Little San Domingo Wash

Southeast of Wickenburg is a gold district named San Domingo. We have been camped in the desert by the wash, watching spring arrive. Everywhere you look, there are Mexican poppies – Ron took my picture as I sat in them! The Gila Monster slowly waddled his way through the wash, allowing me to follow him with the camera. His little scales look like smooth beads. Although he is poisonous, he is SLOW and only if I stuck my hand in his mouth would he be able to get me. The other night a wild burro stood outside the camper and brayed, ruining my beauty sleep (and scaring me to death!) They must have really impressed the desert dwellers, because someone made a silhouette of a burro out of sheet metal and stuck it on a high hill. I decided to hike up to it to investigate – it had lots of graffiti dated back to 1975 and plenty of shotgun holes. Actually, it rather looks like a moose to me. Our camper is in the background. Here are a few more flower pictures. I looked up their names – the white one is desert chicory, blue one is a desert lupine, the yellow is called fiddleneck, the red is owl clover, and the pink is fairy duster. Yesterday I climbed up to a mine area which was just covered with poppies and purple flowers – here is a picture from the top. I could see to Wickenburg, a dust devil on the plains far to the west, and even 50 miles to Phoenix skyscrapers. An amazing place!