Desert Fun

After we got back from Death Valley, and while the weather was nice, we managed to take a few jaunts out in our Wrangler to enjoy the desert. Yes, we have had some very nice days along with a few cooler and a couple wet days.

One very nice, 73 degree day, we joined our friends, Dave, Pat, and their daughter Marilyn on a drive north of us to see a slot canyon which overlooks Roosevelt Lake. They weren’t sure what the road was going to be like and didn’t want to go alone, so we tagged along with them.  It’s always a great idea to travel with someone just in case there is a problem.  Most of the drive was on paved roads with just the last mile on a somewhat rough (high clearance needed) dirt road that ended at the top of a slot canyon. We did go through some deep mud puddles, but didn’t have any problems.  Notice that Dave is taking the high side of this mud puddle.  The middle is much deeper!

The view from the rim was awesome! I hate heights and steep drop offs, but I did enjoy this great view.  No, I didn’t go near the edge.  Ken was the one who enjoyed tormenting me by standing right on the edge as he took pictures.

We all had a great time and after we got back to the main road, we had an early dinner by the lake. Yep that lake you see in the distance!  Do notice the snow on Four Peaks!

We went out again on March 27, and 30.  Both days we drove south about 40 miles and went off roading in the 96 Hills area.  No, we didn’t follow our own advice and have someone go with us.  We went by ourselves, but did have an emergency locator with us just in case something went wrong.  Plus, we always pack while going out by ourselves.  Ken was loaded for snakes, and I was loaded for whatever (grin).  Our goal was to find the geocaches that were placed during the last couple AJACS Campout events that we hadn’t had a chance to look for.  This time during the two days, we found a total of 31 caches. Most involved some bit of hiking and climbing. Yes, Ken did ALL the climbing!  We also found snakes...Rattlesnakes. One very mad Rattler was too close to a cache that we wanted and he was not going away.  Well, Ken won that argument, and we signed the cache log and got a picture of the snake.  Another Rattler was soaking up sun in the middle of the road and was not very happy about our big white Jeep interrupting him.  We managed to get a couple pictures before he finally went off in the weeds on the side of the road.  Another one which we couldn’t get a picture of was at the edge of the road and was not letting anyone or anything get close to it.  We let that one be.

The wildflowers are blooming, but we only saw buds on the cactus and no blooms. We did see some strange Saguaros and took a couple pictures.

April is now here and as you all can see I made a change to my blog page.  No it is not an April Fools joke. I may keep it this way, or may change it again….I just haven’t decided.