Cotton

 Oh let me tell you all about cotton, rows and rows of cotton.  Today we took a cotton farm tour and it was so interesting.  The cotton is planted in March and is soon to be harvested.

Cotton has been grown in Arizona since the early 1900's

 

The seeds are planted about six inches apart and once the plant is mature it blooms a beautiful yellow flower.

The yellow flower then turns purple and dries up and falls off

 

 

 When the purple flowers drop off the little ball has developed.

The little balls grow into nice cotton balls, at this time they turn off the water and let them dry and soon the balls pop open to display the cotton.

There are two types of cotton a short and a long, here they grow mostly short but below is a long

What a wonderful tour, now we know all about the cotton.

Valley of Fire

 Hello everyone, one of my bucket list items was to get to see the Valley of Fire, so this trip south we added a few days to manage to get it in.  It is just east of Las Vegas and if you get the chance do it.

Here I am first day up at the crack of dawn and the rocks are beaming color.

We did quite a bit of walking so saw a few interesting creatures.

 This is the Rainbow Canyon

 Next hike, the White Dome trail, here is Rienk and Lona making their way down.

 Different rock formations which ever way you look.

 And then into a slot canyon

 Looks like you could be on the moon

 Atlati Rock, up early to do this little walk, was pretty steep all the same, my knees were wobbly.

 This was a favorite walk into the Firewave. Sometimes my photography does not do it justice, so beautiful

 Back at the visitors center and here are our greeters

 Seven Sisters

 Just called the cabins for the Core of Engineers in 1939

 Elephant Rock, I know you really have to have a good imagination

Yes everything I expected and more, mark that one off the bucket list.

San Felipe on the other side of the Sea of Cortez

 Yes here we are on the road again.  This time we are checking out a seaside village on the other side of the Sea of Cortez, it is very lovely.  Here are the guys after lunch sitting on our little veranda at the Posada de Sol Hotel at 35.00 US per night, rooms are spotless.

Off to acquaint ourselves with the area with a walk down the malecon which is just around the corner from our hotel.

The Sea is a beautiful colour today.

 However the town was so quiet today, not many visitors.

 The tide was way out.

 You never know what you are going to find.

 We checked out four different campsites, several are to small for our unit but look at the beach at this one, so beautiful.

Met up with our dear friends Doug and Isabel who are staying out at the Eldorado Ranch.  We went to the Vaquita for dinner and had several of the most wonderful shrimp dinners you can imagine.  Now for an early night as tomorrow we are going to spend our day at the ranch, can't wait.

A Day at the Beachs

First stop in the morning was the Beach Club that is being refurbished and will open in a month, they let us have a little look, will be a lovely place.

 It sits on a lovely beach right in San Carlos.

Next stop Playa de Algodones, where the beach seems to go for miles. 

 And at the other end a big sand dune, the sand was like flour.

 Off then to a beautiful rocky beach that we fell in love with, great place for our picnic and time to spend the afternoon.

Tomorrow is our last day in paradise, it has been so much fun.

Cochorit Beach

 Todays adventure was to Cochorit Beach which is just south of Empalme.

We went here specifically to search for shells, the beach goes on forever.

 Here is the crew searching away and then some pretty ones I liked.

 Now along came some fishermen, the boat in the picture was hidden 100 meters or so up the bank, the two fellows hooked on a long rope and pulled it down to the seashore, they kept swinging it with the truck until they had it just on the water, then another boat came and pulled it off, it was interesting to watch.

Off to market

Yesterday we went to the market in Empalme, there was everything from soup to nuts, great fun to see all the booths, lots of people

Fresh Veggies 

 One of the things they like to do is put fruit into cups for easy eating.

 Eggs are never refrigerated in Mexico

 Fried Pork Pieces

 This is the same meat, very thin that the hosts used for our dinner the other night.

 A table of everything, some things we could not identify.

 After the market we went for a visit to Sams Club and then took our little picnic lunch down to San Fransico Beach, it was beautiful.

 Ron and Lona getting lunch ready

 Before our dinner we drove out to the lookout to watch the sun go down, it was awesome.

You can see the three sisters over on the Baja Peninsula in the background.

 Perfect day, how could things get much better