Yesterday (Monday) was the hottest day so far: 86 degrees!  We have learned to do whatever physical activity we want in the morning and leave the afternoon for errands, washing dishes, etc. (in air conditioning, of course). So in the morning we went a few miles up the road to the Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge. We didn't know what to expect because there is very little information on the internet other than the main attraction is "birding" (we saw a Great Egret, aka Great White Heron, a pair of vultures and several other birds that we didn't see long enough to identify). The refuge is a riparian forest (floodplain forest) of cottonwood and willow, and is an ecotone between the Sonoran and Mohave deserts so it is an interesting mix of flora.

We stopped at a few trail heads and walked as far as we cared to.

  The Sonoran Desert is represented by saguaro and many other cacti.

Abby really enjoyed being off-leash and chasing lizards. However, there are rattlesnakes and scorpions around so we have to be very observant. On the last blog post Nick commented about "happy Abby" - the picture above is another example of how much she loves all this activity.

The wifi and internet here is almost as bad as at our RV park in Lake Havasu (it must be something in the Colorado River water). Most of the time we can't even get online so please be patient with big gaps in our postings.