Sara Park Hike (Tuesday, March 24th, 2020)

We have really been enjoying our hikes the last few weeks as we attempt to get some exercise and still maintain our distance from everyone else.  Today we drove down to Sara Park, where there are a lot of hiking trails.  Two of our favorite hikes are Sara's Crack and Picnic Table Mountain.  As we approached the parking lot for those trails, they were packed with cars, so we quickly decided they would not be good choices for us.  So we drove a little further south to the next parking area and decided to start our hike from there.  This was a completely new trail for us, so we decided to just see where it would take us.

With so many states under stay at home orders, it's easy to lose hope and start feeling defeated, but the desert is a great place to get some perspective on resilience.  Look at this little plant growing directly out of a rock in the hot arid desert.  Now that is resilience.

Our choice of trails appears to be a good one.  Looking across the valley, we can see many different groups going to Sara's Crack and Picnic Table, but our trail is nice and quiet so far.

Lichen seems like any unlikely sight in the desert, but we are seeing it on rocks all over today.

Our trail took us into a wash that we followed down a ways, then we took trail 4465 off to the left out of the wash.

The lizards are out again today, but there aren't as many as on our Cattail Cove hike a few days ago.

Trail 4465 dropped us into another wash, where trail 4466 took off, so we turned right into the wash on 4466 and followed it toward the lake.  A nice shady spot to rest for a minute.

About three miles into our hike, we could tell that we were getting close to the lake.  We could hear boats go by periodically, but still couldn't see the lake at all.  We found this nice shady spot under a salt cedar bush, with fine, soft sand to sit and enjoy our lunch.

Peanut butter and banana on a hoagie roll.  Yum!

Several months ago, with help from our local BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office, we downloaded the Avenza Maps app and loaded some trail maps that work even if you are offline.  They are great for hiking and keeping tack of where you are.  Our car is parked at the top of this map, and you can see by the blue dot (us) that we are very close to the lake.  We thought it would be fun to get a glimpse of the lake before heading back, so after lunch, we continued on.

But it didn't take long to realize that our trail was turning into a jungle of bushes, twigs and creepy crawly things that maybe we didn't want to be around.  So, without our glimpse of the lake, we turned around and headed back. From the map we could tell we were less than 200 feet from the lake!

On our way back, we saw this bird up in the tree eating something.  It had somehow hooked it's prey on the branch and was slowly tearing off little pieces to eat.  

We couldn't figure out what it was eating.  Maybe a lizard.  We never realized that birds could use a tree branch as a tool.

We completed our whole hike without seeing a single other person until the very end, where we had to step off the trail twice to let people pass us right near the trail head.  

As we waited for one family to pass us, I looked down and saw some these tiny yellow flowers.  Each fully opened flower was about 1 mm in size, but zooming in I could get a picture of them.  It's amazing what you can enjoy if you just slow down and look around.

Our hike today was a total success.  Lots of beautiful sights, a few lizards, the tiniest flowers, no people, and some great exercise!

We rewarded ourselves with a super yummy dinner!  Cajun cod, grilled asparagus and creamy polenta.  Now that's hard to beat!

Until next time...Happy Trails! Be safe everyone and please honor the distancing/isolation!