It’s Not Always Sunny in the Desert.

I have been accused (jokingly I hope) of doctoring my blog pictures in the past to showcase the brilliant Blue Skies we often see here in Arizona. Today was an abrupt change from all the sunshine we’ve seen this winter, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last week our club scheduled two hikes on Friday. A bunch of folks went on a hike along the base of the local mountains, but about 20 of us took a drive to Scottsdale to hike to Sunrise Peak. It’s about a 45 minute drive away but there was no way we wanted to get there early enough to see the actual Sunrise although someone in our group suggested it.

One of the oddest Barrel Cacti we’ve ever seen.

From the trail we could see far across the valley. This is Weaver’s Needle and the Superstition Mountains in front of our RV Park.

We had views of almost the entire Phoenix area. This is Scottsdale in the foreground.

A very nice little arch was above the trail.

This Saguaro can’t quite decide if it’s living or dying.

We weren’t far from Fountain Hills and saw the fountain a few times in our hours on the hillside.

Once we were done we drove past Saguaro Lake and stopped for lunch at the waterside restaurant. It was a very good day with more of the brilliant blue skies we are accustomed to.

A couple of days after the hike we celebrated Sylvia’s birthday with friends. It was the first party we have held at our Park Model and was a good time. We had room for 10, and should have even more room when we get our deck rearranged.

This is a Chiffon Cake and is Sylvia’s go-to for her Birthday. Since we haven’t been home to use an Electric Oven since 2010 it’s been that long since she’s been able to celebrate with her favorite cake. I’d like to take the credit for baking it, but I had a lot of help and supervision. It turned out great if you ask me.

And that brings us to today’s rather different type of hike. It started to rain last evening, and kept up most of the night. The forecast was for the rain to end by 8:00 so we decided to carry on with the hike to Fremont Saddle which is one of our Club’s favorites. Despite the weather not looking so good at the start we had 28 hikers show up, and started in cloudy, but dry weather.

The clouds kept on rolling in, and the overnight rainfall changed the colour of the hillsides quite a bit. It’s been pretty dry and dusty the year, as they haven’t had any decent amount of rainfall here since August.

We think this fella got hit by lightning, as there were huge arms fallen all around this stump. The 3 living arms were quite a surprise to see on a very dead looking skeleton.

We soon found ourselves walking in a fine mist and this soon became a steady shower, so eventually Sylvia and I put on our Rain Ponchos. The theory I used is just like when I wash my car. It’s guaranteed to rain as soon as I wash the car, so I figured it would stop raining as soon as we donned our ponchos.

Sure enough the rain soon stopped and by the time we reached the top we had repacked our ponchos. (they never seem to go back in their pouches properly)

I always take pictures of this ‘Dinosaur Head’ near the top of the trail. Recently a Saguaro has grown up behind the rock  and given it a green eye.

We reached the end of the trail and got a nice view of Weaver’s Needle. It was dry and comfortable when we arrived but that soon changed as a steady rain began. We put our ponchos back on, and were encouraged to not take them off for the rest of the trip back by our fellow hikers. They subscribe to the same theory I do, and figured they could ensure the rain would stay away as long as we wore them.

We were not alone in wearing Rain Gear, but I didn’t manage to get a picture of a hiker we ran across who was wearing the latest in fashionable rain gear…..a garbage bag. Whatever works I guess.

Sure enough before we got too far Blue skies started to show themselves but we obeyed and kept our raingear on all the way back to the parking lot.

And that was our Non-Blue Skies hike for this year. Or at least we hope that’s our last one. I don’t think our raingear will survive being folded and unfolded another time.