Reward after a hard hike

 

We had to take two pictures to get all four of us at the start of yesterday's hike on the Lower Tanque Verde Canyon Trail. We were smiling then, but not as we dragged ourselves back up out of the canyon hours later!

It was a short trail, but very steep and very rocky, and sometimes we lost the trail altogether and had to find our way through the rock rubble. There were a lot of steep slippery gravel areas, so I tried to keep my footing on solid rocks. 

But once at the bottom, we found some beautiful swimming holes and pools. That's as far as Tere and I went, but Beth and Barb forged on toward the falls. They staggered back much later, reporting that it was pretty scary in parts due to slippery boulders and no path. I had read the reviews earlier and decided I didn't want to do that.

But the worst was yet to come, because we had to climb all the way up to the top of the canyon, and it was really steep and near 80 degrees under hot sun.

Here's a funny little saguaro in the canyon. I think it looks like a cartoon creature of some sort.

We finally made it out, cranked up the air conditioning in our cars (it was almost an hour's drive but because of Covid we didn't carpool), and headed out to Agua Caliente Park. 

It was an oasis in the desert with stunning green-blue ponds fringed with giant palms. Agua Caliente means "hot water" and gets its name from the hot spring that feeds the ponds.

We pulled out our picnic lunches and sat at a shady picnic table after the luxury of using a real restroom!

I spotted this turtle sunning itself on a rock.

And we saw this spectacular succulent with the most unusual orange-yellow blooms. It's identified on a park website only as an aloe. See www.friendsofaguacaliente.org for more info about the history of the park.

There's also color in my courtyard because I planted a few flower pots. And the sunset a few nights ago from the courtyard was spectacular.

 

Have a colorful day