Desert Zombies

Things that go bump in the night and scream in the daylight are what scary movies are all about. But I swear they filmed these movies in the desert.

 While hiking we have come upon mounds of dirt with huge holes in them. I am pretty sure they are zombie hotels and as I walk away from one I imagine a long fingered boney hand coming out of the hole and grabbing my leg. No shit, it creeps me out. My husband Greg, all he wants to do is poke a stick down the hole and agitate whatever lives in them. Men!

We love nature and parking out in the wilderness. The wide open spaces where you can just take off, leave the trail and hike to your hearts content. But we have also become acutely aware that there are other things out there besides us.

Coyotes have been the animal we have heard the most. We love listening to them yip and howl at sunrise and sunset, often times being woken up at night to them yelping right outside the RV.

While at one RV park in southern Arizona warning signs were posted for mountain lions being spotted on the trails. The gentleman at the nature center was telling a lady not to let her children run on the trail or mountain lions would mistake them for prey. The only thing we saw were tracks. But then again I imagined a lion jumping down on us from a tree limb.

The Africanized bees, also known as killer bees are everywhere. You cannot sit outside of your RV without being bothered by them. They fly around your hair and face. There are warnings about what to do if being attacked by a swarm. Neither of us has been stung yet, but the numbers of bees out in the west is amazing.

Then there are the mean cows, they feel they have the right of way on the hiking trails and demand you move the hell out of the way or else. I usually let them go first, out of the kindness of my heart.

Don’t get me wrong all of these critters do not force us to stay in the RV, if anything it makes us want to explore even more. But we do keep the door locked because I just know that one night during a full moon the  zombies will come looking for the person who keeps poking sticks down their front door.