Well, Bill is off in Santa Fe helping Bucky take out some rides - when it isn't snowing!  I hoped to get caught up on blogging while he was away.  Found some of our vacation pictures and thought I would share the beauty of the desert.

Everything was in bloom!

...the cholla,

a mix of cactus,

and LOOK OUT for these...jumping cholla.

We were camping at our favorite place close to Deejo's, in the White Tanks Regional Park, just outside Surprise, AZ.  A couple years ago we camped there with the horses and these things attacked us!  Fortunately, Deejo had warned us to not touch them with bare hands; use a needlenose pliars (Bill's Leatherman worked quite nicely) to remove the little spiney beasts that hook themselves into everything they touch.  This time we made sure to not get within their grasp.

Oops...caught somebody sleeping.  Well, it had been an exhausting morning, by the time we had packed up and moved.  Seems as if we had camped in the wrong spot the night before.  We didn't have the horses with us so we couldn't camp in the horse area; we needed to be in family camping.  Gotta say-it was much quieter in the horse area (nobody there), no kids screaming.  However, the family site did have really nice showers with lots of hot water!  See the pretty new tent.  It actually only takes less than 5 minutes to set up or tear down; it's kind of an octopus looking contraption with all the legs attached.  What a great idea.  A pop-up 8-man tent, but it holds a queen size air mattress and a couple of chairs plus room for dog to spread out.  It's not the horse trailer, but a good substitute when the trailer has to be left behind.  More later.....

Juanita