This is my second post on our trip to southeast Arizona. This one covers Aravaipa Canyon, which was the main reason for our trip.
We left for the canyon at around 7:30, but we had a frustrating event that delayed us. There were two trucks going into the canyon; one pickup truck, followed by a large truck with a crane towing a chipper. They stopped in the middle of the one lane dirt road past the first parking lot, which is for four wheel drive vehicles only, and then took off in the lead truck. We couldn’t get around the big truck, and were stuck waiting behind them for almost an hour! When they came back, they backed the truck with trailer to the side of the road with barely enough room for us to get by. Yarrgh! It turns out they were lost, and went down the wrong road. We didn’t get into the canyon to hike until about 10:30 AM.
The canyon was gorgeous, as always. This post has more pictures than I like. There are 14 landscape views of the canyon. I was going to pick fewer, but Mary Ann suggested I include them all, and you can scan through them if you want.
We hiked in about 2.6 miles (3.5 hours), ate lunch, and hiked out. We got to the car about 4 PM. The drive back to the hotel was about a two hour drive. For dinner we got the Diamondbacks promotion free ‘jumbo jack’ at Jack in the Box. We ate in our hotel room, while we watched the Phoenix Suns lose game four of their play-off series with the Mavericks.
The next day we went to the town of Portal, which will be the subject of my next post.
5 Comments
I love the hawk with her baby!
Me too! We can thank Mary Ann for spotting that nest.
Springwater dancer! Great color! How do you find the names of all these? Does it take long? Amazing!
GREAT photos!
Jill
Thanks! For the dragonflies I mostly use this site: azdragonfly.org. It’s a really great site! That Springwater Dancer is a very small and easily overlooked. But if you take the time to look, it’s beautiful. (the camera with the long lens helps!).
Yes, it sometimes takes a long time to identify the dragonflies, flowers, birds, and butterflies. Sometimes there are multiple species that look similar, and sometimes I can’t find one that looks like my photograph, so I keep searching. I can’t guarantee that I get them right. If I’m not sure, in the end, after a lot of searching and comparing, I make my best guess. I think I spend more time post-processing my photos than I do taking them!
If you’re interested, you can look on the ‘Links’ tab on this site. It has some links that I use for identification. I also have some field guide books I use for birds, and butterflies.
Thanks!
MJ