As I Promised

Whenever I chatted to anyone before we flew home, there was a common request - "bring us some warm weather".  Well, we did exactly that as the temps were slightly below freezing - a far cry from when we arrived a week earlier.   We had a great trip back with all flights right on time.

As we prefer, we are camping out in the desert. The powers that be decided that we need a bathroom in this area.  That resulted in the excitement of the day as it arrived and was placed on the vaults that had also been installed.  It's not that we require it but I guess someone thought that we did.

We had heard of a very nice hike called Cool Canyon.  As we started, we were mostly in the shade and thought that perhaps the name came because the temperatures were cool.  It wasn't long before we decided that wasn't the reason, but instead it was because it was definitely cool (as in impressive).  It was incredibly beautiful, rather challenging as we had to crawl over several dry waterfalls (going back down we slid down them) and gave us quite a workout.  Although it was only about a mile each way, there was an elevation gain of abour 700 feet.  Yes, I felt it the next day!!

Part of the trail

A healthy group of Agave

Some of the scenery, with desert apricot bush

more scrambling

This plant is called Dudleya arizonica, and is amazing

This was probably the toughest one to get over

Wonder what made these unusual marks

From here, we took a drive over to Pinyon Mountain to an area known as the squeeze.  The space for a vehicle is six feet wide and then down some rocks.  We stopped, looked at it, and said "maybe another day"!!  On the ground there was evidence that vehicles don't always get through unscathed due to the broken glass.

And we always love seeing some interesting birds or wildlife - this time it was birds with both of them sitting on some dead century plants (Agave).

It's been a fun week, the weather has been great.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great week