Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Photos of the Santa Ritas

Ray is on vacation this week. It's mostly a stacation, you know, stay at home, do yard work, and sleep vacation. :)

But yesterday we went exploring. We picked Patagonia Lake as our destination. Patagonia Lake is southeast of Tucson, in the hills above Nogales. To get there, we decided to go the long way, east to Vail, then south to Sonoita through the Santa Rita Mountains.

How do you say ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL !!!! I mean it! I am in awe of the mountains around here. We live in the Tucson Mountains, which seem like individual peaks within a range. And to the north of us are the Catalinas, standing like one huge rugged rocky mountain. And to the east, the Rincon Mountains, a rolling sloping range. And to the southeast, the Santa Ritas, with rolling ridges looking like tree roots.

Here are some pics for you



There are yellow flowers everywhere. I believe they are some kind of aster, but haven't been able to identify them yet. I'm sure the folks native to this area will laugh and say well, heck, those are ______ ! :)



Everyone looks very self sufficient in this area. Windmills, solar panels. Here's a windmill in a pasture of cows.



And this is the lake ... small compared to what we are used to in New England, but very nice!!



Plenty of birds around. A few ducks, which I need to get out my bird book to identify ... I still haven't learned my western birds yet, which for an old birdwatcher like me is just bad! Great blue herons, which were nice to see again. Turkey vultures hanging around, casting shadows on our picnic. Here's one just hanging around the campground area of the lake.



And here's a look back at the lake as we head out towards Nogales.

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