04-04-13

Joanne, Dave, Connie and Bruce (my nieces and their husbands ) arrived yesterday (Wednesday) around 5:00.

Connie and Joanne

This morning we headed out into the desert with them, Becky, Dennis, Shirley, Bill, Cheryl and Dennis.

We went to the Kofa refuge and stopped at the MST&T tower for the view.

 

  

From there we headed south on what I call Flat Tire Road which goes to De La Osa well. The drive is a pretty easy trail and goes through a real nice canyon.
At one place we stopped to take a walk up a nice side canyon.

It is very scenic and cool in the shade of the high cliffs on each side.

After spending a short time in the canyon we continued up the road to the end, at the well.

 

De La Osa well is one of the many game watering stations in the refuge.

It was too hot and there was no shade to have lunch at the well so we headed back to a shady spot that we noticed on our way in.

After lunch we headed back toward the main dirt road but took a different trail than the one we came in on. There were a few more obstacles on this trail but nothing major. As always the scenery along all the trails was excellent

and we saw many flowering cacti.

Hedgehogs.

 

Beaver Tails

 

And Chollas

 

Joanne got a first hand lesson about Chollas she had two of them stuck in her tennis shoes. Some of the spines went through the shoe and into her toes. They had to be removed with pliers.
 
We also got to see a rare Desert Iguana.

Such a beautiful Lizard.

The ride was great and when we got home Connie and Bruce fixed us a wonderful steak dinner.

Tomorrow Dave, Bruce, Dennis and I are going on another ride. This time we are going to the Plomosa mountains.

The women are going to Lake Havasu City to shop.

“Flash Update”
Our neighbor Vicky came over a couple of days ago and asked me if I new anything about turtles, and if there were any in the desert. 
I told her that as far as I knew, other than desert tortoises, the only turtle that I knew of in our area was out pet turtle, Flash, who we had put in our pond.
She said that while she was walking her dog in the wash he stopped to sniff at some thing and upon investigating she saw that it was a turtle. She went into her trailer and brought it out and sure enough it was Flash. I don’t know how long it had been in the wash because we hadn’t seen Flash for some time. Flash is pretty reclusive and doesn’t show himself much.
We put Flash back in the pond and it seemed to be very happy to be back in the water. It rapidly swam around for a while before heading for the bottom and the safety of the rocks. I have seen him only once since then.