Desert Walk
Saturday was a cloudy but pleasantly warm day so we set out to walk the trail in the afternoon. You can see for miles and here's a view of The Fountain in Fountain Hills which is about 10 miles away.
We noticed that the Teddy Bear cactus had lots of little babies laying around. My hunch is that these "seeds" are waiting for rain to scatter them and get them growing...or they latch onto some unsuspecting helper like me! One of these little balls attached itself to my tennis shoes and I had to get out the tweezers to pull the spikes out :)
After about a mile I was looking for a park bench but the only thing around was this old Saguaro. Later I realized this was probably not a smart place to sit :)
As we returned to the campground we stopped where a group of people were watching this guy cross the street.
All the locals said that this tarantula is harmless...in fact is desirable to have in your yard because he'll eat the "bad" insects. Guess it depends on your point of view. I thought ...geez, he might have been resting in that dead Saguaro! To give you perspective, he's about the size of the palm of your hand and headed away from me. Good thing!
It wasn't a good sunset night, too cloudy, so we started our campfire early, had some snacks and roasted dogs over the fire. The evening ended with a DJ session that lasted til 10 and by then we were falling asleep to the sound of Andrea Bocelli. Life in the desert is tough.