There Goes the Neighborhood

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE

The higher than usual humidity is still with us but at least the temperature is lower. Today when I went out to hike after work there were no clouds to chase so I decided to keep close to home and take the dog on a little walk. Poor thing gets depressed every time I go without her.

Today I really didn't feel like chasing anything I just walked out of my front door and started walking. It's a good thing there are several trails nearby.

I've gone up this alluvial fan a couple of times this year, once alone and once with local kids. Today I brought Kahlua for company and plan to go further than either of the previous times.

I get toward the top of the bajada and am amazed at how much the banks of this wash have been scoured by water. In the twenty-plus years that I've lived here I don't think we've ever had a storm big enough to do this kind of damage.

But the water has had enough power to move this HUGE boulder into the center of the wash.

I get into where the canyon narrows and find this large, heavily varnished rock. I could make this my turnaround point but want to see what lies beyond it.

It's readily apparent that someone else has been up this canyon and decided to stay a while.

They even had time to make this little stone throne. But I don't have time to just hang out. I've got more to explore.

Up the canyon a little further I find a couple of little dens on the side of a hill.

No critters in here now but it's obvious this is used as a resting spot for something that flies or that is very nimble. This is a hard place to reach.

Today I can't go any further but there is more to see up the canyon. I'll return once it starts to cool down some more. I decide that on the way back I'll try a shortcut through this pass.

It's tougher than it looks. Several hundred feet of loose crumbling rock awaits me. Great.

At the bottom I find another sign that someone's been this way before. Rocks don't just end up on boulders like this by themselves.

There are a couple of post modern petroglyphs up here, too. These certainly aren't ancient because there are too few and they're just a little too neat.

I appreciate finding new sights but I prefer authenticity to some modern facsimile. There are some many places to find real petroglyphs so I don't think we need to start making our own. Nobody likes a phony.