On Friday, Jan. 27, Mavrik and I walked around a big hill we call Chocolate Mountain. The hill is covered with big smooth chocolate colored rocks that don’t seem to occur anywhere else in the area, quite interesting. As we traversed a seemingly barren sandy area around the base a lizard darted in front of me (Mavrik missed it, thank goodness or I never would have gotten the picture!).

I suspected it is a Zebra-tailed Lizard and an internet search confirmed it. It’s either a female or it’s not mating season yet otherwise if it’s a male the dark bands on the tail (hence the name) would be more prominent as well as the green coloring on the sides of the belly. Today Robert and I took the same walk and the same lizard darted out in front of us.

I could tell it’s the same one from the pattern of peeling skin on it’s head. Check out those super long toes on the back feet!

We explored our newest campsite area, walking a jeep trail into the mountains. The trail narrowed to a quad track then disappeared as the terrain became more rough and steep. The promise of a view from a pass above spurred us onward and upward and we were rewarded with a surprise. We had discovered a short cut into Tumco! (Check back to Jan. 15, 2008 blog when we visited the same area) It was a new approach that brought us into the old gold mining area via the sand dunes created when a huge storm disgorged the sandy contents of the huge cyanide leach vats.

Robert and Mavrik approach the huge vats.

What’s amazing is that a picture on a reader board along the trail through the ghost town shows the vats standing on wood scaffolding at least 30 feet feet high! It must all be buried in the sand!

Photo circa 1900 from The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Spring 1996, Volume 42, Number 2

We moved our campsite back to the Yuma area and stopped at a u-pick farm stand on the way. It is located at “the bridge to nowhere”, the original McPhaul Bridge over the Gila River on highway 95 in Arizona. The highway was rerouted and the bridge stands, decaying, over the trickle of the river. Ironically the ‘new’ bridge was destroyed by a flood in 1993, while the abandoned old bridge withstood the waters!

Built in 1929 it was abandoned in 1968 when the road was rerouted.

Robert's keen eye spotted this huge beehive in the ironwork of one of the towers.

Interesting objects encountered on our long walks.

Maybe an indigenous peoples grinding stone, but probably just an erosion pattern.

The skeleton of a saguaro cactus.

A bunch of tiny versions of the previous erosion pattern in a soft desert rock.

A hummingbird bush in bloom.

The main attraction in terms of wildlife in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is the Desert Bighorn Sheep. We were privileged to have a pair observing us from the peak of Crystal Hill in the northwest corner of the Refuge. We camped in the same area several years ago and had several sheep watching us then too!

The male gave us a great profile pose.

Two days later we climbed the hill, where Robert and Mav posed at the peak.