scenic drive and hike, and fish if I have time. Rumor has it there are 4-foot catfish in the river.