The march is taking a day off at a private home whose owners live along Concho Road. We are a few miles short of reaching Concho. The house has solar panels in place and two wind generators that can produce 2000 watts of power. The house is one of many in this area that are attempting to live off the grid. I guess it’s unfair to use the word attempting because many are. Recently I’ve met folks along the road with very different perspectives but have come to the same conclusion … they want to live more sustainable lives and have picked this sparsely populated area of Arizona high desert to do so. Some are fed up with big government, some see a cataclysm in the making, some simply vision a different world and find a receptive environment for their efforts. A few of them share our view that climate change is a dangerous component in humanity’s future, but many are to some degree … deniers. It’s surprising to find a sustainability mindset denying climate change but that’s the way it is.

I wanted to take some time today to talk about the outhouses on wheels we haul around to do our business. These composting eco-commodes have been one our success stories in our attempt to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Today was a good day to empty them and I thought I’d take a few photos and lessen the stigma our human waste carries. It is hard to quantify just how much water I have used to flush excrement out of my life. The largest household use of water involves a toilet. Showers aren’t a close second. So, our mobile One Earth Village is composting as we go. It isn’t as difficult or nasty as I once imagined. In fact, it turns out it is a preferred community job because it takes so little time to get it taken care of. About once a week we find a place (BLM land, private land with permission, etc.) to pull the barrels from enclosed toilets and dump them in holes we dig. Sources for sawdust are easy to come by and we use it by the scoop to cover poop as we go. ( a bucket of sawdust stays next to the toilet) It is a friendly footprint, and easy to manage.

Our traveling eco-commodes

Kathe cleans the Eco toilets

Finding a hole…

Cleaning out the barrels

It could have been a lonely walk from Heber to SnowFlake. The planned campsite was eleven miles outside Heber and I arrived there at a little past noon. That’s when I made a commitment to walk on to Snowflake. (another twenty miles) I thought it would be nice to spend Easter in a town and attend a local church. I also knew that if I could get a day ahead of the march I could take a day off.

For the most part it was a flat road heading straight as an arrow across high desert or prairie as many locals call it. The asphalt seemed to float across this landscape filled with buffalo grass, sage brush, and scruffy Juniper’s. No one traveled the last 20 miles with me. I passed almost no human habitation. If it weren’t for the company of a few crows I would have been totally on my own and would only have heard the occasional vehicle drive past. I noticed the shadows of the crows flying overhead as my eyes watched the pavement in front of me. Occasionally they would land atop a juniper. Other times they might find the ground a more gleeful spot to caw as I walked past at my usual 3 miles per hour. This agitating dance continued for miles. The weather shifted from spotty rain to a cold consistent drizzle. My core began to chill and I had to stop and put on a second fleece layer. The crows didn’t seem to mind. I occasionally tried in vain to mimic their caws. It would draw their attention but they weren’t interested in responding to my communicative attempts. When I got in sight of Snowflake the crows disappeared as did my sense of being alone.

I spent a moment along the route at a monument dedicated to Eliza Snow Rogers, mother of 15, who died in 1926 along this same road in a snowstorm. “Navajo County’s Most Harrowing Death” reads the inscription. This is an opportunity to mention all the old rugged crosses along my journey. The roadways are filled with markers. Death shadows highways like those crows that were briefly mine. I can’t keep a count of all the monuments to loved ones lost along the roads we have walked, and you can’t imagine the number of creatures of all types lost to the roads. At three miles per hour it adds up.

“Most Harrowing Death”

30 miles for Easter … Heber to Snowflake

There’s a lot of noise on the highways we walk. Sounds of tractor-trailers blowing past and the steady drone of tires on the pavement turns normal in time. This afternoon as I walked into pine forest my sense of hearing found a certain relaxation. The pines create a melody of their own as the afternoon winds pick up. It was a short day with just 12 miles walked. I had lunch beside
a small stream with cold water to soak my tired feet. I think they shrunk a whole size! After the camp dinner a special finances circle was called. It was dismal information. But we all hope for better fundraising news. Financials are the weakest link and everyone has an opinion as to how to fix it. It is a tense time for the whole group.  In the morning after finishing kitchen cleanup, I left camp ahead of the main body which was split on two routes to summit the Mogollon Rim. Our walk seemed to go straight up, and was demanding. Once we reached the rim we still had another 4 miles to the new campsite. We are now on a plateau with pine forest and a number of small alpine lakes. So good to see some water return.
Tomorrow its a 19 mile day to Heber Arizona.

Roadside fundraising at the roadside general store

Bypassing bridge with little room for walkers

King snake on the trail

Atop the Mogollon Rim

A visit with “blue” a cross country biker

Visitors in camp