Line of Departure

Apache Sentinels of the Sonoran Desert, Art by James Sayers

I’ll cross the LOD sometime tomorrow morning, flying from Redmond to Portland, then catching another flight to Phoenix, where I’ll meet up with the rest of the Warfighter Outfitters bunch who are gathering for a week in the Sonoran Desert.  So far as I can tell, they are coming from across the nation.  Chicago, Austin, Fresno, Seattle.  From Phoenix we drive south to Ajo to check in to our lodging, and tomorrow evening we will gather for our first group dinner at the Estrella Restaurant.

I haven’t been back to Arizona in a while.  I used to live there, in Flagstaff and Mountainaire.  Wendy and I went back to Flag a few years ago, and a few years before that I met up with an old Marine Corps friend for a week in the Blue Range Wilderness.  We were trying to find wolves.  We didn’t, but not for lack of trying, and it was a satisfying dip into some fabulously rough and unpopulated country.

When I lived in Arizona I didn’t make it south to the Sonoran.  Most of my wanderings were in the Mogollons, or out east and north into Anasazi and pueblo country.  I rode bucking horses all over the place, but never set foot in the true Sonoran badlands.  I’m looking forward to it now, not least because the trip has meaning beyond a simple tourist excursion.

So that’s the brief.  I will endeavor to post each day, and keep you up to speed on our mission to help dismantle smuggling sites on the border, and to introduce you to some fine people.  There is a story waiting for us down there, and I can’t wait to write it.

Published by Craig Rullman

Craig Rullman is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and columnist for The Nugget Newspaper in Sisters, Oregon. View all posts by Craig Rullman