A Day in the Country

We sort of got stood up on our dinner party Wed night….not sure what happened, but it all turned out for the better. Kelley and Penny Crossman, our new pals with the old orchard outside of town called and invited us to drive out deeper in to the Sierra Madre Mountains, into the Sonoran Ecological Reserve. They are good friends with Stephanie Meyer, a naturalist/scientist that is running and managing a few very large, as in 8000 acre, rancho’s deep in the reserve areas for an International Conservancy group similar to The Nature Conservancy. Anyway, we drove out with Stephanie on Thursday and spent the night with her, her ranch hands, and the Crossmans, and returned Friday.
Totally, totally wonderful. It is virtually the only road east of Alamos, and heads straight in to the high Sierra’s. We drove only about 20 miles, but it was an incredibly steep, bumpy, rocky, insane 3 hour drive nearly the whole distance in 4-wheel drive low in her old Isuzu Trooper. I swear we each lost 3 pounds just bouncing around her truck with her dog. But she is a very talented naturalist and biologist schooled in the tree’s, blooming desert trees and cactus, as well as all the wildlife. So we got a great lesson the whole way out and finally got to see what we looked out and wondered about…what lies behind all these mountains!
The ranch is deep in a canyon on a river….with 2 small 2-room adobe buildings, a thatched roof outdoor cocina/kitchen, and a series of corrals for work mules and horses. She and one of her ranch hands fixed a fabulous dinner or fresh tomatoes with basil, sautéed carrots and kohlrabi, and a fried coconut chicken…we brought wine and beer, and all ate til we could eat no more, sat around under the Sierra Mountain stars and talked about Tarahumara Indian life in the surrounding villages…very cool.


The morning dawned cool and beautiful, and Lis and I took a short bird walk before coffee as the sun was rising up over the canyon walls. Coffee was served cowboy style, just grounds tossed in hot water…thick, rich, chewy black coffee…yum! Stephanie then fixed us all a local ranch-fresh scrambled eggs, sweet rolls, fruit, and fresh made corn tortillas made that morning by the ranch hands….more yum!
We then went on a long slow desert bird watching walk along the river…the giant old growth Cypress hugging the shorelines with trunks knotted and gnarled over 5 feet across!! Only to be outdone by the massive old growth Strangler Fig trees…incredible Banyan like trees that easily spanned 10 feet at the base….and filled with roots and trunks that looked like solid concrete…I’ll try to post a picture or two.



We saw Road Runners, Large Black Hawks the size of eagles, Blue Buntings, Green Kingfishers, and large flamboyant Magpie Jays; topped off with finding a 6 foot long, completely intact snake skin-shed from the tip of its tail to the tip of each jaw…cool! A beautiful walk, and a rare opportunity to glimpse some of the interior nature preserve lands of the rare Northern Sonoran Desert Tropical Hardwood Forest. The bone jarring ride back home was another 3 hours of backseat bouncing and shock rattling craziness…and this time we got tossed around with 2 dogs!
Tonight is my “real” birthday dinner! We are going to one of the most beautiful small elegant rustic hotels you can possibly imagine. It is right here in Alamos, but world famous…Hacienda de los Santos…check it out at www.haciendadelossantos.com. We had dinner here 3 years ago, and to this day, Lisa swears it was the most romantic dinner we have ever had..I agree.

Saturday is a day of lounging in Alamos again….and by virtue of meeting Stephanie, we are signed up to travel back to the coast…the scene of the sting ray crime!!!!....to take a boat trip up and through a large estuary/bird sanctuary where the Rio Mayo river meets the Sea of Cortez. This is a major western fly-way stop over for thousands and thousands of migratory birds…just beginning their way back to you all!!

Monday is going to be the departure date for the week in the Copper Canyon. If you have not read up anything on that…google Copper Canyon and hunt around a little. Its pretty awesome. We will spend a week traveling one of the great rail journeys of the world, which rises 7,000 feet in less than 150km, as well as hiking and exploring the rim, and the interior of the canyon.

(Sat) The Hacienda was all we expected again. It truly is the most romantic, intimate, gorgeous rustic hotel and restaurant we have seen anywhere in the world. The website does not do it justice in pictures…I took one here from the Cowboy Bar…and one fro dinner. It was a great evening. Here too is a few pics of the Strangler Fig roots pouring down the Cliffside…these trees are just mind boggling; we were told there is one in Aduana, about 10 miles away, that is a world famously photographed tree….we missed it! We might have to bike back over there in a couple weeks just to see it. And one last pic of the Rancho we stayed out in the Sierra’s.

This is probably the last you will hear from us in a while, as we are off on Monday am for the Canyon, and the Estuary early tomorrow for bird watching. Hasta luego!