DOES A STONE "CROSS" COUNT?? PROBABLY NOT....

We woke up to beautiful skies after a cool night. After the required cup of java, we decided to take a hike into the Sonoran Desert in quest of the Stone Man...We have seen pictures of it on The Bayfield Bunch blog, and heard tell of it from others..Let's see if we can find it...
  We hadn't even made our first mile when we came across this gentleman...If he was looking for the Cross Country Skiing Event at Vancouver, I think he made a left turn off I-10 instead of a right...

...He also neglected to put on his skis..maybe that's what is in his pack...
This is another of the Cholla Cactus out here and it looks like the burros have been eating on it and dropping some of the needles they eat on the ground underneath it...

We continued on through a couple of draws and we happen to hear a helicopter. That means the Border Patrol is close. We looked up and I am sure he was just checking us out to make sure we were harmless Gringos. I have a feeling they would like to throttle all of us Gringos who wander through the Sonoran, causing many a Border Patrol Copter to make a detour , making sure we are legals...The bincoculars, camera, gray hair and white sneakers are a dead give away.

..Hi there Mr. Border Patrol...It's just us down here, you may carry on.
  We were winding our way through some very stony areas, becoming encouraged that we may stumble (literally) over the Stone Man. I happen to look just off to my right and saw large stones forming some figure....

..this is what I would call a stone cross...and fairly recently constructed..But, it was still a find for us, and I had to get a photo. We went East of the ridge and came across the area of Rose Quartz and lots of Organ Pipe Cactus. We had been here once before...Here is a good sample of the neat rocks you can find out here...

 ....and this is one HUGE and BEAUTIFUL Organ Pipe!!

..If you think I was REALLY leaning on this thing...think again..But isn't it a cool one?? As we were walking along I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw this out of the corner of my eye...

..At first glance it looks like an alligator, right? I know we were in the desert, but boy, this thing made my skin crawl...I know it's just a downed and dead Saguaro,but these "Desert 'Gators look like they are creeping across the sand after me...
..I never tire of walking in the desert here. The views are always vast and awe inspiring..I really hate to think we have to eventually leave this land of adventures...

...and here I am up on the ridge, looking back toward our campground across the Sonoran Desert.

We came upon these two holes in the ground. Den said they look like they may have been made by Coyotes...or possibly they were some kind of small animal den. I wasn't too keen on just standing over them and discussing what could suddenly come leaping ....or slithering..out of them. I quickly took this picture and made my OWN tracks out of there...!!!

...I don't know where they went, how deep they went, nor do I care...
 Even though we never found the Stone Man, we were having a great time. The weather was cooperating nicely and the sun wasn't all that hot yet. We found an area of many Prickly Pear Cactus, just all of a sudden....

...Dennis was ambushed by them....We crossed the large "draw" where the water finds it's way out of the mountain and onto the desert floor...

...These areas are really great for finding neat rocks. The water washes all kinds of different ones off the mountains and down into the valley. I found some neat ones here. The quartz just sparkle in the sunshine.

I call this "Ambush Alley"....can't you just see one of the old Westerns being filmed right here?? Remember the TV show "Cochise"?..and the Indian agent, Tom Jeffers.?(I think that was his name)..And now I am really dating myself!
I try my hand at getting good close up shots...This is one of the Chollas up close and personal....

...upon close examination, the quills on these things are really white.

I was walking along and thought I saw what appeared to be a cobweb on the ground, still sparkling from this morning's rare dew. Like a dufus, I poked at it with my toe and , lo and behold, it WAS a cobweb until I stupidly demolished it . I was really mad at myself for not getting a picture of it. Believe it or not..as luck would have it, I ran across another one shortly after and got my photo...What are the chances of that?

...something rare here, I am sure....It isn't a great shot, but we are considering to eventually get a digital single lens reflex camera...I need some new equipment!
You may recall that I have taken some photos of the A-10 Warthogs that fly over us here. I found out online that there is a squadron stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. They are the 354th Fighter Squadron Pilots who just came back from Kandahar, Afghanistan this last month.  ...If you are a warbird lover like me, here is a great link to their blog..
http://warthognews.blogspot.com/

Well, Den and I are about to take a bicycle ride around the park...then it's shower time..Oh, and before I close...This is one of my favorite shirts..and I wore it today..

.....and at the bottom, it says,"Do What You Like, Like What You Do"....and WE DO...more tomorrow!!