Wednesday, March 12…Desert Road (Casting Crowns)

 

   I put some nectar out in the feeders yesterday before we went on our ride. They weren’t filled but each feeder had at least 2 1/2” in it.  We got home to find three out of the four empty. Seriously?! What’s going on?  Well, when we were out talking to Wayne and Tina at about dusk, the numbers of hummers zipping around was amazing.  And after seeing six on a feeder at one time, I understood why the feeders got emptied so quickly.

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   Went to get piggy cookies today…bought extra to send to the grandkiddos…then I came back to camp, packaged them up and took them back to the Post Office.  The cookies were fresh when I bought ‘em…who knows how long it’ll take for the post office to deliver ‘em.  Oh, well, there are ways to deal with stale piggy cookies…on of the best ways is to put them in a bag with a slice or two of apple.  Softens the cookies and adds just a hint of apple taste to them.  

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   Coming back from Eloy, there was a back up on the overpass. Saw flashing lights and thought, “Uh-oh,  accident.”  But, no, it was an oversized load crossing the overpass, with the police on traffic control. Based on its positioning, I can only assume the incredibly long concrete I-beam came up the

exit ramp, then proceeded to cross the six lanes that make up the overpass to the on ramp to the highway. By the time I came on the scene, the cab of the truck was to the right of me on the highway on-ramp while the back of the truck was still on the exit ramp over to the left. And it was going so slow that guys were walking beside the back end of it, like crossing guards.  Don’t know what they were doing but obviously, they couldn’t walk beside it on the highway.  Because it was going so slow, I figured I could get up to the next overpass (one mile down the road) to watch it coming down the highway. But when I arrived, there was no sign of it in either direction!  I know it wasn’t a figment of my imagination because I managed to get a quick picture of it once it was totally on the merge lane.  And there was nowhere for it to go because there were no other exits and it would have stopped traffic big time if it’d tried to turn anywhere. It was over the length of two semi-trucks with no obvious pivot point in the trailer. In fact, if the driver could maneuver it around a corner, he or she deserves a gold star.  I’m baffled…simply baffled as to where it went. I have a hard time believing that the driver could have gotten it up to highway speed that quickly.  

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   We decided to go walking over by the petroglyphs on State Land off Houser Road. Partly cloudy sky, slight breeze with the temperature hovering around 70^o made for perfect conditions for walking around a mountain.  Not that we decided from the get-go to walk around the mountain area that is home to the petroglyphs; it just happened. 

   The State Land around Picacho, Eloy and Coolidge is where side-by-side (SxS) enthusiasts go to have their riding fun.  And the area out off Houser Road draws them in; in fact, there was a huge rally out that way over the weekend. There’s an actual gravel road leading to the area where the petroglyph rocks are located and beyond that there are well-worn tracks/roads all over the desert made by these vehicles. We parked by the petroglyphs and just followed an established trail which took us around the mountain. It was on the smallish side but it was a mountain all the same.  

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   In the past, the gravel road out to the petroglyphs has been in bad shape. It’s an established road but not necessarily maintained. Water has had its way with the road over the years, carving deep ruts and washouts which made the road navigable only by ORVs or high clearance vehicles. It was always a jarring experience. Today it was obvious that there’s been some work done on it since we were there last year…culverts have been installed and new gravel has been brought in which makes for a level road surface now. The sandier areas haven’t been improved but they weren’t the problem. It’s a pleasant drive now but I wouldn’t do it in my car.

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   Found a couple of geocaches on our ride today. The first was an easy peasy find but the second one was a bit trickier. But we persevered and Kim eventually found it.  So many more out there but we settled for two.

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   Saw three roadrunners, a bevy of fast-moving quail, lots of round-tailed ground squirrels (a lightbrown chipmunk type rodent), several hawks (one of which was enjoying its lunch on top of a saguaro cactus) and a couple of lizards. I’ve seen more roadrunners this year than all the other years combined, which is fun.  It’s very difficult to get a picture because they’re usually on the move but today one stopped long enough for me to grab the camera and get a shot. I said a sincere thank you to it which made it run off. 

   The cell cams are still popping off for no obvious reason.  Kim calls them “naked pictures”, I call them “fake pictures”.  There was a cottontail the very first night we had the Nutt Rd. camera in place and then there was a coyote sighting after we moved it but that’s the only wildlife we’ve seen on the cameras. Lots of pictures taken, but no animals.

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   No imaging again tonight…too cloudy again.