Friday, January 29/2010

Wow, for dreary days!! Another one has reared it's ugly head. Lots of cloud coverage so may not see the sun today - rats!! How is a girl supposed to maintain her suntan with weather like this? Almost makes one wish she was back in Saskatoon shoveling snow --- NOT!!

Hogan and I once again went off on one of our walks. Today heard some gunshots (what else is new!!) and I wondered if the deer were once again in peril. I saw more tracks today so they must be on the move. We met Truman again on the trail and he did mention that we really should stop meeting like this!! Saw Bob and Ann as well and they wondered if we had made it through all the rain without any problems. They were off to hunt rocks. Once we were back at camp, John was ready to head out onto the trails.

We did the Vulture Mountains Trail which took us from our campsite to the town of Morristown. We traversed a few of the Vulture Mountains and alot of old mining roads. We passed the site of the old Big Spar Mine as well as the Mammoth Spar Mine. Both these sites had visible mine shafts, some of which were posted as dangerous and had fencing around them and some that remained open, for any unfortunate soul to fall into. Both of these mines I believe yielded gold although not to the degree that the Vulture Mine did. It was quite interesting.

Since the rains, the desert has definitely become more green. There are lots of leaves forming on the "dead" looking branches of several shrubs and there are several areas that appear to have some sort of desert "grass". It is marvelous to see and I hope to see some flowers soon. Now wouldn't that be neat!!

I hope that the pics show well. We did come across a "cave" so had to go exploring. It was actually very wide open and not very deep so had to go get some pics. I hope they show well on this blog.

Crossing the dry bed of the Hassayampa River was interesting. The sand was quite deep but "Billy" didn't seem to have any trouble crossing. The river bed still had a few wet areas from the recent rains and I wonder if it was running during the storm? Now that would have been something to see!!

All in all, it was a good trip. The prolific desert vegetation and the scenic views were well worth the trip.