Wildflowers

The wildflowers are in bloom here in
the Sonoran Desert. Not as many as
the last couple of years.

New Addition To Our Family

Emily Ann.

Yesterday's Hike Part 2

On our hike yesterday we went via a different route than we usually hike. This route took us long the south side of both of the cat peaks. On the smaller of the two peaks, on the south side, is a cave that used to be the home to a mountain lion (so we've been told.) Hence the name "cat peaks."

The cave's entrance is visible as a small black area just to the left of the top of the saguaro.

Yesterday's Hike

On the Cat Peaks Trail.

Which Way?

Which way is Phoenix?
(Zoom in on the white lettering on the
mountain in the background.)

Water Fowl

Great blue heron - in Scottsdale - in
the desert.

Peek A Boo

Erosion

Trail erosion on the Merkle Trail from
last night's heavy rain.
That's not standing water on the lower left side of the picture - it's my finger blocking part of the lens. OOPS!

Magazine 2

And look who's on the cover of this
month's Young Model magazine!

Magazine

Look who made the cover of Kitty
magazine!

Fans

Even the buses are Cards fans!

Merkle/Vista Trail

Due to time constraints and the cool weather we've hiked the Merkle/Vista Trail at Usery Park the last couple of days. It's one of our favorite short hikes. We can do it in half an hour and still enjoy great views and a decent work out. Here's a couple of pictures from yesterday's hike.

	Karen on the Vista Trail. The hill in front of her is the top of the Vista Trail. The mountain with the light colored line of rocks across its face is Pass Mountain.
	Karen and Ross's sister Lee at our Xterra in the parking area for the Merkle/Vista Trails.

Papago Park

A couple of days ago we visited Papago Park in Phoenix for the first time. It's in the same area as the Phoenix Zoo and the Desert Botanical Garden, both of which we have visited in the past. Ross's sister Lee came with us. The park has quite a few hiking trails but the most interesting is the Hole In The Rock Trail. The hike is up a large rock formation to a hole that has been eroded in it. For such a short hike (less than 1/4 mile and about 200' elevation gain) the views at the top are very good. After that hike we hiked out and back along one of the flatter trails. Next time we visit the park we may bring our bikes as all the trails except for the Hole In The Rock Trail are bike accessible.

	The Hole In The Rock at Papago Park in Phoenix. Note the people on top of the rock formation. You have to do some off trail scrambling to get there. We didn't go up there.
	Karen at the hole and the view from the top of the hike.

Visitor

Ross's sister Lee, who also has a
place in Sun Life, is in town for a
couple of weeks. Great to have her
here!

Centipede

After attending one of Ranger B's brown bag lunch talks yesterday (the topic was desert tortoises) we spent a few minutes looking at some of the critters in the visitor center. Here's one of them, a centipede. This one is probably 6" - 8" long. Like most things that live in the desert it's poisonous. We're not sure which end is the head.

	The centipede at the Usery Park visitor center.
	A closer view of the centipede.

Desert Discovery

Check out our desert discovery.

Motorcycle

We've always wanted a motorcycle. Well, maybe Ross has. Now our dreams have come true! Check out our new motorcycle:




Pretty cool, huh? And it was free! Ross found it just sitting on the side of the road while we were out biking today.




Well, it's a motorcycle, isn't it???? :-)

Yikes!

Ross's backpack ate Jake!!
Luckily it threw him up later.

New Phone

Karen was in need of a new
"GoPhone" (a pay as you go phone)
so we shopped around and found this
Samsung phone on close out at Best
Buy. It was $30 but came with $50 of
time! Basically they paid us $20 to
take the phone.

Snake Video

Today we went to Usery Park for one of Ranger B's brown bag lunch talks. The talks are now being held in the park's new visitor center. After the talk (today's was "All About Our Sonoran Desert") we visited with some of the animals on display. Not only was this rattlesnake in a glass cage but the cage was locked in a room so there were 2 panes of glass between the snake and us. Here's a video of the rattlesnake.

NOTE: If you're squeamish about snakes you might want to skip this one!