The Desert is Blooming

With a few days of rain and some warmer weather here, the desert is greening up and blooming. There are a few saguaros on the edge of an rv park here that have budded out and we have been watching them for blooms. The blooms only last for a day and we haven't seen any of them out in the desert with buds on them yet. We finally caught one of them blooming a few days ago.

One day this week we went to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge on a Jeep trek. The day was rainy so we didn't get to do the planned hike to Palm Valley while we were there, but we will try to return for that.

Ocotillo cactus in bloom.

We drove up several canyons surround by rock cliffs.

This one is called Skull Rock.

Janice and friends in the skull's mouth.

Since it was raining that day, we were able to see this waterfall coming down the mountain. It flowed down through a series of smaller falls over the rocks closer to the trail. I have a video of that, but for some reason, it won't let me post it here.

Agave.

We took another trek later in the week when the weather was much nicer.
Organ pipe cactus in bloom.

I'm not sure what kind of cactus this is, but it was the only one we saw blooming.

Not sure what this bush is, it has a small red berry like holly.

Do you see the critter in this picture?

How about now? Horned toad looking at you!

Janice and a friend took a Jeep up a mountain trail and she took the next few pictures up there.
A little cactus by Janice's foot.

This was a well in the middle of nowhere by the trail. Looked pretty deep.

Well, we are scheduled to leave here in a month. Not sure what will be happening then with the virus situation. Many campgrounds are closing now, so people that are traveling now are having problems finding places to stay overnight on the road. Saylorville Lake where we volunteer in the summer is delaying opening its campgrounds for now and they have no answers yet on if volunteers are going to be able to stay there when they arrive for the summer. We are fortunate to have our driveway in Sioux City or Miller's driveway in DesMoines where we could stay for awhile if we need to quarantine  ourselves. We also have the option to stay here longer. Food and other supplies have been available here so far, and we could live for awhile in what we have in the motorhome. For now, we are going to keep ourselves busy here and not worry about it for a month or so. I'm sure that things won't be back to normal then, but at least they might be more stable.