Desert Flowers

It was our, well, mine anyway, intention yesterday to check out what was blooming in the desert. And we did stop to take a few pictures while we were still in the Valley of the Sun. As we got up to higher colder altitudes, we did not see much blooming.

There were several patches of penstemons (Penstemon pseudospectabilis) alongside the road --

A member of the figwort family, the penstemon variety in the Arizona desert sports a rose-purple hue.

Nearby was a Fairyduster (Calliandra eriophylla) shrub. Also known as False Mesquite, it has very dainty, feathery pink blooms --

Later we began to see patches of yellow and bunches of Desert Marigolds --

Desert multiradiata  is said to be one of the commonest bloomers gracing the desert roadsides  --

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I am looking forward to more desert explorations in the next few weeks. The Sonoran Desert is truly a treasure of flowers in the spring.

Crossing Arizona's Desert Country

This morning we got everything put away ready to travel, said good-bye to Patty, the mastiff, and headed west. Instead of going directly to I10 and then to I8, we took Highway 287 then Highway 84 and drove the two lane road through farming country until it met up with Interstate 8. Since the rains of the last week, the farmers are out tilling ground. The fields are very flat and are rill irrigated. We could see remnants of last year's cotton fields and recognise pecan trees, but other than that have no idea what is being grown.

After we were out of the farming area and past the Sonoran Desert area, we began to run into large dairies and HUGE feedlots full of Holsteins. There were literally acres of them. This picture is a long ways off, but you can get a bit of an idea of how far they stretch.

We are at the M&M RV Village in Wellton, Arizona where we will stay for two nights then head on towards California.

This is another one of those sort of funky places, not very pricey, but right close to the railroad tracks. There appears to be two rail lines that meet up here. There's lots of switching with trains setting over to the side while others pass the other way. It seems like there is a train every 30 minutes or so!