Green Zebra

Do you know what a Tom Car is? It is just plain fun! These are the rigs that Green Zebra runs on their desert tours. Originally made for the Israeli Armed Forces, they are incredible all-terrain rigs. Seating two people (the guide had a four seater), you drive yourselves on some of the roughest, most fun roads I've ever been on.

This is us at the end of the trip. You can tell by the grins how much fun we had --

There were five rigs waiting when we arrived at Fort McDowell Adventures. We drove the one with the cooler that you can see in the middle.

This is part of the complex where we had gone to the First Friday Franks a couple of weeks ago.  You can see the stables in the background.

This is John, our guide and lead driver. There were three other couples.

Off we go, into the 28,000 acres of the Yavapai Apache Reservation. Part of the Sonoran Desert, this can be a VERY dusty ride. But we were fortunate because of yesterday's rain, we had minimal dust. And didn't have to use the souvenir bandanas we were given.

The reservation grounds are closed to the public and have actually been a reserve for over fifty years. The tribe does run cattle here and have created these trails.

There are some incredible saguaro cacti here. The guide estimated this one could be more than 350 years old.

There were some pretty good size rocks in much of the road -- and we didn't slow down!

There are between 70-120 wild horses - depending upon who you talk to - on the reservation. These are descendants of the US Calvary horse used at Fort McDowell in the eighteen hundreds. This beauty stopped when she saw us to pose for her picture -

One of the corrals for working cattle scattered throughout the mesquite trees -

This was the first time we have gotten to see any of the land around Eagle View RV Resort. All of the reservation land is posted and is off-limits to non-tribal members. It was fun to see some of it and even more fun to ride the Tom Cars. We had a great time!