Hunt's Tomb

The white pyramid on the title picture of my blog is Hunt's Tomb. Governor Hunt was elected Arizona's first governor. He served seven of the first nine or ten terms of office. They recently did a major overhaul on his tomb replacing all the old tile (two layers) with new and made a whole bunch of other improvements. Most notable is the lighting at night. Powered by batteries charged with solar panels. It is an Arizona landmark and finally looks the way it should have looked for many years.

Turtle Races

Only 22 corporate sponsors for the little big turtle race.

The leaders proudly wearing their sponsor nametags.

Almost a 1 in 7 chance of getting a beautiful trophy to display.

Over 3,000 turtles for the big little turtle race. So not great chances to win one of the 51 prizes, but a LOT more fun to watch. The first 50 turtles plus the last 'lazy' turtle win something.

About 1/2 way they are already stretched out

Most of the turtles assume a 'social' appearance not really knowing or caring there is a race going on.

Erik had his friend Daniel out and they enjoyed the day

Dad even tried the lily pads. Here I am getting a nice rope burn on my arms.

Jake did really well going down nearly every slide there was including the 'toilet bowl' as he called The Cauldron. Unfortunately his meds make his skin a lot more sensative to UV rays, so he got a bad rash/sunburn under his shirt and on his legs. Good that it happened before the UV index gets real bad. We'll be ordering some UV shirts for him, or he will have a tough summer.

Santa Rita

Purple Prickly Pear, or Santa Rita. I'm sure there are a good number of varieties of this. I know I have seen several. The flowers were wide open and begging for someone to take pictures of them.

And the close up

Penstemon

There are quite a variety of penstemon out there and all will do fairly well out here in a landscaped setting, the only native here is the Perry's penstemon. (I think there is another desert native, but not found in our neck of the desert). In fact, perhaps because of the large leaves, you don't find many truly wild penstemon around.
Close up...a real hummingbird attraction.

Lupine

'You mean the flower lupine?' Sorry couldn't resist a bit of Monty Python humor. If you haven't seen it, you woldn't get it, but a very funny skit.

Anyhow, the flower lupine. Or Coulter's Lupine, if you prefer to be more exact. Grows very small unless well watered or in a nice shady spot (and fairly-well watered). Close up...a very interesting shape.
And ones well-watered. In the foreground are seed pods growing along the stems. The seeds look like pebbles; a good means of survival, I would think.

Tobacco - Desert Style (2)

Yes, two varieties of tobacco grow in the desert. This one is the Desert Tobacco. It is much more of a low-lying shrub than the Tree Tobacco. The stems and leaves have nettles for protection.

Here are a bunch of flowers on slender stems.
A close up...

And here are a couple of beetle larvae that seemed to be all over this plant. I don't know what they will become.

Tobacco - Desert Style (1)

Not a big fan of tobacco, but it is an interesting plant. The natives used these plants for smoking and incense. Like any tobacco plant they are somewhat poisonous.

Tree Tobacco can begin to look like a tree and I've seen them well over 6' tall. In fact this one is probably over 8' tall in this wash. Not really much of a tree, just tall like a young tree. Certainly more tree-like than shrub-like, I guess.

Here is a cluster of the tubular flowers

A close up...

Here are some of the leaves. You can see one dead and drying on the plant while another is on its way there.