While our fall with all it’s colorful glory, has come and gone… at lower elevations such as Camp Verde & Cottonwood, fall is in full color.
Just off SR260 along FR708, a LONG washboardy dirt road, is Fossil Creek. The distinctive yellowy orange cottonwood leaves are falling everywhere.
I never tire of the abundant aqua waters cascading over endless rocks and fall trees, making for a sublime serenity.
We sat and had lunch and watched the water go by. What better way to relax and spend the day.
Almost as if a sign of Thanksgiving next week… we saw this group of turkey enjoying the snow. Do you know what a group of turkey is called? I didn’t. I thought flock.. or gaggle. But upon further research, it’s a ‘rafter’. Who knew?
Did you know that Ben Franklin wanted the turkey as the newly found United States official bird? In a quote from a letter to his daughter he wrote:
“For my own part I wish the Eagle had not been chosen representative of our country. His is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree near the river, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the Fishing Hawk; and when the diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward….
I am on this account not displeased that the figure is not known as an Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the truth, the Turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America… He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”
The Forest Service seems to close the roads the minute we get snow… and keep them closed until Spring. So we jumped into action immediately after our first snow storm, and went directly to the Mogollon Rim to see if we could capture the Rim in snow. Unfortunately, the fog rolled in, and the view over the rim was a complete whiteout. Check out my First Snow pix on kritterspaw.com.
What do they say… one closed door leads to another open door. In my case fog lead to some very cool Snow Trees with the last remnants of fall color on pristine snow in an eery fog. It reminded my of an enchanted forest.
Horseshoe Bend
We have been to Antelope Canyon Slot canyons maybe half a dozen times over the years. The first time we saw the beams of light and had the place virtually to ourselves… that was quite some time ago (decades). We have seen the crowds increase, but never such as we saw this past weekend.
Yikes! What a ZOOOOOOO. I would never go back. They pack so many people into the canyons that it’s just not fun. It’s bumper to bumper people, and you can hardly get a photo in. It’s a money factory… they pump through 400 people an hour in the short distance in Upper Antelope Canyon. We found it absolutely disgusting. It was on and off raining all weekend. We were fortunate enough to go during a reprieve from the rain. The next day it was driving rain… and they were loading up the buses come rain or shine… no matter that there would be no sunshine, decent photo opportunities, and miserable muddy conditions. How unfortunate that nature has become such a tourist attraction that they can hold your credit card hostage with no consideration for the personal experience.
Having said that, our friends from the U.K. had never seen it and had made the special request to see this marvel… so we went. We shot up, and got shots devoid of people, which really doesn’t tell the story.
We were quite anxious to go out and get Fall Color photos this year… but we have been so consumed by our projects that it nearly passed us by. We had friends come up from U.K., and they gave us the excuse and opportunity to make the journey to the rim to enjoy Fall and it’s gorgeous bounty.
Actually, the leaves were nearly gone. I think they snapped into color just as we got that big cold front and wind that moved through… then brushed them right off the trees onto the ground and against trees making for interesting juxtaposition.
Every year brings something new. Now that we live somewhere with 4 seasons we can take full advantage of it and enjoy all it has to offer.
We were at the rim the other day… doing some leaf peeping. No major color changes just yet… so we’ll just have to wait, and go back.
We did see this cool little horny toad, have a nice dinner and watch the sun set and stars come out though.
A super moon only happens like once a year… when the moon is full and closest to the earth. The next super moon is scheduled for Nov 14, 2016.
Even more rare is when a super moon is in full lunar eclipse, making it appear red in color, i.e. it’s term ‘blood moon’. The next blood moon isn’t expected until 2033.
We haven’t seen a lot of elk this year. I’m not sure where they have been. We’ve had enough rain perhaps that they have found their food and water elsewhere.
Even more rare, are seeing elk bulls together, particularly as we go into rut season. But we were thrilled to get these two young bulls strutting their stuff, and learning how to ‘do the dance’.
These two boys were sparring with their single spikes, horsing around, and checking out their gear.
They never got too serious about it… but it was fun to watch.
We are fortunate enough to have become used to seeing deer and elk… but Yellowstone / Grand Teton showed us a whole new level of animal. Seeing elk and deer side by side, you get a gist of how great the size difference is. I thought elk were big… that was until I saw buffalo up close… and moose.
.. and BEAR ( a little TOO close for comfort).
(admittedly a little blurry, but I was scrambling up the rock ledge)
Nice bear.
We get a little bit of everything here. Yesterday, we saw this little family of turkey’s strutting their stuff. They were pretty elusive and spooky birds. These were Merriam turkey’s, popular in northern AZ ponderosa pines. We don’t see many, so it was pretty cool to see them fluffing their feathers and teaching their little ones.
