Some Desert Blooms

Hubby and I did a bit of desert geocaching this week. We needed to clean up some of the geocaches near us before we head north. The temps were also more appealing to geocaching in the desert. I did not bring my big camera, only had the ol' iPhone. With the glare of the sun I wasn't certain how good the photos would be in the end. Here is the result of the phone photos...

staghorn cholla

bee visiting the flower

hedgehog cactus blooms

Hubby's favorite cactus flowers

this holey saguaro caught my eye

I don't believe I have seen a saguaro

with a hole from front to back

that wasn't chewed holes

clouds provided interest on the Supes

the desert isn't very green after the 10 days of 90º+

We are off on another geo adventure later this week - back to Nevada and the ET Highway. 

San Carlos

After realizing we had missed the peak of the blooming poppies on Peridot Mesa, the four of us were excited about exploring the community we could see off in the distance.

San Carlos

murals on the building next to the skate park

San Carlos Indian Hospital

closed

Catholic church

San Carlos Apache

Roman Catholic Community

Sunday Services 9 A.M.

shingle says Attorney General

the elementary school

there was also a middle school

the high school was not in San Carlos, but out of town

Grace Lutheran Church, Wisconsin Synod

this church did NOT look active

more adobe buildings with security fence

the airport

the Catholic church was quite large

used car lot?

the poverty was visible & abundant in the community

10 miles down the road was the casino

Apache Gold Casino and Resort

statue at the casino golf course

looking for the cache

fruit on a barrel cactus

fruit held hundreds of tiny black seeds

about the size of radish seeds

name of the golf course

Apache Stronghold Golf Resort

It was an interesting drive. If there is a lot of rain early next winter, we will head east much earlier in March. At their peak, the mesa hillsides were covered in orange poppies. Oh well, we got to see an area we had not seen before.

Peridot Mesa

Last Sunday we took another road trip to check out the wild poppy blooms at Peridot Mesa. A fellow CV friend had posted some amazing photos of his trip on March 14th. He must have hit the perfect time as photos from other friends the next weekend did not show the abundance of poppies. We decided to go anyway, even if we had missed the peak season.

Peridot Mesa is on the San Carlos Indian Reservation southeast of Globe. We had been on the same highway when we visited Stafford AZ back in January.

We left the highway and drove a well traveled dirt road for about a mile to reach the top of the hill. Other cars were on top of the hill letting us know our exact destination.

 This group of five had walked the one+ mile from the highway to the top of the mesa. They were heading down to the entrance off the highway. An older motorhome was parked there.

Walking barefoot is what caught our attention. The ground was littered with broken glass and lava rock. I asked the one guy why he did the walk barefoot with all the glass? He replied, "Because we can." OK.

 the colors appealed to me

I don't know the names

if I were to look them up

you'd never see this post!

the flowers of the poppies at Peridot Mesa were

about the size of a quarter

much smaller than the poppies we see in our area

which are about the size of a half-dollar

looking to the northeast from the mesa

this flower had gone to seed

looking to the southwest

more wildflower varieties

we drove down the mesa on the north side

into the valley

only a few poppies were left

saw this good smelling flower while getting a geocache in Globe

don't know its name either

After driving off the mesa into the valley we came to the community of San Carlos. Those photos are the next post.

Geo Road Trip - Part 2

At 2:00 we met caching friends Jon & Sherry who are living in Globe this winter and went with us in January on the geo road trip to get the last two AZ counties. Joining us were CV geo-friends Jim & Cheri, whom we cached with in Yuma in 2016. Each of them had a geocache they wanted to work as a group. Either they had been there before with no success or someone in the group had a special skill to help in locating the cache. The eight of us met in a business parking lot in downtown Globe. Our first goal was to locate a cache in the dirt cellar of a business.

3 of the guys had crawled into the cellar

from the sidewalk after opening the metal grate

Hubby is headed to the truck to get a TOTT

(tool of the trade in geocaching language)

Sherry climbing into the cellar

Kaye also climbed in

deep enough to stand up

no water and no noticeable critters

Sherry coming out of the cellar

Kaye coming out of the cellar

our HERO emerging

Gene found the cache

Jim climbing out

and there is the TOTT

last out was Jon

We were on a high after that find! Prior to Gene getting his hands on the container, the cache had not been found since September of 2015. Seven people had tried, but not succeeded. 

Then it was off to another tricky cache. I and others knew from the description some serious math skills would be needed. I had no idea how serious!

over the river and thru the woods...

this one involved crossing a stream

Hubby was prepared with another TOTT -

 water proof rubber boots

isn't that neat?

the group at work

with the help of Siri, Google, son & granddaughter

in college, PAF (phone a friend)...

we FINALLY solved this one

I don't know what some of those symbols mean

it truly was a group effort as no one of our resources

had the correct answer for all three needed numbers,

 but putting it all together...we got it

Then we drove around Globe finding the puzzle caches I had solved prior to our geo-trip and adding some much appreciated cache finds to our individual totals. Everyone contributed in one way or another that afternoon. It truly was a group effort AND a great time!

Then we stopped at Carol's home (Jon's Mom) and enjoyed her beautiful backyard oasis.

lots of daisies amongst the irises

enjoying beverages and the day's successes

clay quail family

Later, we gathered at a local Mexican restaurant for the meet and greet, the final piece of the day. Four local geocachers came to the event. Three of them were the owners of most of the caches we found that afternoon in Globe. It was fun to discuss and share our adventures. Also attending were four geocachers from north Phoenix who come to all my geo-events. Hubby and I added 24 caches to our total on this Geo-Road Trip to Globe. Thanks Sherry (and Jon) for hosting and providing the incentive for this FUN adventure.