OzarksPhotosTravels

A wonderful experience and should be on your bucket list. It is a great place to learn more about the desert, it’s inhabitants and fauna. It is a wonderful place of entertainment and education.

Below is a short video of one of our recent visits. It features several of the birds that we saw during the raptor flights along with some hummingbirds and a desert bighorn sheep.

Below is a video taken from a viewing platform of the flight of a family of Harris Hawk’s. This will give you an idea of how close the birds come to the crowd and how large the crowd is which came to enjoy the raptor flight. The website for the museum is https://desertmuseum.org and is well worth looking at.

Below are photos of some of the birds which appear in some of the raptor flights.

A Great Horned Owl.

A closeup of a Harris Hawk.

Two of the family of Harris Hawks in-flight close to the crowd. It was a wonderful experience to be able to see these birds fly so close.

A Grey Hawk taking flight during one of the raptor flight presentations.

A Ferruginous Hawk launching into the air. A very beautiful bird and I believe it is on the endangered species list.

We will be posting additional photos and information on the museum and our other experiences in the future. We hope you have enjoyed this and our previous posts and will continue to follow our travels.

Some time back I promised some video of driving into Tortilla Flat, AZ. You will find it below, finally. 😎

I must admit most of the delay was due to our having such a great time at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Viewing and photographing the raptor flights and a few of the many other exhibits. I hope I can get some of that content out in a few days for you.

Now, finally the drive into Tortilla Flat. If you blink twice you may miss it.

We made a short visit today to the City of Rocks park northwest of Deming, NM. Interesting very large boulders kind of out in the middle of the desert. They are the remains of an eruption of a volcano many years ago, millions of years. As the location is several miles from any town they also talk about what a great dark site it is and how great the star viewing is from there.

Below are a few images from our visit there:

This is a view from some distance away show a bit of the vastness of the location.

The image below may give you an idea of the size of the boulders, much larger than the RV’s in the campground.

The image below may be the remains of the volcano, it appears a short mesa.

This image provides a better perspective of the park, the mesa and the vastness of the area.

Below, a pair of birds getting ready for spring, building a nest.

This image is the Welcome sign to the park and a closer view of the immenseness of the boulders and the size of the park.

Another view of the entry to the park. Perhaps a tourist getting a memory?

We hope you enjoyed our brief visit to the City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico. While comments are moderated they are welcomed. Should you like to see our future posts consider subscribing.

We were treated to another desert sunset last night when we stopped west of Deming, NM for another Starbucks. Below is a short video and below that is a photo from a short while later.

To Fortilla Flat, Arizona.

Is south of Tucson, Arizona about 30 miles. The road rises to about 5,000 feet into the Coronado National Forest and there are trees. Along with the trees are birds, several different varieties.

Some of the first we encountered were a variety of woodpecker we don’t get to see in Missouri. The acorn woodpecker, images below.

We also saw a few mexican jays . One is below sharing a tree with an acorn woodpecker. The other image is a closeup.

There is also a small stream along the canyon’s floor. Below are a few images of the stream or creek.

This is a closeup of some of the colorful rocks in the stream.

We enjoyed our brief visit to Madera Canyon this morning.

We stopped by hoping there would be plants in bloom. We were too early. We did get a few images and they are below.

Today we visited one of the historical sites near Tucson, Arizona. The Mission San Xavier Del Bac. Below is a plaque detailing more information about the Mission.

It is quite a large building and has a big courtyard behind the Mission.

The entry is very ornate.

Inside the entry are a few exhibits.

These are some vestments similar to those worn by some of the Fathers.

From the nave looking into the sanctuary. A docent was describing some of the details.

Below is a view of part of the sanctuary.

A closer view of the sanctuary.

Here are the other two sides of the sanctuary. The first features a statue of Jesus.

The second has a statue of Mary.

This is of the ceiling of the sanctuary.

We hope this gives a good representation of the Mission. It is very ornate. Should you find yourself in the Tucson area it is well worth a visit.

We had no plans for yesterday and took it easy until after lunch. Then we decided the weather was nice, so why not drive up to Mt. Lemmon. It was only about 43 miles away, how tough could that be. A brochure we had picked up was interesting. It did not tell you how tough a drive it would be.

Turned out to be kind of tough. Lots of traffic and lots of switchbacks made for slow going, but we made it. For more information about it go to VisitMountLemmon.com.

Unlike so many mountain roads the scenic viewpoints were plentiful. Both going up and coming back down. When we got up there we discovered why so much traffic. Half the kids in Tucson were there. We met the other half coming down as we were driving up. 🤠. I was really ready for my afternoon Starbucks when we got back.

Below are images from our trip.

This one was taken about a third of the way up the mountain looking down on Tucson.

Below are two images from a couple of the viewpoints.

The final image is of our Roadtrek at Mt. Lemmon showing some snow in the background.

We hope you enjoyed a brief review of our trip up the mountain. Should you decide to make this journey allot at least five hours as many of the curves have to be taken at 30 MPH or less

Last night after a nice day we were treated to a beautiful sky. This occurred shortly after the sun had set and was below the horizon. Below you can see a progression of photographs as the sky turned truly colorful.