Walmart and Merkle Trail

Today I had to go and pick up some groceries and I had decided I was going to the SuperWalmart that I saw on Signal Butte last Friday to see what it was like. I had told Gordon about the large outdoor big box mall so he decided to go too. We drove around the outdoor mall, didn't see anything that we particularly wanted to stop for so I went to Walmart and picked up what I needed and we were on our way home.

It was another nice day today, very sunny until early afternoon when it clouded up for a bit but was soon sunny again. This morning mentioned that I'd like to do the .9 mile Merkle trail that's within Usery Mountain Regional Park. It's a flat loop trail that runs around the Merkle hills that Gordon had climbed numerous times.

After unpacking groceries, reading a bit and having a nap we set out to do the Merkle trail around 3:00 p.m. It was an easy walk and I didn't have any trouble walking it.

Interesting rock on the Merkle Hills

This is what the path looked like all the way around the Merkle Hills

Merkle Hills
While we were out Gordon suggested that we drive the Apache Trail for sunset. I declined on this one as I don't really like the twisty road with all the dropoffs and didn't want to be on it at night. Just call me chicken! Instead I elected to stay home and go and have a nice hot shower at the shower house.

Just around sunset I took a little walk around our immediate area and took a few photos. This little hummingbird (a Costas Hummingbird, I think) just sat in our tree and let me get quite close for a photo.

Tree and green ground cover at sunset

Holes in the ground from various little animals that make the desert their home

Our RV at sunset from the desert

Pass Mountain at sunset

We apparently have a cold spell coming in tomorrow for a couple of days. I was hoping that was all over with!