From the desert to the mountains

Back to the desert for one last day... We spent our last day/night at the San Rafael Swell in a sea of sandstone.

A fierce wind was blowing as the four of us explored the sandstone world that surrounded our campsite before heading off to western Colorado.

We divided our trip home from Utah into two parts by stopping at an "old standby" campsite just over the border into Colorado and overlooking the Colorado River.

While we slept, a rain storm swept across the desert, enveloping us. Because we needed to drive home that day, we couldn't wait around for good weather. K had been limping earlier in the vacation so she and I had barely mountain biked together in a week. I think that the rocky world of the San Rafael Swell didn't agree with her surgically altered paw.

That morning, we headed out into the rainy world for a very short ride together. It felt wonderful to have my chocolate girl next to me again. She did a dance, complete with play bows and spins, to sing out her happiness about being on the trails with me again.

I wanted to go very slowly to keep her paw safe so I stopped to photograph dripping primrose flowers...

...and gorgeous dwarf lupine flowers. They glowed purple next to the trail, elegantly beautiful in an understated way.

We rode for a short time, and K's paw seemed painless. I dropped her off with the boys to hang out while I hammered out for a longer ride.

I rode uphill to a singletrack trail that winds along a cliff above the Colorado River.

I didn't see another person on the trails but the flowers repeatedly stopped me in my tracks. Look at these crimson paintbrush flowers perched on the cliff's edge. Two years ago, I saw a prairie falcon nesting just below where those flowers sit. I didn't see a nest this time.

The Sego Lilies, drenched in rain, made me want to stop and worship them.

After each stop to enjoy the flowers, I'd promise myself that I wasn't going to stop again for the rest of the ride. I swore that I'd just zoom by the blooming shrubs and delicate flowers.

But, then, another patch of flowers would draw me like a bee to nectar.

The palette of colors astounded me, especially against the stormy skies and with no other people around. This odd looking but beautiful flower has the unappealing name of "Pallid Milkweed".

Prairie wild onion...

Finally, I heard the rumble of thunder in the distance and realized that I was riding on a very exposed cliff where I was the tallest thing around (that's a rare occurrence for a short woman). It wouldn't be a good place to ride out an electrical storm. So then, I did truly hammer toward camp. No more flower stops.

Almost there... It was easy riding from here to camp so I zoomed downhill without a care.

During my short stop at the van before we drove home, I noticed a beetle on the sideview mirror. Maybe she was checking her makeup? We helped her off the van so she wouldn't take an unexpected trip to the mountains and we headed for home.... where the rain was snow and the flowers were barely blooming yet.

But, since arriving home and enduring seemingly endless snow and rain, our world is waking up. I love springtime!

On a more somber note, today marks two years since our yellow lab, S, lost his battle with cancer. We miss him but we've reached peace with his memory. We mostly smile rather than cry when we remember him. He was an amazing character who brought lots of love and laughs to our pack.