Have a safe and fun 4th of July. To celebrate here, we’re flying a brand new Grace Alley American Flag along with a new Annin Flagmakers Arizona State Banner.
Enjoy your Independence Day Holiday!
Photography
April Flowers
Because we were away from home through late March and over half of April, we thought that we might miss some of the spring cactus flowers opening. We already had flower buds on several of our xeriscape cacti when we began our trip to Texas. Fortunately, we didn’t miss too much since a lot of flowers are now open. We got busy with the cameras and have some photos of some of the open flowers here.
This first pair of flowers is on a beavertail cactus (Opuntia basilaris) that is growing on the west side of the property:
Next, we have one of the first flowers to open on one of three Blue Palo Verde (Parkinsonia florida) trees on our property. The Blue Palo Verde trees were planted here since we have been in Arizona, but there are some wild Foothill Palo Verde (Parkinsonia microphylla) trees up in our back lot. Here is the one flower I saw today:
There are several Buckhorn Cholla (Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa) growing on the property. This flower is one of many more to come on the several cacti around here:
Desert Marigold wildflowers (Baileya multiradiata) are growing all around us. This batch is off of the property, just to the west of us in the catch basin:
And finally, The Hedgehog Cacti (Echinocereus Engelmannii) out front, have had most of their flowers open before we got home to see them, but there are a couple of buds still ready to open and this flower was open today:
We hope that you have enjoyed seeing these flowers as much as we have. We also are looking forward to enjoying the May and June flowers that likely will come. Watch for more cacti and other flowers soon.
Mountain View
Damsel and I walked down to the “scenic walk” area of the RV park here in Las Cruces to see what we could see. The view of the area from atop the Picacho Hills, west of Las Cruces proper, was very nice. I aimed my camera phone toward the rugged mountains we crossed getting here and got the (clickable) image above.
Those peaks are the so-called “Organ Mountains” which have this interesting appearance due to being formed by igneous, rather than sedimentary rocks. The organ name comes from some early notion that the peaks resemble a pipe organ.
Tomorrow morning, we head to the west again in continuation of the trek homeward. We shall (God willing) blog from Benson, AZ tomorrow evening.
Camping — Monument Valley
We have a crappy internet connection so this will be short.
We’re in Monument Valley for a couple of days. We had an uneventful drive from Flagstaff and got here in time to check into the RV campground and get all hooked up to the utilities.
Stay tuned for more in a couple of days.
Cloudburst Runoff
We finally got some rain and hail today after several weeks of storms missing our area. It got quite noisy in our little house when it started hailing outside. I took these photos of the road in front of the house with lingering runoff looking toward the east (top) and west (bottom), both clickable images. The runoff was gone within 15 minutes and the hail had already melted save for a small pile or two below the rooftop drain spouts.
While all this is going on, we and the pups are warm, dry and safe indoors. Our house is on a slab which is about 10-12 feet higher than the road below us out front. The retention walls we had built behind the RV driveway diverts the water behind the house to the east and west and thence down to the road.
We appreciated getting the rain. Even though it is normal to have rain this time of the year, we have been a little short of normal and today should get us back to the usual amount.
Looking at the radar forecast just now, it looks as if we will be having a couple more showers before this system moves off to the east-northeast.
2023 Annual Cops Cruise
Damsel and I attended the annual “Cops Who Care” Cruise and Toy Drive today at the community center downtown. There was a pretty good turn out of folks who brought their prized antique and classic cars to the event. Each one of the attendees was required to bring an unwrapped toy as a gift to our underprivileged kids in the area. We brought four unwrapped toys (not required but just to help out) as we usually do for this event.
Image above: Damsel posing next to a 1927 Ford farm truck.
We stayed for the better part of an hour, taking photos and gawking at the goodies on display. Here are a couple of photos of classics we deem to be very cool:
Image above: 1957 Red Chevrolet Hardtop Coupe
Image above: 1960’s Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird
We headed back home to prepare our Sunday Dinner which was a Keto version of Ham and Spaghetti Alfredo. Yummers!
Home Again!
We’re relaxing at home after the last leg of our vacation. Damsel and I saw a number of cool things on the return voyage. Here are some of the pix from the days collection of over 500 images in the Damsel Camera:
Mission San Xavier Del Bac, Tucson, AZ:
Picacho Peak near Eloy, AZ:
Casa Grande Native Ruins, Coolidge, AZ:
Now that we’re back, we have numerous things we need to attend to pertaining to our normal retirement routine, plus a couple of other business items that popped up. We’re prepared for all of that and we’re glad to be back home in our little desert paradise.