Days
46 - 52, Monday – Monday, March 4 – 11, Catalina State Park, Oro Valley, AZ
Our favorite park in Arizona!
We have already reserved a week for next year. You have to reserve after midnight a year
ahead to get a spot! There is lots of
water in the wash this year, so we are not able to hike up into the hills, but
there is plenty of walking to do on our side of the wash. More flowers everywhere, and blooming cactus.
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| Catalina Mountains, walking near our campsite, lots of wild mustard! |
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| Finally sunshine on our trip! |
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| View of the Catalina Mountains from our campsite. |
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| Sunset over 3Z. |
We
enjoyed riding our bikes out of the campground and up Tangerine Hill on the
bike path, then up into neighborhoods where construction is still going
on. We also rode the path south 11
miles, to the Arizona Control Modelers Park, a big model airplane park. It was too windy this year for Jim to fly
there. Jan and Dwayne rode their bikes
on the paths as well, sometimes with us and sometimes on their own.
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| View of the Catalinas from the Tangerine Bike Path |
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| We did see irrigation drip systems along here! |
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| So many flowers! The serious bikers bike on the road, not the path! |
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| Can you see the Roadrunner? Middle of the picture on the fence! |
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| Great sign! |
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| Bridge over the wash on the bike trail. |
I went on a Birding Walk, led by a volunteer. It is so helpful to have many experienced eyes looking for birds. I saw a Hutton’s Vireo, which I had never seen before. We also saw Cardinals, Pyrrhuloxia, and Vermillion Flycatchers. We had lots of Verdins at our bird feeder right outside the MH window, and lots of Lesser Goldfinches at the campsite birdfeeder. The doves are always sure to keep the seed under the feeder cleaned up. The Gila Woodpeckers managed to get some seed, too, even though the birdfeeder is too small for them. Lots of fluttering!
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| Our birding leader and friend! Lots of birds in that brush. |
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| We saw lots of Evening Primrose on the walk. |
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| I thought this stick looked like a critter! |
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| Lots of birds up in the brush and the saguaro cactus. |
I
went to a very good Geology talk. The
Catalina Mountains are volcanic, and all the big rocks we saw along the trails
here were brought down off that mountain by water, various storms. (We had some rain while we were here, it was
kind of cold. There was even snow on Mt.
Lemon.) I had thought the rock here had
been carried by glaciers, as is so common in our Pacific Northwest, but the
glaciers never came this far south. On
the ground where water has come through, you can see fine black sand,
magnetite, in streaks, as it settles out because it is heavier. Our lecturer had a magnet in a plastic bag,
and the magnetite really stuck to it!
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| Learning about the Geology of the area. |
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| These rocks were brought down by water from the mountains above. |
The last day Jim and I went on a walk on the Nature Trail at the north end of the park, seeing more flowers and more blooming cactus. Jim
took lots of cactus photos and made a great tutorial to send to his
grandkids. They also get postcards of
our travels.
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| Still working on the plane project on rainy or windy days! |
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| Buckhorn Cholla blooming |
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| Fishhook, or Barrel Cactus |
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| More flowers blooming in the dry, rocky desert. |
