A great ride

Wow did we have a great ride on Monday! We rumbled out of Augie's Quail Trail RV Park at about 10 AM, with Ron and Jean leading, followed by Dale and Donna, then Jim and Phyl, us, Bob and Mary Jo (all on ATVs), with Ted and Colleen bringing up the rear in their Jeep. What a great group.

Here is Ellen at one of our breaks. The ride was so good because of the variety of terrain, no dust because of the recent rains, and a lot of driving in washes.

We must have seen thousands of Saguaros---but this is one of the many 'teddy bear' cholla we saw, especially near the area of the abandoned cabin. Out in the middle of nowhere is this beat up cabin with hundreds of the chollas around. The former residents had a magnificent view of a valley.

If you look closely you'll see small 'puffs' of yellow which are stickery balls dropped from the cactus to aid in reseeding. Some of these plants get to be over 6 feet tall.

The abandoned cabin. We are happy with our 5th wheel thank you.

We also were treated to two "crested' saguaros. A crest is formed when the main body and arms fuse. The reason for this is not clear, but it makes for a really interesting anomaly. The technical term for the cresting is "fasciated".

Notice one arm is drooping. This is caused by a dangerous frost, where the arm becomes spongy when thawed. The sponginess causes the arm to be unable to support the weight.

This crested saguaro has a much more symmetrical crown. We had a great day, and the weather was just right.