April 12, 2023 A Colorful Hike at Granite Mountain, One Rattlesnake & 25 Diamondbacks.

Today's hike is at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. We started at the Granite Mountain Trailhead. We hiked out on the Bootlegger Trail up to the Scenic View. That's where Debbie left us to hike all the way around Granite Mountain. George, Christy & I hiked back along the Granite Mountain Loop Trail. This was a perfect weather day and a very colorful hike. 

Not far from the trailhead and the fat guy pictured in shadow form is already falling behind. 

This hike has so many interesting things to photograph. Since we are hiking up Granite Mountain, there are huge boulders scattered along the trail...

....which has so many interesting desert plants.

The Saguaro Cactus grow tall here.

I only appear in shadow form today.

Colors all over the mountain today.

I think George stayed with Christy and me to make sure we made it back to the car.

Still hiking up Granite Mountain.

More colors along the trail.

I used George for perspective on the height of this Saguaro. Then didn't get the whole cactus in the photo.

This Saguaro was thick. I liked the blue sky as a backdrop for this photo.

Even Cactus have feelings. It looked to me like the dying Saguaro is hugging the living one which is holding it up.

At times during this hike, I had no idea where the rest of my group was until I spotted them along the trail.

The deep blue sky happens when shooting with the sun at my back...

...the light blue sky is when I shoot into the sun.

The scenery along these trails was amazing in every direction. 

Teddy-bear Cholla

The Teddy-bear Cholla seems to grow more in the flat desert areas at the base of Granite Mountain.

I played around with some black & white shots. This one looked better in B&W.

I finally found George & Christy.

Now I lost Christy who is ahead of George and me. We are talking and I'm taking pictures as we walk down the trail. I am ahead of George.

Then I hear something hiss followed by a distinct rattling sound. 

I jump as high as a fat white boy can and start high-stepping it down the trail. George says it coiled up and started to lunge at me but then retracted. I went back to take this photo because I'd never gotten a photo of a rattlesnake. The snake slithered away soon after this photo.

Once my heart stopped racing, we continued walking back to the trailhead.

The colorful Granite Mountain

The Saguaro is an endless source of amazement.

We found Christy on our way back down. 

Then we found Debbie and this friendly lady with her horse.

She asked me to take a picture of her and the horse. After talking with the stewards who volunteer at the trailheads. We headed back to Hotel Arizona to clean up for our next adventure.  

We spent the afternoon at Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

We had a lot of fun with the group sitting behind us. One of them was obviously from Boston and made me laugh whenever he spoke.

The home team beat the Brewers...

...and we drove back to Deb & George's house in this old bullpen car.

April 11, 2023 Desert Botanical Garden and Our Search for the Salt River Wild Horses

We spent the morning walking around the beautiful Desert Botanical Garden. Out of all the places I have visited, the desert has the strangest plants. I am amazed that such a hot & dry place can be so full of a wide array of plant life.

“The desert, when the sun comes up. I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.“ - Tom Hanks

"Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest."- James Lovelock

“But in the desert, in the pure clean atmosphere, in the silence – there you can find yourself.” - Father Dioscuros

“If a flower can flourish in the desert, you can flourish anywhere.”- Matshona Dhliwayo

"True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... to find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing."- Baltasar Gracian

“The desert is a natural extension of the inner silence of the body.”- Jean Baudrillard

"When you are young, there is so much ahead of you, it's like the Saharan desert. You can't even see across it."- Henry Rollins

"Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance."- Will Durant

“All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation.”- Paulo Coelho

"Too much good fortune can make you smug and unaware. Happiness should be like an oasis, the greener for the desert that surrounds it."- Rachel Field

“A rose in a desert can only survive on its strength, not its beauty.”- Matshona Dhliwayo

“What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.”- Edward Abbey

"Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert."- Khalil Gibran

"Life is a desert of shifting sand dunes. Unpredictable. Erratic. Harmony changes into dissonance, the immediate outlives the profound, esoteric becomes cliched. And vice versa."- Ella Leya

“Like water in the desert is wisdom to the soul.” - Edward Counsel

"You should not see the desert simply as some faraway place of little rain. There are many forms of thirst."- William Langewiesche

“The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it.”- Robert Edison Fulton JR

“A flower blooming in the desert proves to the world that adversity, no matter how great, can be overcome.”- Matshona Dhliwayo

"Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light."- Joyce Carol Oates

"I have never been in a natural place and felt that it was a waste of time. I never have. And it's a relief. If I'm walking around a desert or whatever, every second is worthwhile."- Viggo Mortensen

"The vast sage desert undulates with almost imperceptible tides like the oceans."- Frank Waters

"I love the desert and its incomparable sense of space."- Robyn Davidson

“This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought.”-T. E. Lawrence

"High Alpine meadows, like their near relatives prairie, desert and certain varieties of wetland, teach us to consider the world from a fresh perspective, to open our eyes and take account of what we have missed, reminding us that, in spite of our emphasis on the visual in everyday speech, we see so very little of the world."- John Burnside

“If seeds waited for perfect conditions to grow, there would be no plants in the desert.”- Matshona Dhliwayo

"One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams."- Antione De Saint-Exupéry

“Desert… is a very good place to find yourself. Or lose yourself”.- Maynard James Keenan

"The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom."- Edward Abbey

“There were no lies here. All fancies fled away. That's what happened in all deserts. It was just you, and what you believed.”- Terry Pratchett

“In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen.”- Mehmet Murat Ildan

"I'm most passionate about anything to do with nature and the simple things. I love taking walks with my family or my friends and seeing nature. And that's why I love living where I live because I live up in the desert area in the mountains."- Atticus Shaffer

We spent the afternoon driving along the Salt River looking for the wild horses. Unfortunately, all the recreation areas along the river were closed due to recent flooding. We did stop at Saguaro Lake for a few minutes. These are the only decent photos I took there.