a few pictures from the Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park

There are numerous trails through the park that take you through different environments. That water on the ground comes from natural seeps running out of the rocks.

It's been a beautiful but chilly day again today it seems like for this winter in southern Arizona 70° has been a rarity.

I have to leave here on Wednesday. SKP's only allows seven nights of boondocking so I've got to hit the road. As much as I had rather go somewhere else I'm going to head back to Ben Avery's shooting range in Cave Creek Arizona and spend a couple of weeks there boondocking close to civilization so I can have a chance at being somewhere long enough to get some mail and packages, and having access to parts so I can try and fix my computer.

Phoenix has one of my favorite stores in the world which is Fry's Electronics which sells just about every computer part imaginable, so I'm hoping with Frys available, and a good address to send Amazon packages to I'll be able to get my main computer working again.

 Going back to Ben Avery's might not be all that bad because there are some areas where the flowers bloom around there if the conditions are right so maybe I'll be able to see some of those. But it appears for the most part it's still too early and it will probably be the middle of March before much starts to happen on the flower front.

theboondork    

This looks like a bunch of little bananas, but apparently their not. I ate one and all the hair fell off my head.... Or maybe it was gone before I got there, I can't remember. but the important thing is just because something in the desert looks like food, doesn't mean you should eat it. The things in the desert that don't look like food are what you're supposed to eat.

A tree climbing cactus. These are very rare and apparently climb the tree to escape being eaten by the Javelina

This is a grotesquely ugly thing that's named the "Ugly Pink Cactus".

This is a herd of cactus that rolls around looking for people to run over. They carry their pups on their back which causes them to make a bumping sound as they roll so it's easy to hear them coming even in the dark... I try to keep this blog educational so even someone who has never been to the desert will know what to expect when they get here. My motto is "you're never too old to learn until your dead and then its too late"

Not all cactus grows straight up, some cactus like this crawling cactus grows along the ground in search of food. It's main source of food is jackrabbits but it seldom grows fast enough to catch one which explains why it's so skinny. But it did manage to catch this rock because a rock is the only thing slower than a crawling cactus.