BARRY M. GOLDWATER GUNNERY RANGE

We are in Gila Bend staying at the famcamp at Gila Bend Air Force Station.  Stayed here a lot.  Great place.  We went out into the gunnery range yesterday and saw a lot of flowers.  It was a great drive and we were very surprised at how many flowers (mostly poppies and owls clover).  It is the most poppies we have seen since 2006 out there.   They had a fire out there in 2007, 08, or 09 (I can't remember which year it was) that really hurt some of the saguaros and cholla cactus. 

Passing a truck loaded with border wall metal panels.

Lots of brittle bush this year also.

Hat top mountain in the background.

Hedge hog cactus.

 

Connie out hiking.

You can see the burn marks on this saguaro.

Poppies and owls clover.

Lots of owls clover in this picture.

Lots of color in the desert this year.

HARQUAHALA MOUNTAIN BACKCOUNTRY BIWAY

As I said on the last post, we did this trip a number of years ago with our red jeep so thought we would do it again.  The road is still rough and slow for a jeep.  The new side by sides seem to go much faster and the ride looks smoother.

A mule deer doe watching us drive by.

The views are pretty great on the drive.

Some parts of the drive are a little narrow and hope you don't meet opposite traffic.

The views from the top.

Part of the telecom operation.  Lots of solar panels have taken the place of generators although they still have propane powered generators for backup.

A couple of pictures of the road from the top.

The lizards and poppies

HARQUAHALA WILDERNESS AREA/BIG HORN SHEEP.

A lot has happened since I last posted.  We have moved from the Quartzsite area to the Harquahala Wilderness area south of Salome, AZ.  We were here in 2006 and did some exploring and took the 4-wheel drive road to the Observatory at the top of the Harquahala mountain.  Well, we did it again in a different jeep.  Road is about the same.  Rough, rocky, steep, and very narrow in places.  Don’t really have to do that again.  Twice in one’s lifetime is enough!  We are camped out in the BLM not far from the road that leads up to the observatory.  We had a great evening on the first night we spent here as we had some Desert Big Horn sheep just a few hundred yards from our camp.  We snuck over there and watched a few big rams fight.  Their head butts are just amazing and very noisy.  We have seen some sheep everyday since we have been here but not as close and have not seen any fights.  We did a drive into Wickenburg to get some groceries and fill up the jeep with gas.  While there we caught up on some emails and texts.  Don’t have internet out where we are camped.  

 We are now camped at Gila Bend AF Auxiliary Station.  AND WE HAVE CELL PHONE SERVICE!  So that means I am able to update my blog.  I am amazed at how we are dependent on the technology that we have.  It seemed odd that we were not able to bring up a weather forecast or get the latest news because we could not connect to a cell phone tower out where we were.  And not just a day or two, but over a week!  

Anyway, here are some pictures of Desert Big Horn sheep and of our drive up to the Harquahala Observatory.  Click on a picture to get a better view as they were some distance from us.

Click on a picture to enlarge it and get a better view of the sheep.

These were the rams that were fighting.  We just did not get any good pictures of them fighting and they were getting pretty nervous with us around so quit fighting

Some of the ewes and youngsters.

Sunset.