ALONG THE WAY

adventure backroad A 50-mile Drive Through Ruby and Arivaca Skirts Two LAKES, WOODS and GRASSLANDS

At the edge of the world It is growing light. The trees stand shining I like it. It is growing light At the edge of the world It is growing light. Up rears the light. Just yonder the day dawns, Spreading over the night.

DEEP IN THE LAND OF DREAMERS, THE ROAD winds and wanders from the divided-highway edge of modern times out to the long shadow of the very place where l'itoi, the Creator, set all things in motionwhen the Earth was still tethered to heaven, as the Tohono O'odham Indians can tell you.

And if you are worthy, perhaps you will dream a song of power and understand the splendor laid out carefully along the 50-mile stretch of dirt road that starts just north of Nogales. The route skirts the ghost town of Ruby, passes the sleepy adobes of Arivaca and Baboquivari Peak's sacred heights and arrives finally at a grasslands preserve, where the masked bobwhite quail have come home to where l'itoi first put them. Along the way, the road passes through some of the most underappreciated scenery in the state.

ABOUT 7 MILES NORTH OF NOGALES, running west from Interstate 19, the journey starts on the Ruby Road, State Route 289. The road hums along through a scattering of ranches and houses, a rural echo of the booming border town of Nogales. You'll continue through a landscape perched on the ecological edge between high desert and oak woodland.

Just shy of 10 miles along, you'll pass Peña Blanca Lake, a modest fishing hole and picnic spot. Years ago the lake became contaminated with mercury, so most of the fishing is catch-and-release. The Bureau of Land Management periodically stocks it with trout, which are fine to catch, keep and cook for dinner. Folded into a small canyon and bordered with cottonwood trees, the manmade lake is a destination for teen-agers, families and fishermen.

Beyond the turnoff to the lake, the road