Saguaro National Park, biggest cacti forest in the world.
“Advice from a cactus: emphasize your strong points, be patient during the dry spells, you will bloom when it is your time, always stay sharp.”
- Unknown author
After having visited the historical city of El Paso, where the first Spanish missionaries established one of the oldest settlements in America, we dropped Jasmine at El Paso Airport for her work. She works from the air, I work from the ground. The children continue following “the screen school” in the morning, whereas in the afternoon they follow “the life school”. We visited today historical churches and missions in El Paso TX, and continued our route to Saguaro National Park, near Tucson AZ. Now the time difference with New Jersey is become substantial. The kids are waking up at 5am to follow their online class. If we are in a city or a town, we usually park the RV at a public park by the playground and every school break the children have, they just jump out of the RV and play outside with other children or we run together and play soccer. A 100% RV life is not always easy socially speaking. We are on top of each other day and night, no “personal space” in the horizon… These moments of play with other kids are like a rain-wash for the built-up emotional tensions. One doesn’t only need a shower for one’s body, but one needs definitely also a regular shower for one’s emotions. Being with others, social connections and interactions, are all necessary aspects of this emotional shower. The kids are like night and day sometimes when they come back from their play. When are they going to be able to play again with their piers without social distancing, masks, and without the fear of the others? What will be the consequences for an entire generation now of growing up in a world of fear of approaching others? Only time will tell. Like the majestic Saguaro cactus, the biggest cactus in the world, surviving and thriving on alluvial hills in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, we have to learn what patience is (they grow only an inch during their first 6 to 8 years!)… and what collaboration and teamwork means. Indeed, Saguaro seedlings have the best chance of survival when sheltered by “nurse trees” like mesquite, ironwood, or palo verde.
Saguaros reach their full height, 40-50 feet, at about age 150. The tallest may reach 75 feet! We hiked in the park for a little while but very soon our two doggies got plenty of thorns under their paws. As a result, we must have taken as much time to remove them all once back in the RV as it took us to walk our entire trail!
Ivania (8 years old):
Hi there we are in saguaro forest with cactuses’ this big! Here it is hot not like New Jersey were it is nothing comparing to this heat. Our dogs Shy and Sher could not stand the heat under their paws and they drank a lot. There were animals in hot saguaro like javelinas, gila monsters and even desert turtles! They look cute, you do not see theme often like you see dogs all the time. These animals are in the wild.
Our “roadschooling on workation” started in July of 2020. Follow our current blog here and our previous ones on http://creatingourvision.blogspot.com and http://awomansquestfortruth.blogspot.com
