Cemeteries?

 
 Yeah an odd topic, but there are so many old cemeteries here and...

More life in Arizona

The Monsoons have arrived.  At first it was quite bothersome, however, seeing how they have made things so green.  It's almost like Oregon.  Fortunately the rain comes down in great downpours but do not usually last all day.

As you can see it comes down quite a vengeance!  There is no drainage system as such, however, the town of Sunsites seems to be built on an incline.  The water runs from one end through town in great "rivers" to the other end of town where there are ditches along the highway.  I think that it eventually is suppose to drain into the dry lake that separates Sunsites and Willcox. 

There are several areas where the water runs over the road, this day it wasn't real deep, but there are times when it is impassable.  As you can see from this big rock that was on the other side of the road, there is quite a current that is built up, hence the advisory not to enter when flooded.

The monsoons make for some awesome skys!

On one of my hikes/geocaching expeditions I go to see a live snake in action.  It was a wild animal kingdom moment as a lizard was running ahead of me and this snake jumped out and grabbed the little critter right in front of me! 

When I told the Rangers about the snake & lizard they said that is so awesome and such a privilege!  Not the words I would have used. 

                                                                                                                                                            

 There is a lot of history here.  Fort Bowie is a nice hike.  Unfortunately at the end of the hike I left my GPS.  Three days later after realizing it was not with me I called the Ranger's visitor center to see if by some long shot someone turned it in.  Three days after that got a call that one of the law enforcement Rangers had found it, YEAH! 

 

Geocaching & Saguaro National Park

 Geocaching takes me to some places that I would otherwise not likely go and to finds I would not likely make:

The zachaedas are noisy and a bit on the homely side:

 This is the site of an old stage coach stop and these are the grave markers for some buffalo soldiers.  No names, just piles of rock left. 

 More geocaches and sights along the way:

 This day the Horseshoe II fire had reached a couple of homes and the smoke was quite intense.

 this was the "road" down to one of the geocaches.  I decided to walk rather than risk dropping my motorcycle again!  So off I went with my snake chaps and stick (the handle to a rake) making as much noise as possible to warn the snakes and any other critters that I was coming.  Highly alert for snakes when my GPS beeped to signal that the cache was near I jumped 10' in the air!  As if a snake would beep!

An old water trough for the free range beef - I mean cattle.

I saw this and thought that someone had put a sock on the cactus to protect it.  Being "blonde" makes life so much more interesting.








It constantly amazes me the shapes that the Saguaro cacti take on.  Remember the game statue?  Having to freeze in some odd position and the twister would have to guess what you are?

The fruit of the Saguaro from afar looks like a second flower, up close you see that it is actually just the fruit that has been broken open by the doves that are having quite the feast.

The Cat Walk

Went with some friends to a little congregation near the New Mexico border.  The brother was giving the talk that morning.  What a surprise when I saw the coffee cup they have!

They actually use it for water and not coffee.  But if Jim Bob hasn't found a coffee mug this big, they are available!


After meeting we were invited to one of the friends houses where we were treated to a wonderful lunch and even better association.  Were were there for a quite a while but needed to get going as the hike we had planned was an hour away.  I had found a geocache located on the hike and my newbies were excited to find it.

 This little guy was the source of much excitement amount the guys with us who are avid bird watchers!

 Big chunky rocks.  Critters darting left and right.  Little chipmunks playing on the vertical rock faces - like it was nothing that they are 30' in the air!  How do they stick to the rock?

Yes stop there and let me take a picture (or really let me just get my breath so I took 20 pictures here, joking, kinda).

 Can you image in the first people to visit the area?  Not knowing what lies around the corner or where it ends.

 Nope, this is not upsidedown, this is just me looking up.

 These walks are found through out the walk to bridge crevasses or to take you down steep side faces.  Very sturdy.  All except a rope bridge at the end which of course one of the guys had to bounce on while I was on there.
The Cat Walk is only about 1-1 1/2 miles long.  Very pretty country and really not a rigorous hike unless you've come from 0 elevation! 

The geocache was another 1/4 of a mile past the end of the normal hike.  It was well hidden at least from our point of view and the guys with us, part mountain goats, were determined to find it.  It took 45 minutes of jumping from rock to rock, looking in between rocks and hoping to find nothing more than the cache, please, please, please.  (That was me.)  I had given up as the sun was going down and we still needed to hike out.  But with a yelp one of the guys found it!  We recorded our finding and hotfooted it out of there.  The drive home for some reason took hours upon hours longer than the trip there.  Boy were we tired!