A Spring day on Arizona Highway 79

Here are more pictures from my trip through the Arizona desert.
The Mesquite trees in the desert are often overgrown with parasitic Mistletoe as in the picture below. The Mistletoe often takes over with little of the original tree left to see. The birds eat the berries and spread the seeds through their droppings. The birds also build nests in the Mistletoe which provides good protection for them.


The Chollas are also very odd with strange shapes. In the dark they throw weird shadows indeed.

And brand new Cholla buds forming.


And there is nothing that tops the mighty saguaro cactus. The multiple arms indicate this one is over a hundred years old.

Just a random shot of the Sonoran desert- barren it is not!

And another showing mostly brush and trees

I wish I could label all of these wildflowers for you but I don't know all the names. I look forward to some comments identifying them for me. This first is a Desert Marigold I believe, with a little bug checking it out.

The bugs sure like these- here is a ladybug visiting the bloom.

I stopped by the "Tom Mix" monument and there were tourists posing for "Cowboy" style pictures.

The writing reads "Tom Mix- whose spirit left his body on this spot. And whose characterizations and portrayals in life served to better fix memories of the old west in the minds of living men."

The wildflowers are starting to bloom

I went to visit my dear Mother who is a snowbird in Apache Junction, up by Phoenix. I drove up the back way through Florence, where there are miles of gorgeous desert views and wildflowers in bloom. It was a perfect spring day in Arizona with a blue sky that stretched on and on. The wildflowers were not as abundant as some years I have seen but there were still quite a few blooming and many more getting ready to bloom. I stopped several times to take pictures. See the little spider hiding under the bloom of what i think is a Desert Marigold.

Being a bit camera shy he scurried around to the other side, trying to hide.

I'll post more wildflower pictures from my drive this weekend. Please visit SkyWatch Friday to see other sky pictures from around the world and to join in yourself.