I’ve mentioned the helicopters and jets that we see flying over almost everyday. We’ve also seen some smaller aircraft and a few days ago we finally saw them up close as they flew right over our campsite. These colorful Ultralights were bobbing around in the breeze, but they must have had great views!

Our present campsite is at the base of a little hill. Between the camper and the side of the hill is a small dry wash with some blooming ocotillo, a dead tree and a half live tree under which are some blooming bushes. In this little setting we’ve discovered a true jem, a male Costa’s hummingbird makes this his home.

He’s only about the size of my thumb and hard to see in the center of this picture. He won’t let us get close enough to get a good picture. He’s usually on this branch by 7:30 am and is busy flitting all over the place all day. Even on windy days when he clutches the branch and leans into the wind. We can spot him by the bright emerald green of his back, a very vibrant color against the backdrop of gray-green desert colors.

This closeup is fuzzy, but shows the white eyebrow and the feathered violet colored “gorget” of his chin, extending across and beyond his cheeks. Depending on the lighting the gorget is black to a beautiful bright fuschia pink. For more (better) pictures of Costa’s Hummingbirds click here.

Geocaching has been great so far, it’s gotten us off the beaten path, and there are plenty of paths beaten through these mountains! A lot of the caches seem to be up in high places, which gives us great views of the area.

You must stop in order to look around and take in the view, because the terrain is so rocky your eyes are on the ground while you’re moving! But that can give you great views also.

This old spider web is probably a tarantula nest site judging from the 2 inch size of the opening. Robert wasn’t as enthusiastic about getting close up shots of it after I told him that!

On one of our walks looking for a geocache we discovered another old mine site. It’s not hard to do around here! Some mine shafts have been closed with heavy metal bars to protect people from exploring and possibly getting lost or hurt, also to protect habitat for bats who have moved into the mines for hibernation or roost sites. Some mine shafts are just fenced off, and we’re finding a lot of shafts that appear to have just been abandoned.

This shaft was unique in that it still had rails from the ore cart line descending into the darkness, and right next to them a ladder. Considering that this shaft may be 75 years old or more, we didn’t test the strength or safety of the wood ladder!

In this picture it appears the shaft is horizontal, but it is almost straight down. The sounds of a rock dropped into the mine shaft took a long time bouncing off the wood and rock walls to fade away!