As mentioned in one of my previous posts, free or cheap campsites and the generosity of friends are both key and unaccountable items in our trip budget. These oases offer opportunities to pull of the road for a day or a week and regroup.

If you’ve been reading along, you know that we’ve been very lucky with FOC campsites. But never as lucky as we’ve been for the last week, thanks to Rich and Diane who loaned us their beautiful house just south of Tucson and a car to explore the area with.

Provided with such unaccustomed luxuries as showers that you don’t have to wear shoes in and a master bedroom larger than our entire vehicle, we immediately started to grow roots. We hiked and biked nearby trails on the first full day and visited a museum over the weekend, but eventually the allure of a day at “home” became too tempting to pass up.

I felt weirdly guilty for not using the day to see the sights and meet local artisans, but truth be told, I had felt uneasy since crossing the border from Louisiana to Texas. I saw police digging through a car on the side of the road while its occupants huddled nervously nearby. A friend told us stories of local police targeting out-of-state vehicles. And then we ran into a border patrol checkpoint, some 40 miles north of Mexico.

Having lived most of my life in the midwest, I was not aware that there are places in our country where American citizens accept routine questioning that could lead to the search of their vehicle en route to work or the grocery store. Even with nothing to hide and a pasty complexion, I was unnerved by the experience.

I’m aware that these “protections” are meant to make me feel “safer,” but the exact opposite was true. I felt insecure the whole time I was there—one step away from a stumbling answer or K9 interaction that could lead to probable cause.

As helicopters hovered overhead (scanning the desert for illegals, I was told) I contemplated the extent to which Americans living in the southwest have accepted the trappings of a police state in exchange for the illusion of security. From what I wonder?

Tonight we are camped north of Phoenix. I feel safer already.

Play: We parked at Madera Canyon's Proctor Trailhead parking lot and hiked a couple of picturesque miles up, along Madera Creek. It wasn't a particularly challenging hike, but I could feel the altitude acting upon me. It was humbling to watch octogenarians hustle by. We probably should have gone to Tucson's Desert Museum before the hike. It provided an entertaining (and somewhat overdue) introduction to desert ecology.