Another Windy Day

Male Gambel's Quail at the watering hole on our property

Good thing I grabbed a light jacket on the way out this morning; 52 F with a strong wind made it feel cold in the desert.  Two women hikers who turned up a trail we were going to take forced Becca and I to bushwhack through a huge arroyo, which turned out to be a nice detour.  The label on the empty bottle of wheat beer we discovered in the outback reveals that the beverage is colored with Cochineal Extract, which is a red dye that comes from the Cochineal, a scale insect that infests Prickly Pear Cactus.  In Mexico it is cultivated for the red dye it produces.  I would never have guessed the dye was used to give a "grapefruit" color to beer.

Cholla flowers in our yard

Prickly Pear flower near our hacienda

Hiking along the western flank of Tortugas (Tortoise) Mountain

The deep arroyo we hiked beside to get to this vantage point

Ready to cross through a deep gulley

Gate #2 on the road to the mountaintop (keeps unauthorized vehicles out)

Rainbow Hedgehog Cactus

Soaptree Yuccas are blooming all over the desert

Closeup of the Yucca (Bishop Cap in background)

Spotting a couple of other desert trekkers

Tortugas Mountain from the west

Who brings a grapefruit-flavored wheat beer into the outback?

Colored with cochineal extract (Cochineal is a bug on Prickly Pear Cacti)

The Mesquite Trees indicate clearly where an arroyo runs

The greener area is where plants grow alongside an arroyo

Into the sandy bottom of an arroyo

Arroyos are where moisture resides in the desert

Shady respite

Becca loves to explore sandy arroyos

Heading north up an arroyo west of the mountain

Where water flows after a storm in the desert

These are Javelina (Collared Peccary) tracks in the sand

Plant life near an arroyo

Tarantula Hawk (a spider wasp that preys on Tarantulas)

Demise of an old friend

Another heavy wind might topple this Torrey Yucca onto the Crosscut Trail

Starting off there was one car in the lot (I count eighteen at hike's end)