Mammoth's Arizona Adventure, Day 8

Wed 3/15

Anna's Hummingbird!  Ed spotted it, working the bushes. it seemed to like the little yellow flowers.

Constant stream of traffic, going east, going west, going. I want to be going on, not going back. To Oregon, maybe--I've never been to Oregon. Or the western Canada coast. Or Alaska. Going!

I want to be at home, taking care of my plants, rubbing my cats, watching my birds and hoping for migrants. But even more, I want to be moving on.

LATER

Tomorrow is Edward's last day of class, yippee!  By this time tomorrow, he may be headed home.

Not us, though. We're at Rockhound State Park. We had a long, slow drive which shouldn't have been so long nor so slow. There was a "6-minute" slowdown on I-10 which turned into a 30 or 40-minute slowdown by the time it was over. Just road construction with a lane closed, so it shouldn't have taken so long.

We weren't in a hurry, though. We arrived with a blow coming through--very strong wind and rain threatening. All in all, there was problem one-one-thousandth of an inch of rain total, and then it blew itself out. The wind is still blowing now, but no longer a full-force gale.

It's a great place. Wide-open vistas, lots of bumpy things close and far (not exactly mountains) and rocks galore. Big boulders, little pebbles, and everything in between. 

 

Molly and I took a long walk up the trails, mostly in search of a windbreak. When we went in a cirle around on the right-hand trail, the wind stopped a time or two. But after a while we were so far off course with the winding trails amid the rocks that I decided to turn back. The fact that it was spitting rain by then influenced my decision.

So I put my hood back on and cinched it back up, then returned to the trailhead. There we sat in a shelter while I called my brother, then we started up the trail that went more or less directly up the side of the biggest hill. We found a magnificent windbreak leeward of a huge boulder.-
   

But eventually went on. Oddly, it grew warmer as we went higher and I was able to take my hood off.  Lots of birds but very hard to see. I got a great view of a Cactus Wren and also several good views of the black-throated sparrows all over. Those birds are handsome!

Also others, but they always managed to duck under the rocks and out of sight.

Sigh. Return to gumbo, made a week earlier and preserved in the freezer. Marvelous. Camping is the life.

We took another walk at sunset. The wind was less fierce, but chillier.  A pair of ravens soared silently overhead, with only two gentle croaks to tell me they were there. Heavy clouds with only a streak or two of orange, but lovely. Twittering in the bushes.

And that pretty much marks the end of the trip. Oh, we have two more stops on our way home, but they're just stops, not destinations. An RV park and then a Texas State Park we've been to before. It was convenient and cheap, and that's all I remember. But maybe we'll see flowers there, too. Lots of 'em here!