Thursday June 25th 2020

It was a mostly cloudy day with lots of wind. The conditions kept the high temperature under the century mark topping out in the high nineties.

I took advantage of the cloud cover to get in a walk in the desert. The absence of any shade makes walking during periods of full sunlight dangerous, but today was different. I hiked the mile and a quarter trail to the visitors center and back. The visitors center is closed due to the virus so the walk was purely for exercise.

Out in the middle of all the desert brush I found a few more wildflowers that I thought were gone for the season. Finding a little color variation in the greens and browns of the desert is entertaining. At one point on the hike the trail gets near a barbwire fence separating an area of open range. Sure enough, a little ways further along the path, there were a couple of big black cattle. They didn’t seem to care about me, but I was glad they were on the other side of the fence.

The residents of the campground turned over a little more than usual this morning. A neighbor that’s been here all week suddenly started packing for departure. They hadn’t said a word to me all week, but this morning they were very talkative. It turns out they just learned that they could return home. They were staying here while evacuated from the fire down toward Phoenix. Apparently a couple of other RVs that departed this morning were also evacuees. This evening some of the arrivals look to be here for the weekend. If they don’t leave in the morning, my guess is right.