Va-cay-shun

I have a four-day weekend coming up, after being approved for vacation days. Wa-HOO!

These days when I have time off, G and I go on photo shoots. It’s both fun and a fairly inexpensive hobby. Yes, the cameras and paraphernalia are a bit pricey, until you compare them to paying to attend a single concert. When you calculate by the hour and compare to a concert… There’s no contest.

We need to make a flying run to Tucson to pick up my camera from the shop, but it’s not done yet. I have off Wednesday through Saturday. If the camera’s ready in time, we’ll pick that up Wednesday and do our grand photography tour Thursday. Otherwise those will be flipped and we’ll do the long photography haul Wednesday.

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I tasked G with finding us a new spot to photograph this weekend. He came through with flying colors, finding a locale for a day trip that promises to be a time challenge. The map at right shows our general destination.

If you guessed it’s the Arlington Wildlife Area, you’re partly right, and you’d be forgiven for not guessing any more of it. All the green patches on this map – and a few more that don’t show up until it’s embiggened – are designated wildlife/riparian areas. The featured image at the top of this post is the Gillespie Dam Bridge. It’s located where that itty bitty white road crosses what looks like a dry spot between blueness just south of the Arlington area. In reality, the blueness doesn’t disapppear at the north end, it just gets lost because this is zoomed out. (By the way, while the photo at the top of the page shows a dry riverbed, it won’t be dry when we go. In fact, my one reservation about this trip is a very real risk of being flooded out.)

We’re driving up from Gila Bend (bottom of map), taking the white road toward Arlington/Hassayampa. There are other roads taking things in and following the line of the lakes/river. If they’re accessible, we’ll most likely take the waterside detour. A wide array of waterfowl and other critters should be out, given how much rain we’ve had this summer. One set of other critters is snakes, including several types of rattlesnakes. Extreme caution is part of the deal.

With Arlington wildlife area just under 100 miles from us, I don’t know if it’s going to be possible for us to do this as a single-day trip. Oh, it’s only about an hour and a half, provided we were driving straight there. The whole point of this trip is to take pictures, though. Forty-ish miles is a lot of ground to cover when taking pictures nearly the whole drive, which is more what I expect.

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I won an oversized cooler bag from work not too long ago. The plan is to pack it with lunch, drinks, and snacks. G has been asking for a picnic ever since we’ve been together, and it’s long overdue. We’ve never really done the all-out cold-fried-chicken-meal-on-a-picnic-table thing. I think he’s almost as jazzed about that as about the trip itself! We also need to call and confirm whether permits are required. A day pass shouldn’t cost much, if so. It’s $8 for one that lets you visit the lakes further north and I assume it would be the same kind of pass for this area.

If we can’t come back same-day, we’ll rent a motel room in Buckeye and drive home the next day. G will bitch if we do. He’ll get over it.

We already have tentative plans for a return trip. This map only shows the north-south route. There are more wildlife/wetland areas, wilderness areas, pictographs, etc., in the area to the west of what this map shows. Until today, I didn’t know any of the designated areas even existed, much less how far they extended!