The Trailer

Valerie C. and I went to the northwest side of Tucson to monitor a couple of prehistoric sites for the Arizona State Trust Land Department. The area is well known as a hot bed of drug and illegal immigrant smuggling activities by gun toting men - not nice guys at all.

As I have said elsewhere, we are Arizona Site Stewards. We are trained to monitor sites for vandalism, mainly the type that pothunters do - dig big holes on sites looking for saleable artifacts.

We are trained in handling hot and cold cases and because of this training we are curious, observant, brave, nonchalant, determined – calm, cool, collected in our work in other words.

We drove into the desert on a dusty, bumpy dirt road. Recent tire tracks in the 2-track put us on high alert.

We entered a clear area of the desert and saw a trailer about 200 feet off the road. A big house trailer! It was sitting lopsided, very dirty, windows were out - it looked abandoned and very eerie.

Valerie said, “Let’s go have a look at it. Maybe we can get some information for our report.”

She parked the SUV and we started walking side by side about 5 meters apart to the trailer.

“I’ve got footprints here. Do you?” I called.

“Valerie,” I shouted at her. “Did you see the size of these foot prints leading to the trailer?”

Still walking I yelled to her, “I don’t like this. These footprints are huge and I don’t want to see who ever they belong too. My lord, they are huge.”

She cooly responded, “The place looks abandoned. I think it is ok.”

“Valerie,” I screamed, “They are huge! These are the biggest footprints I have ever seen. I am out of here!”

I turned and high tailed it to the safety of our vehicle.

As I said, “trained to be brave, nonchalant, determined - cool!”

I need more training!