Another Sunny Morning in Arizona

We've been enjoying the desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Park on the Arizona/Mexico border. Yesterday we took a free van tour from the campground into the AHO mountains to see the desert and get acquainted with the area around us. Our guide told us about the different kinds of shrubs and cactus, the wildlife, and the history of the area. There are traces of human inhabitants going back six thousand years, and the Spanish came in the early 1500's.
We are next to a big Indian reservation to the north and Mexico to the south. We also took a hike yesterday to the site of Victoria Mine. It was a site for silver mining starting in the 1890's but it has been deserted since the 1970's. There is not a lot of wildlife here since the summers are so hot. The snakes, lizards and scorpions are not active in the winter, and bats and a lot of the bird migrations come at different times of year.
The sun is warm and the  temperatures have been good so we are not complaining.

Coming into the park.

Our new camp in the desert.

This is the star of the show, the organ pipe cactus.

A view of the desert with several varieties of cactus plants.

There are several rock arches in the park

This is the largest cactus, the saguaro. They live to two hundred years and are up to forty feet tall.

This cute little guy is the teddy bear cholla. Don't be fooled by the name, the fuzzy looking stuff is bristles that aren't fun to touch.

The site of the Victoria Mine from 1890.