A DRIVE INTO AJO, AZ.

MONDAY FEBRUARY 18/08

These are lazy days here in the Ajo highlands & I fear it is the lull before the long strenuous journey home, which will begin soon. I am outside again with the laptop watching the rising sun cast it's long cactus shadow fingers across the desert floor. The Gila woodpecker is at the grapefruit rind & it's loud call seems to echo off the nearby canyon walls. It is so quiet here that even the dropping of a pin could be thought of as noise.

I'm late getting this blog & photo upload underway. I normally do this at the end of each day but last night Maureen & Mike (fellow Canadians) invited us over to their site for a campfire. The nearly full moon & still night made for a perfect setting. Mike heaped the logs on & the fire leaped into the air. Despite the moon bright sky I was able to point out some stars & constellations but was unable to locate any satellites. We spent a couple hours sitting around the fire & by the time we got back to our site I was too tired to begin the blog & photo uploads. So, here I am, tilted back in a lawn chair in the early morning Arizona sun tapping away at the keyboard once again. There are now 3 Gila woodpeckers at the grapefruit rind & they are all doing some mighty fine tapping of their own.

Yesterday, we took a drive into the little ex-mining town of Ajo. Groceries, gas, & a stop at the hardware store were in order. Took a few photos of the pretty downtown & included 3 photos that I had taken last year when we were there. The quaint little Spanish flavored villa has fallen on hard times since the closing of the big open pit mine a few years ago. Many of the stores in the downtown western plaza are empty. It's really too bad because it's downtown architecture is truly out of the original southwestern past.....OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

As in the previous 2 days, much of our afternoon was spent reading & relaxing & by the looks of it, to-day is shaping up to be the same:))