We had a great day today, almost tourists, lo.

Had breakfast, included with the room, and then headed out to the Santa Cruz River floodplain just up the road from the hotel. There is a virtual Mario garden stretched across it, so we had to walk both sides. I missed the road we were going to, so over the bridge and found a suburban street with an access way, obviously for overflow into the river. The Juan Bautista de Anza Trail runs along the river, so we walked a little along that, before finding a gateway through the barbed wire fence and started wandering over the floodplain, being careful to watch feet placements! Mind you it is quite chilly in the mornings so not much chance of a snake appearing. The floodplain is full of wild flowers, mesquite shrubs (watch those long thorns!!) and various other bushes. We did see a jack rabbit and also a road runner (no beep beep and no coyote though, lol) Lots of small birds, doves and one hummingbird. We worked our way over to the ‘river bank’ which has a trail on it as well and walked along that, Douglas tracked us down again and walked along the embankment with us for a while. Once we reached the top most munzees, we walked back to the fence as there were physical munzees along that, and down to the road bridge. Clambered up the embankment there, and then walked over the rather long bridge to the other side. Douglas caught up with us again, there, bottles of water in hand for us. He offered to take us up to the leprechaun munzee that had appeared up in the hills, but we wanted to finish Mario first, so we kept going. Down along the embankment on that side of the river, and this time the river was actually visible for most of the way. It’s only a small width currently, but the size of the floodplain is quite scary! Once we finished the virtuals, we went over to the road (the one I had missed when driving there) and walked back to the bridge, back over, and then some more of the Juan trail back to the car. Back at our room by 2, so lunch and we did laundry, as this nice establishment has a guest laundry available! Then on to the next adventure. We headed up into the hills for the leprechaun munzee. This area is on the edge of the Saguaro National Park and it was amazing. The trail was only a narrow rocky one, but we climbed quite a way. I did however find a rock to sit on when it became to steep for me, but Maria kept going! The cacti everywhere, mesquite and other shrubs were brilliant! Douglas has recommended another place as well, so that’s tomorrow. Stopped on the way home to just do a few car park munzees and then home for dinner, only 12 kms today, and the equivalent of 9 flights of stairs!
Another spot the bird!