The Mexican General’s Journey

Last week my sister, Sue, and her husband, Mike, were here visiting from Utah. I played tour guide for a week, from sunup to bedtime. And then two days after they left to drive home to Utah, my nephew, my sister's oldest son, and his wife came into town for three days. And the tour guide business was back on.

Tombstone twice. Bisbee twice. Two cave tours, one a formal tour in a live cave and one a hands-on, climb down in the dark yourself with a headlamp, dead cave. And lots of other stops and sights in between.

One of the days with my sister, we were driving from our Kartchner Caverns tour to Bisbee. We kept passing scads of flattened huge grasshoppers and fought more that were jumping on the road, trying not to get hit.

When my brother-in-law asked what they were, I explained that they were huge grasshoppers called Mexican Generals.

Mike asked if there were any in Bisbee.

I said that I didn't know. I'm in Bisbee two to three days a week, and haven't seen any, but that doesn't mean that they aren't there.

When I moved here two years ago, I became fascinated with these interesting insects. They aren't all over the entire area but seem to live in sections. When my son and I were on a group bike ride a few months ago, we kept passing by areas where they were really thick, then we wouldn't see them for four or five miles, then we'd see them again.

On the way home from the bike ride, we stopped at the cemetery so he could show me the new headstone where his recently passed buddy's ashes are. There was a giant one in the bush as we walked up.

What's interesting is that at our house, this is the third summer/fall that we've been here. The first two years we didn't have any in our area. But this year, we've spotted four of them at the house. So I don't know if there were more of them this year, or if their area is broadening.

Anyway — back to the company story.

In Bisbee, we stopped for lunch first. Then we walked towards Staircase 1, that's in the Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb. We were going to walk Staircases 1–3, plus do a little sightseeing in the downtown area.

Fortunately, on the way to Staircase 1, we were going to pass by my son's buddy's olive oil store. So of course, we stopped in there first, and each purchased a few yummy items. I got a jar of green olives and a bottle of 'Parmesan Cheese and Garlic Olive Oil' — which is now my favorite olive oil! It's so yummy. But I say fortunately, because we both ended up with a paper bag to carry our goodies in: a brown paper sack with a handle, about 4" wide and 12" tall. And we were going to need that bag!

Somewhere mid hike/walk, we passed by a Mexican General, so they got a good close-up view.

Sue and Mike have four grandkids that are four years old (two different families), and in one family it's a set of twins — a boy and a girl. And the little boy, Finn, really loves bugs. They wanted to take one home with them so Finn could see one.

Sue said in the car there was a clear plastic container that she'd brought some ice in at the start of their visit.

Alas, we were a good mile or two away from the car.

But never fear … Aunt Trisha had a paper bag she was carrying.

The Mexican General soon joined her bottle of olive oil and green olives. I kept checking the bag as we walked, trying to keep the top closed and trying not to crush the poor little fella who was quite confused by now.

Halfway through the walk, we stopped at a site at the bottom of an area called Castle Rock. You can climb up the mountainy/rocky area there. Mike set off to climb partway up, but didn't go all the way up due to a prior minor back surgery he'd had just before this trip.

Sue sat down on a rock outcropping at the bottom and said, "I wonder what Mexican General's eat. I'll Google it."

As she pulled out her phone and started typing, she started laughing and added, "Watch it say something like 'tacos' or 'enchiladas'."

When she got her answer, she started laughing even harder. She started reading off the answer … and yes, it was along the lines of what she'd guessed.

The answer below is a screenshot of what I got later at home. We were both laughing too hard to think of taking screenshots of her answer when she got it.

(Etc. etc. The answer went on ….)

Fortunately, when I added the word 'grasshopper' to her question, she got a much more pertinent answer.

Google reported that they eat mostly vegetation. It did say zucchini and bell pepper too, and I was happy to report that I had a bell pepper at home. I'd slice it up when we got back and at least the little guy would have something to eat.

When we stopped at the restroom before getting back in the car, I grabbed some paper towels and got them wet, so there would be some moisture and water in the container. We added vegetation and poked some holes in the lid of the container, and off we went.

A few hours later, we were back in town and walking into the Mexican restaurant where we were eating that night.

And there on the sidewalk was another Mexican General!

Aunt Trisha snatched him up, and we went back to the car, and he joined the Bisbee general. Now there were two headed back to Utah.

But plans changed the next day again.

We stopped at my storage unit the day before they left to pick up some family heirlooms that were being passed down to my sister, my niece, and two nephews, and there were two Mexican Generals there. So, Mike let the two go that had been in the container for over 24 hours and grabbed the two new ones.

The next morning, they all headed back to Utah — my sister, my brother-in-law, and two (probably very unhappy!) Mexican Generals.

I just wish I could have seen little Finnie's face when his Gigi and Papa brought him back his Arizona souvenir. I'm sure it was much better than an 'Grandma was in Arizona and all I got was this t-shirt' t-shirt!

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