Every Little Thing in the Desert

Good morning, my friends. It was another quiet day here. My day started as it usually does...with slow-stitching. I took the first stitches on Block 7 for the Snowmen & Reindeer project.

Later, we were incensed to discover that our new neighbors include four cats. And that's not all. They have a woofie too! Well. There goes the neighborhood. To quote The Big Lebowski, "This aggression will not stand, Man."

It's a good thing we're leaving tomorrow. I'm not sure we can take the outrage. Smitty is downright apoplectic, as you can plainly see.

It seemed like a good morning to get outside with my DSLR and macro lens. The desert is fairly uniform here...mostly rocks and creosote bushes. I first walked around to the flowers near the office. These are some I showed a few days ago, although closer up this time.

This is some red lantana.

Some more purple lantana.

African daisies.

This is a red flaming Katy.

My phone tells me this is a pincushion flower, but I don't think that's right.

My phone says this is a flame violet.

Not sure what this is, and it hasn't bloomed yet.

This is a kind of succulent: mesembryanthemum cordifolium if you want to know its snotty botanical name.

The bees liked it.

Here's our friend, the desert sunflower.

This next one is a common stork's-bill. The flowers were tiny.

This is a seed head from a creosote bush.

This next one is called a London rocket. These are growing everywhere...a weed.

Here is a flower bud from a creosote bush.

Outside our RV, I picked up this pine cone.

This is the butt end of the same pine cone.

And this is the top end of the same pine cone.

The pine cones come from the tree with the bark you see below.

Out in the desert, this flat red weed caught my eye.

This is the "bark" of a creosote bush.

This is just some old dried and rotting wood. I just liked the shape of it.

I dearly wanted to get closer to this guy. I took several pictures, just hoping I could get something. My phone tells me this is a common side-blotched lizard.

His skin is so pretty. I found a better image in the public domain.

(Image credit: "Common Side Blotched Lizard" by gtrwndr87 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

This is just some weedy grass that caught my eye.

This is my favorite image of the group. This is a White-lined Sphinx Moth. They look like a tiny hummingbird (about half the size), and they flit from flower to flower just like a hummingbird would. I've only seen a sphinx moth one other time when we were in Breckenridge, Colorado, but I wasn't able to get a picture that time.

So that was my photography outing for the day. 

Our trip is winding down. Today is our last day in Pahrump. We're still planning to spend a few days in Death Valley, but from there we'll head for home. I haven't yet worked out our route. We're waiting to see what road conditions are. I've read several times that we're likely to see a superbloom of wildflowers on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, but a lot of snow was dumped there last week, and so we're watching to see what the road conditions are. If we need to, we can back track to Nevada and go north that way, but we're really hoping we can head up US 395 in California. 

As for today's activities, Mike made waffles for breakfast. That’s lways a good way to start the day. We need to get some fuel. Diesel fuel will be very expensive in Death Valley, and so we want to fill our tank here in Pahrump. We'll also pick up whatever groceries are on our shopping list. Happily, we have enough food to get us through our days in Death Valley. (I might have said "Death Valley Days," but then I'd be dating myself.) 

With all that going on today, packing up, and getting ready to go tomorrow, I'll take tomorrow off from blogging. There was a time when I couldn't blog in Death Valley because there was no wi-fi, nor any cell phone signal. I don't know if any of that has changed since our last visit, but it doesn't matter. Our Starlink system has set us free from the need for either. As long as we have a clear view of the sky, we have internet. And all of that to say that I'll be back to check in with you on Saturday morning.