Looking for Gold

The day after I got to Springerville, AZ where my sister lives we went to the White Mountains to look for gold. Golden Aspen trees that is. I made the trip at just the right time and the aspen trees had just turned the beautiful of shade of gold they turn in most Octobers. The White Mountains are old volcanos that erupted many, many millions of years ago and fell in on their selves making calderas. Now they are huge fields full of trees, native grasses and other plants. Deer, elk, coyote are frequently seen and sometimes foxes, bobcats, mountain lions. There are prairie dogs, and  other kinds o rodents as well as many hawks, owls, eagles and songbirds. There are several small man-made lakes for fishing and panics. We found a lake where there was no one and had a light lunch there watching some sort of ducks that didn't want us to get close enough to see what kind they were. We had Sarah's dog, Ruby, with us and she enjoyed herself as much as we did. We saw a couple of does and a large fawn and got a couple of pics of them. Then we lucked out and saw some of the feral horses that live in the White Mountains. Their website calls them wild horses but I feel they are probably some that have gone wild when no one wanted to care for them. Regardless we enjoyed seeing them. Check out their facebook page, where there are much better photos of them.

The vine with the red leaves is called Virginia Creeper. We saw lots of it and we both have a little one in our yards. You can buy them in some plant nurseries but they seem to do better in the wild.