Desert Darts
Baja California Desert in the Cataviña region, south of Ensenada, Mexico. Saguaro cactus. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I recently moved from the Arizona desert after having lived there for 25 years. Like everyone, I had my favorite things to do… and some things that were reserved for those “special times”… you know… when you’re out in the desert with a few buddies, you’ve been drinking a little hootch, and you’re bored. Our game was “desert darts”. The equipment necessary to play desert darts consisted of two sticks, a whole slew of “darts”, a piece of cloth with a target drawn on it, and a dart removal tool. It is played with a minimum of two people… slightly to heavily intoxicated.
Teddy-bear cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii) at the Cholla Cactus Garden, Joshua Tree National Park (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The name being a little misleading; desert darts was
one person tossing “teddy bear cholla balls” towards
you, while you would try to catch them on the piece
of cloth. The object was to catch as many cholla balls
on the target as possible, while keeping as many of
them off yourself as possible. Sounds easy, however,
when the hootch kicked in, it was a little tricky… but
always entertaining to watch.
A little about cholla balls… they are also called “jumping cholla”. That’s because the ends of the needles are difficult to see, so it appears that if you get too close, they actually move towards you, and stick into you. Once in, without the proper tool, you end up rolling the ball all over your body, leaving the tell-tale signs of your encounter… hundreds of little prick holes identifiable by the tiny spots of blood marking each one.
Other than the obvious, the main drawback was you needed to have several pieces of cloth with targets. With each successful
catch, the cloth would shrink, as the cholla balls would pull the material into an ever smaller size… kind of like trying to pick up
six or seven pieces of chewed bubble gum with a single facial tissue. No extra points for using “really” small pieces of cloth to catch with… only more needle pricks.
I never claimed to be real smart… 😀
Steve's Tidbits 