Early afternoon. We have lunched and I just turned on the air conditioning. The temperature will be in the 90s again this afternoon. Cooler tomorrow and we are heading north toward Las Vegas on Wednesday. Last week may become our hottest of the year!

Yuma is a border town in more ways than one. Mexico is not far south and California is just west across the Colorado River. It is around Yuma that the great river is sucked dry. Some of the water is conveyed by a flume, the "All American Canal" to Mexico. Most of the balance is similarly transported to the farmlands that now comer its former floodplain in Arizona and California. With daily sunshine and usually warm weather, the desert becomes a vegetable factory.

We are enjoying a pleasant evening in a desert campground on the west shore of Lake Mojave, a reservoir on the Colorado River south of Las Vegas. We drove here from Yuma on this beautiful spring day. After a week of temperatures in the 90s and 100s, a little cold wave has brought back enough cool air to balance the southwestern sunshine. It is now about 70 degrees and we'll have the comforter ready tonight.

Before dawn we will drive west into California and the Mojave Desert National Preserve where we'll look for thrashers and the juniper titmouse. We'll definintely find "the largest Joshua Tree forest in the world" and lots of interesting volcanic geology.

Late Sunday afternoon in Ajo. The temperature is 86 degrees, down from 90. We awoke to the alarm at 5:00 a.m. and made our traditional sausage and eggs Sunday breakfast in the dark. Then with a bit of daylight showing on the eastern horizon we drove south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. On this our second visit we planned to walk trails near and through the campground, to drive the Ajo Mountains Road, and to hike the “high elevation” Bulls pasture trail.

We passed the border patrol checkpoint at dawn and arrived at the campground as the sun appeared. Still 50 degrees we left our jackets on. The trail passed through desert flatland and a bushy wash. The vegetation and land here, as everywhere in western Arizona is dry. Winter rains did not come this year. The spring bloom is a bust. Birds are few and far between. Another couple reports that two years ago in March they saw this desert wet and in bloom. The park literature unobtrusively suggests that a spring bloom happens only every second or third year.

It is mid afternoon and 80 degrees. The sun is bright, but the blue sky is half interspersed with high thin white clouds. We are waiting for dusk to walk along this long low ridge and look for owls below on the desert prairie. This will be our second and last night alone in the back country. With hunting season over we seem to be the only campers here. That could be great, and a quieter night than last we have never experienced, but being only twelve miles from the border and seeing all the signs of illegal border crossings, we are a bit uncomfortable here. It is telling when most of the cars you see have a green stripe on them.

I heard someone is thinking about Barack Obama. Here is a very complimentary article by someone who worked with him at the Harvard Law Review--and she is a conservative lawyer.

"The Barack I knew"

fun article about bluebirds.

""bluebirds""

The Chiricahua Mountains are stark and a bit foreboding, but also a forest oasis in the high desert lands of southeastern Arizona. This is the land of basin and plain, where a continental collision pushed the land up and broke it, tipping sections to create lines of ridges. Erosion sculpted the ridges and made level plains of their debris between them.

The Chiricahuas are a bit different in that volcanic activity and a huge explosion covered the top of its ridge with thousands of feet of hot ash that cooled to form glassy rocks. Water has since eroded out much of the softer material leaving bizarre columns and balanced rocks towering above deep canyons.

Arrived early this afternoon after a modest drive up the Rio Grande from El Paso. Foolish us, driving north this chilly week. At least here we can splash about the Rio Grande without worrying about border issues. Bright sunshine illuminated shower clouds and rain in the valley and snow fields on the surrounding mountains. We parked, registered, and then walked around the campground. Only three other motor homes are in place. The wind was chilly but the sun was warm. A small flow of the Rio Grande (Rio Norte/Rio Bravo) passed over a wall and spillway into the rocky channel downstream.

Haven't posted anything here in a while, but couldn't resist making this available. I don't always agree with the point of view of some of the articles I post, but this one makes a lot of sense to me and he says it so much better than I ever could.

"Happiness"

Regards to you all.

Tom

After a lovely evening and morning walk at Balmorrhea State Park we completed our drive to El Paso on Wednesday. On our last day of driving, I-20 we reached an elevation of 4,400 feet and passed well below the surrounding mountain ranges. West Texas is a place of big land as well as big sky where a landmark may become visible ten or more miles away. Tree yuccas are appearing among the sagebrush. Beautiful, cool weather.

Our bird walk this morning yielded birds behaving tamely around the spring and its precious water. A sharp shinned hawk discouraged the song birds but belted king fishers chattered, a snowy egret fished, and scaup ducks and pied billed grebes remained within the spring pool giving us superb close up views. Both eastern and Say’s phoebes chased flies and (Audubon’s) yellow-rumped warblers fluttered after gnats.