A pretty flower of the desert

Hello, everyone.

I was thinking about more walks and strolls to report on, but remembered a little thing that was really neat.

In the hot, low deserts this has been a good year for flowers. Not only little things like sand verbena, but larger things that bloom less often.

 A close look at the flower cluster of the ocotillo, a succulent of the hot desert.

This is a view of the plant's habit of growth.

We had never seen this plant blooming before. Possibly the fall and winter rains were just right this year. Usually they are just a stack of bare sticks out among the rocks and sand.

As it is Memorial Day weekend,  I will close with a line from In Flanders Fields that the photo above brought back to me: "To you from failing hands we throw the torch."

(Pardon the lack of underlining or italics for the title, I have no idea how to do those nice bits while hunting and pecking key spots one by one on my tablet.)

More on South Mountain Park

Hello, everyone.

I had promised more information about South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona.

This is one of the boulders with pictographs along the trail.

We enjoyed walking past the boulders and shrubs and cacti.

This little guy was hanging out in the shade. (It was around noon.)

If y'all should go to Phoenix, you should visit this park. (But bring water, and it's probably more fun if you get there before 10:30 in the morning.)

June gloom, a weather phenomenon

Hello, everyone.

We're still on the road in sunny California. Well, not-so-sunny, actually. We're needing our windbreakers!

We're north of our home latitude, so it is earlier in spring here than in south Texas. Many of the past days have been surprisingly cool. Here is a picture of the sky on one of them.

The clouds are only about halfway up on the mountains. One of the local folks explained it to us. At around this time it is often cloudy and cool, with days in the 60sF, even in May. They call it June gloom.

Weather can be so surprising.

We have been seeing some fascinating flowers but the pictures are scattered over various devices so I will wait until we are at home and can get them all in one place to put pictures up.

Walk report: South Mountain Park, Phoenix, Arizona

Hello, everyone.

We did a training walk today--in the midst of a road trip! DH looked up the city as it was on our passing-through itinerary, and discovered this city park.

We drove over to it when we hit town. It's a mountain inside the city, sort of, and we had water bottles so we set off on a trail. The stated length was 1 1/4 mile up and the same to return. It goes to a lookout on top of the mountain.

It was already 1:30 pm local time and the temp was probably close to 90F. Full sun, of course--it's Arizona after all. The trail was rocky. Not continuous climbing, but some of the rock "steps" are a bit tall.

We walked most of the trail to the top. When we got to probably the penultimate trail marker, it informed us that while we had walked most of the distance, the remaining quarter mile was going to be a hugely steep climb. I surveyed my legs, DH asked his ankle that had broken before, and we decided that the last bit would be too much.

We walked back down, for a total of about 2 miles (3 km) and got into the car and drove the long, squiggly road to the top to see the view. It was lovely. There was an old CCC hut and some benches. Also a couple of folks were selling trinkets--necklaces, rosaries and the like--at the parking lot at the top. Pretty stuff.
Quite a number of folks had also driven up. It is a lovely view of the city.

Unfortunately the pictures I took are all either on the phone or the real camera, so they will have to wait. We did see some old petroglyphs along the path, and a lizard or two. Plenty of cacti.

This city park is quite nice. I recommend it for Camino training. I also strongly recommend walking the various trails here in the morning. It gets fairly warm in the Southwest desert after about noon. Bring water, and wear a hat and sunglasses if it's late in the morning or after noon.


Edited for tag labels.

More Camino memories

Hello, everyone.

As we walked, we took pictures of interesting (to us) things.

Horreos are famous for being found in Galicia, but they are also found in Asturias. They were developed to store and dry grain in the humidity of a high-rainfall climate.

This slate-roofed horreo with the pointed stones on the top was along the "alternate"--read older--route before Mondonedo. It has the rectangular shape we saw on many of the Galician horreos.

This one is a square instead of a longer rectangle. The owners have hung their corn (maize for the Brits who might be reading) on the sides to dry.The roof appears to be made of tile.

These are some of the interesting things one can see if one is willing to walk through the villages instead of trying to find the remotest paths available.

About those Windows 10 updates again...

Hello, everyone.

A little while ago (like a week or three) Microsoft sent around a new cumulative update to Windows 10. Do they tell you they're going to break things with it? No-o-o-o. They just do it. And honestly if they were doing their jobs right they'd make sure that they weren't re-breaking things that they already broke once. (Or notify people, and maybe also software companies whose products are being trashed.)  Like Adobe Photoshop Elements. Which is unable to save a file.

The last time The Windows update broke Photoshop Elements, there was a lot of fussing on the internet about this stuff. A few weeks later, there was a sudden update to Adobe Photoshop Elements. And, lo and behold, the save function was working again.

Until this Windows update. Now it thinks there is insufficient RAM to save a picture. Again.

Really people? 😡

Anyway, I wanted to share a picture of a video game machine we encountered while walking after we left Tapia de Casariego. It was at snack time, and while we were sitting and having our cafe leche or whatever (I forget now) we saw this machine across the tiny bar.

The theme of the computer-pinball machine is "F-B-I" and the screen has a rotating series of silly pictures in the theme.

It was a surprise to see a game machine on this theme in Spain, on the other side of the world from where anyone would even think about that agency. But it's a small world and we never know what we will discover on the Camino.

Easter greetings

Hello, everyone.

I have been head down in a project lately--still not done--but wanted to wish all y'all a wonderful Easter.

Dahlias from the container garden, with cilantro stems as filler.

Blessings to you all.