Fifty-One Years and a Lovely Drive (Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument)

(Clicking on the pictures will open them up larger.)

Sunday, December 13, 2020

It was a beautiful day with blue skies and just a few clouds floating along to spend driving down the Ajo Mountain Drive. If you can only take one of the rides through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, in our opinion, this is the one to take. Stop at the visitor center and pick up the guide booklet before starting. There are 18 listed stops along the route including the crested Organ Pipe Cactus which sadly will not be standing much longer. The last time we took the ride in March of 2018 I listed all 18 stops, if you would be interested click here. (Side note: you do not need a four wheel or high clearance vehicle for this drive.) Today we took this ride with Doug and Yuma and if you want to see some beautiful pictures Doug's Blog, Miss Adventure Travels, has several. I did eliminated quite a few pictures but you still should be aware there are several pictures below. Most of them will not have captions because they speak for themselves.

Our first stop was the sign

to take some pictures

in front of it, of course.

We first stopped at the Visitor Center then back 

across AZ-85 and we are at the entrance of the 

Ajo Mountain Drive. 

There is a water barrel under that flag. 

Illegals do come through here.

Tom checking things out with his binoculars

and Doug taking a picture 

Organ Pipe Cactus.

Mexico in the distance.

This is a Crested Organ Pipe Cactus

I took these pictures, March 18, 2018

This is sadly what it looked like today, December 13. 2020.

I understand there is a season for everything 

but it was still sad to see.

This Saguaro looked like a bird condo.

If you enlarge the picture you will see what I mean.

Do you see what I see?

I told Doug I did not remember seeing this before but when

I looked at the blog from the last time we took this ride 

there was the same picture...lol

Ocotillo still the favorite even without the little green leaves.

Our last stop on the Ajo Mountain Drive 

the Teddy Bear Cholla.

Of all the different Cholla I

 think they are the prettiest. 

We had hoped to also take a short ride down Puerto Blanco Drive to Quitobaquito Pond. Even though we have been down this road we had somehow missed seeing it and so Doug was going to show us where it was. Unfortunately, the Road is presently closed. Instead we continued south to Lukeville and the border. You can see they are working on the wall here.

Last stop today was to show

Doug the Crested Saguaro.

If you are traveling to the Organ Pipe Cactus National 

Monument it is right near the highway on your right

just before mile marker 74.

Leaving the Monument behind Doug

going through the Border Patrol Checkpoint which was not

manned. Just cameras though there was an agent in a truck.

So today we celebrated our 51st Wedding Anniversary with a lovely ride looking at beautiful scenery. We enjoyed the day with Doug and Yuma and when we arrived back home we all agreed we were tired and to call it a day. 

Looking back over the last 51 years it hardly seems possible it has been that long.  So far we would have to say it has been a good life and we look forward to many more years together. We feel lucky to be able to say we have our health and so do our children and grandchildren. Who would have thought 51 one years ago when we got married on a day it was snowing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan we would be living our retirement dream sitting in the desert toasting to a wonderful day and sunset.

 

We would like to thank everyone for the wonderful Anniversary wishes we received on the 13th.  We appreciated every one of them. 

We are so glad you stopped by!

If you have time to leave a comment we would enjoy hearing from you.