Desert life-2

OK I know you are wondering 'what in the world is that'. This is a Century plant it is in the Yucca plant family. It lives just to put all of its starch and sugar
into growing this staff. It grows several inches a day. And then it will die. But look at these pods and the close up of the flowers it produces. Amazing isn't it!

This is the tallest saguaro cactus we have seen we estimated it to be around at least 50 feet tall. Phil is standing close to it. He would not get any closer to it due to the thorney tree under the cactus. No there is no trickery in this picture, number 1 I don't know how to do it.
The arms on the cactus just above Phils head are bending downward. That is caused by them being frozen way back when. So the end of the arms are now bending back upward. The more it rains the bigger around these cactus will get.

That thing was HUGE.

This tree is loaded with Misletoe. Dosen't do the tree any good because it is a parasite and eventually will turn the tree black and ugly

This is a Joshua Tree it is also in the Yucca plant family. We could not figure out what it was at first.

It has a trunk like a tree, it has bark like a tree, and then it goes crazy, with cactus like features.

The Joshua Tree can live to be over 1000 years old.

To answer a question we have gotten about Jake and Elroy, in an earlier blog. We got lost, we do that alot even with a GPS, and we were turning around in a parking lot. Well out behind a bar we saw Jake and Elroy sitting outside in the sun. So I told Phil we had to get a picture.

We are leaving Arizona Thursday March 25 and taking a week to get back to Wichita, unless I can hurry Phil some. We are anixious to see what retirement life is really like because here I feel like I'm on vacation. Well Phil isn't near as excited as I am to get home. It snowed 5-7 inches Saturday, also first day of spring, in Wichita and here it is 82. WOW (also Happy Birthday to Ivy, she got 12" of hair cut off for Locks of Love) she is just one of the reasons we are coming home now for.

Desert comes to Life-1

I was doing the exciting job of getting our laundry done this late morning and my cell phone rings. It is Phil. He says "when you get laundry done we will go look at the Az/desert Poppies they are yellow" I said sure I have nothing planned".

WOW we drove west out of Tuscon and entered Saguaro National Preserves. It is a winding road and up hill. We drove around a curve and over the pass and again WOW. Ahead of us was a sea of yellow poppies amonst the different cactus of Arizona.


This is the Ocotillo. I call it the desert Christmas Tree. It is the brightest ever-green color in the desert. It will only leaf out if there is alot of rain and, of course, this year they have had alot of rain. It is like a stick bush. These spears go from the ground with leaves all the way up and then you see these orange flowers at the end. These were small ones about 6-8 ft tall.

I have no idea what these plants are but can you just image what the different colors bring to the browns of the desert.

I enjoyed this so much and I can only hope that you can somehow see the awesome beauty in all this.

travel 2010 #2

Our 2010 trip continued. We went thru Death Valley, Ca to see the desert. Well we thought spending a few months in Tucson, Az we had seen the desert, we were wrong. This was dry, seen little vegetation lots of rocks, sand and blowing sand. Coming down in elevation to below sea level we even saw a sign that said radiator water 1/2 mile ahead and then there was a cylinder of water for your car. The temperature at the bottom was 84 degrees. (Ks was 42)

This is the desert. Look at the mountain

So many different colors and textures. There is alot of lava rock. Back years ago there was no explosion but there was lava flow hence the rocks. Notice very little vegetation. We were told to look for the flowing cactus. Saw some yellow flowers.







This is a spring feed lake. Once upon a time this lake covered the bottom of this canyon. The mountains surrounding this area keep the heat in and the rain disapaites. The floor of the canyon looks like snow but this is salt. "Salt flats".

Back in the 1800's they mined ore and borax from here. Hauled it out with 20 mule team's 164 miles. This is "dinah" a steam tractor they replaced the 20 mule team with in 1894.





They have a board walk out to the lake,
to hot for us to walk out there, as you
can see we were actually 282 feet
below sea level.


Interesting ride thru past history. This valley was called Death Valley because only 2 families from a wagon train made it out alive and upon leaving the valley she turned around and said "good-bye valley of death.

travel 2010 #1

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately I have
several excuses, but, the one I counted on is going away. I have my arm out of the sling but I'm still in therapy trying to rebuild the strength which I haven't had for almost 3 years. I am doing better but arm gets tired.

You know how I have always said Phil talks to anyone well now I have proof. Saw Jake and Elroy just sitting in the sun minding there own business and then there is Phil in the middle of them. We make alot of wrong turns in our travels and this was one of them. We were making a u-turn when we saw them.

We saw Hoover Dam last year and the new bridge going up so we wanted to go this year and see the progress. I guess we doubted that the arch going up from both directions would meet in the middle. Well it met but we got no pictures because we saw it at night. This is Las Vegas's Treasurer Island. We like the lights and the activity of the "strip" but not to interested in sticking around for very long.


We both decided that maybe if we had the money to gamble with then maybe we would actually enjoy Las Vegas. So until we win the lottery we will continue to drive up and down the "strip" and watch the people. This was spring break and there we ALOT of young people there. This is Caesar's Palace. These white buildings go
on and on and on.




Evidently no one has told Las Vegas that the country is not doing well. Look at the building cranes in the back ground. I think we counted 4 new buildings going up on the strip. Could not believe it.


Neither Phil nor I had been to California so here was our chance to go into the state but not get involved with the cities. We weren't ready for that yet.

Headed to Death Valley,Ca. WOW that was a site to see. We thought we had seen the desert but after seeing Death Valley NOW we have seen the desert.
Look at this mountain and the ribbons of color. Picture dosen't really do it justice.

Read on to the next blog about Death Valley