Cibola Wildlife Refuge

The temperature at 7am this morning was in the low 50s, and as we sat outside having our morning coffee it was a little chilly at first, but by the time we finished our coffee the bright sun had heated things up and we had to peal our jackets off.  By 10am, it was 75F, and by afternoon it was in the mid 80s.  The stones at the right side of the picture are the fire pit left by previous campers.

This place has heaps of stones, if you wanted to create your own fire pit!  But there are already lots and lots of leftover fire pits here and there throughout these BLM lands.

Off in the distance in that first picture you can see evidence of a couple of Saguaro Cacti, and I walked over there.  This is on the Arizona side of the river, after all, and although we are not in prime Sonoran desert, there are a few around.  We could have made our campsite last night right beside this big old fellow if we hadn't come in so late.

We took it easy this morning, but finally at near noon, we buttoned down the hatches, and drove across the road to the Cibola Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center.  There's Doreen standing by the two of the Saguaro Cacti to give you an idea how really big they are.  There was a lady inside  who was very friendly, showed us all around, and pointed out where to go to view the wildlife.

There is a loop you can drive around where most of the birds hang out, and right away we came across this pond that was full of mostly these white Snow Geese.

But sometimes they all decide to go for a fly past, and when they do, you can see they have black wing tips.

These three birds out in this Alfalfa field are Sandhill Cranes which spend part of the year here.

And of course there are Canada Geese without number.  When anyone knows you are from Canada, they apologize for making disparaging remarks about Canada Geese!

We also went for a hike along a nature trail through a swampy area.  We didn't see any wildlife on this hike except for mosquitos!

After this tour around the wildlife refuge we moved over about a mile away from our previous camping spot to a free campsite (N33 22 45.7, W114 42 22.8) on the banks of the Colorado again.  More correctly, this was on a small side pond off the main Colorado River.  At least here unlike last night, there were three or four other campers.  And we sat in the shade of the picnic table shelter in the 85F afternoon sun.

It was a really pleasant evening that didn't get too cool after the warm day today, and we sat out around a campfire, cooked a hamburger, and after the fire went out viewed the stars.  The sky was quite dark here and the Milky Way shone brightly.  Those two specks of light in the central part of the sky in the picture are Venus and Jupiter setting in the west.