Cactus Town

Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas.
Ouch!
Watch out for these.
Do you see the little cactus in the foreground pretending to be a rock?
Here it is.
Barrel Cactus about two feet tall.
Calico investigates the yucca.
Pencil cactus. Looks like Medusa's hair
Rocks
Don't dump me here, please.

We had a couple of days off because my fourth child graduated from High School and we had a big party for her. The next day Stephan pushed Philip in the stroller and followed me through the desert. We went a couple of miles that day. Since she hadn't been out for two days, she was more pushy than usual and even spooked at a couple of things. The next day I rode Calico in the arena, working on trotting more. We're doing better. Yesterday, she got her feet trimmed then we walked for 2 hours, about 5 miles. I rode her about a third of the time. I'm posting photos of the type of terrain we're covering so you can get an idea of why I'm taking things slowly. We have to pick our way very carefully through a rocky cactus minefield. There's one little cactus trying to disguise itself as a rock. As we move closer to the houses, the rocks and cactus are interspersed with broken bottles. Yikes. We have to cross this stuff before we can get to the nice trails. She was very quiet and didn't spook at all. She was too busy concentrating on where to place her feet. We scared up a jack rabbit and saw a red-tail hawk circling above us. I love these walks, but you can't believe the junk people dump out here. We've found a hide-a-bed, cans full of paint, window sills, pallets, a bag of clothes. Is it really that much harder to dump your couch at the thrift store down the street? Come on, people. Or hey, I have an idea, how about dumping your trash at the dump? Just a thought.