Tumbleweed

They call me Tubby because I’m very large, and in another place, and another time, I would be King, but in this time, and in this place, it is my friend Tyranny that is King, for he is truly enormous! We call him Tyranny, a nickname, but his true name is Tyrannosaurus, a huge round beast that dwarfs us all. Tyranny and I live in a sheltered place at the base of a small bluff beside a desert wash. The winter snows drifted here and in the spring, the melt water added to the cache of soil moisture, so that we have grown well in these favored conditions, and are sheltered somewhat from the drying winds. We are surrounded by our smaller relatives, Tupelo, the greasy one, little Timmy and Tessie, and at the edge of the wash grows Tumult, that we call Tums.

Sometimes at night, when the others are asleep, Tyranny and I talk softly of our plans for the future. It is not enough for us just to be, and together we plan to do great things. There is a great day coming and it’s coming soon, a day when we will break free of our anchor root and roll free across the prairie, but we plan to do more, much more! Interstate 40 runs near us and it is 4 lanes wide. The prevailing winds will blow us diagonally across it, but to reach it, we must avoid two obstacles; one is a step-sided arroyo that traps many of our kind, and then there is the fence along side the highway. Tyranny and I plan to hold to our root as long as possible and let our less focused brethren fill the arroyo and others will lodge against the fence forming a ramp over this obstacle. Then we will roll free! My dream is to terrorize a Volkswagen, but Tyranny plans to cow a Buick! With luck, we can avoid the 18-wheelers long enough to wreak havoc on the freeway before we roll on to Zuni!

Today, I can feel my root weakening as the wind worries it, but not yet! Not yet! The others have rolled on today but Tyranny and I hold fast this day.

The wind is higher today, and the path is clear, the arroyo filled, the fence packed. Today we roll! If I lean to the left, I can angle that way, and if I lean to the right, I move that way! Not precise steering, but it helps, we have cleared the freeway fence now and are heading into oncoming traffic. There! I see it! A yellow Volkswagen bug! And right beside it, a huge Black Buick! Our quarry is in sight and we make our move! Ah! The sweet smell of burning brakes! There! See them swerve and fishtail! Long have I lived for this, our day of glory! And then on to the other lanes and across as tires squeal in our wake! Such a glorious day!

LOL great story, I like the nicknames too!

Thank you! I'm from that desert country where tumbleweeds roll by the thousands. When I was a kid, I had to burn huge piles of them. They burn fast and furiously with heavy black smoke. You can actually watch their oil running as they burn. I've always wondered why they weren't harvested commercially for their oil.

Timetrvlr wrote:Thank you! I'm from that desert country where tumbleweeds roll by the thousands. When I was a kid, I had to burn huge piles of them. They burn fast and furiously with heavy black smoke. You can actually watch their oil running as they burn. I've always wondered why they weren't harvested commercially for their oil.

Well maybe because gas prices would go down then!

I wrote this just before we left on vacation for a tour of the Southwest in 2006.


Tumbleweed Safari

Tuesday morning we leave on a mission; to find and shoot (photograph) Giant Buick-Eating Tumbleweeds. We will cross the border at Sumas, B.C. and head south through Washington and diagonally south through Oregon. By the time we reach Utah, we should start spotting our quarry and then we will begin the search for trophies! We expect to reach St George, Utah and then meander across southern Utah looking at National Parks and monuments. I don't know if they are protected within National Parks or not and I'm not even sure of bag limits but we are definitely going to shoot any trophies we see, bag limits be damned!

After our safari around Moab, Utah, we will be heading south through Monument Valley into the Arizona portion of The Navajo Nation. I've heard rumors of some unique big game near Many Farms, and then we will pursue our quarry eastward into New Mexico at Albuquerque and north to Taos. By then we should have bagged a few trophies, but southward along the Rio Grande valley is really prime hunting! Then it's on to southern Arizona and then to the Los Angeles area. After a bit of R&R there, we will be on the hunt again up the Owens Valley to Reno. I've heard this stretch has produced World Record trophies! Then we are jumping off into the unknown, unknown in terms of our quarry. I suspect there may be big ones around Winnemucca, NV, but it's purely conjecture. Wish us luck and if we need bail money, can we count on you?

Did you get some good tumbleweed pics?

Tony Marino wrote:Did you get some good tumbleweed pics?

I was afraid someone would ask that! No, I didn't because we went on vacation in late April. The tumble weeds roll in fall. By Spring their seeds are spread and the winds have torn them apart. I knew that, I just wasn't thinking when I wrote it.

That was our vacation of a lifetime though. We toured all of the National Parks and National Monuments in southern Utah and most of those in Arizona before moving on to visit relatives near Los Angeles. We bought a new Sony digital camera before we went and came home with some great photos.

Timetrvlr wrote:

Tony Marino wrote:Did you get some good tumbleweed pics?

I was afraid someone would ask that! No, I didn't because we went on vacation in late April. The tumble weeds roll in fall. By Spring their seeds are spread and the winds have torn them apart. I knew that, I just wasn't thinking when I wrote it.

That was our vacation of a lifetime though. We toured all of the National Parks and National Monuments in southern Utah and most of those in Arizona before moving on to visit relatives near Los Angeles. We bought a new Sony digital camera before we went and came home with some great photos.

Wow beautiful pictures! Looks so serene.