Cave Dwellings...Literally....We Found the Cave

   It got pretty chilly again last night..down to 33 degrees at 6:30AM...I wish I could change our bedroom TV channels with a remote from my reclined position . Unfortunately,I have to use the remote from the living room TV.  This means I have to creep out of bed and stand in the bedroom doorway to aim the living room remote in the direction of the receiver...every time I want to change the channel on our bedroom TV!...I crab about it a lot, but I still get up and do it! Den says it's on my side of the bed...oh, OK.
 Our weather was clear and sunny and I fixed us a big breakfast of biscuits, gravy, eggs and bacon..Hey, every once in a while we have to give Simvistatin a run for it's money... We took our walk and realized that this place is really getting busy compared to early January...

...I made the marinade for our grilled chicken dinner and zipped the chicken into the bag...Made a salad and will mix up good 'ol Stove Top Stuffing later this afternoon. I am notorious for prepping everything in the AM, so I don't have so much to do later. I make a great rub to put on chicken or pork, and that goes on about 3PM..then back into the fridge...Does this sound too much like the Food Network?? We do LOVE to eat!!...We call it tag team cooking... I prep, Dennis grills.
About 10:30 AM, with GPS in hand, we struck out to find the little "cave in the desert". (Our second trip...) Dennis thought he had figured it out after looking at Al's pics on his blog . (The key word in that last sentence is THOUGHT!)
 We never tire of wandering out into the Sonoran Desert. There is always a new adventure involved and this time I hoped it would be discovering the cave. FYI, there are tons of holes in the sand...deep ones...that could be a home for almost anything...and I think this "anything" probably had scales and fangs...

...and I knew nothing good would come of me sticking my nose in where it wasn't wanted...so I stepped back and moved on...It seemed that once we were a good distance from the campground, we were again dazed and confused about which direction to go. Dennis took control of the camera to see if he could zoom in with our lens to get a closer look at the mountain ahead We forgot our binoculars..He was getting frustrated because he couldn't see anything, until I politely pointed out he still had the lens cover on...I turned my back before I laughed. This is why I am the camera person, most of the time.I've NEVER done that...yea, right.
   We were having a slight disagreement on which small mountain to hike toward. One was to the Northeast and one to the Southeast. The mountain in the Northeast seemed way too far away to me, so we opted for MY mountain..This one seemed to look more like the one in the photos Al had taken....(my opinion)

....I WAS RIGHT ON!! I should know about caves, I gave birth to three..(sorry, but you had to expect our name in here somewhere!) We climbed up and walked around to the front, because we were told the cave opening was facing the campground...and ....WALLA!!! There it was!!

We had to climb up a bit of loose rock, but made it to the top....and what a view!!

..this is Den putting this location on his GPS..Here is the cave....

...note the rusty lawn chair on the left..The sticks are pieces of dried Ocotillo cactus that someone used to try and hide the opening...hmmmm..Here is a better shot of what we saw from the bottom...

...getting closer....

Some people would question whether this is actually what you could call a "cave"..It is not deep into the rock, but does offer shelter from the elements, and I am sure had been used many times for just that. There was a makeshift rock firepit that someone had made....

I just have to say again what a beautiful view we had from the cave opening....and what a gorgeous day to take this trip!!

...This view is looking West toward the RV park..You can see it in the distance. It is about 1 mile away..Unfortunately, we took the long way to get here...we had already walked about two miles through the desert to find it...the "scenic" route. That's just a way of saying we were almost lost again before my dead reckoning took us in the right direction.(Boy, am I gonna get it when Dennis reads this!!)
..OK, now it is time to document the fact that we were actually there...Smile, Dennis!...

...if  you look closely, you can see that we were a ways up in the  air. One small step for youngsters..One big step for out of breath Senior Citizens! Now it's my turn to take center stage...My close up , Mr. DeMille...

...let's not get too close, it gets very scary.
We could now cross off "hiking to the little cave" on Al's list of things to do while visiting Hickiwan...Finding the "Stoneman" in the desert remains on the list, but that won't happen today. Now it's time to hike the mile back to the RV park...
When we arrived back Den said that we had walked almost 4 miles on a hike that should have been 2 miles. We are definitley getting our exercise today! When we arrived back at our camper, we had big glasses of water and I felt the need to get into the sunshine..this time in the sitting position. We have already had quite a few adventures here in the Sonoran Desert. I know there are more ahead of us. If we don't find them, they manage to find us! We are going to sign up for another month here, which will take us until the 28th of February, and by then we will both be getting the wandering spirit. Two months is the longest we have ever stayed anywhere, but I feel the pull of the desert here, telling me not to leave yet.
And now, it is time to put my rub on the marinating chicken quarters...If we walked extra miles today does that mean we can eat more chicken?? Thanks again for tuning in...more tomorrow!