Thursday, March 12, 2015

Exploring the Colorado River Indian Reservation. 03-12-15

 

We met the Wednesday group at the Carl’s Jr. at the west end of town around 9:00.

Once everyone was ready, we headed west on I-10.

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We left the freeway at Ehrenburg and stopped at the Flying J to let those who needed gas to top off their tanks (Dennis).

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Once the tank was filled and the women were back from the restroom we headed north on the Ehrenburg / Parker Road.

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We drove for several miles and eventually turned east on a dirt road and drove through farmland heading for some sand hills.

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Large flocks of starlings were evident in the fields.

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We took a few roads that were dead ends. One particular trail went up a steep sandy hill.

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Everyone had some trouble getting to the top but we all eventually made it.

You can see from this picture just how soft the sand is on this hill.

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Unfortunately when we got to the top there was no where to go from there. We looked all around but couldn’t find a trail going down the other side.

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There were good views of the sandy hills

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and the farmland below us.

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While we were wandering around on top of the hill some one found a Horned Toad.

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These little lizards are usually fairly drab but this guy was particularly colorful.

Eventually we got down off this hill and continued our exploration.

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We got onto a power line road and headed east.

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As we drove along we noticed a large nest on one of the power poles.
if you look closely you can see some kind of bird in the nest. At first we thought it was a hawk but it looks more like a dove. The construction of the nest would indicate that it was probably a dove.

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About a mile further down the road we saw a nice big hawk on one of the poles.

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There was another nest farther down the road.

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I have no idea what kind of bird is in this one.

After wandering around for a while we decided to stop for lunch. Insert obligatory lunch picture here.

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After lunch we wandered around taking several trail that went nowhere.

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Oops, I think that is the end of this trail

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As we were wandering around we saw some Beaver Tail Cactus in bloom.

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Eventually we got onto a trail heading south. We drove around and around

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and up and down for a while. Eventually we came to the Tyson wash and headed for home.

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The sky was interesting all day; at some times it looked like it would rain

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but the temperature was in the high 70’s.

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It was another fun day playing in the desert.

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