SECOND THANKSGIVING FOR US

Some of us Canadians do a little double dipping when it comes to Thanksgiving.  North of the border, we celebrate it in early October.  We will be cooking a nice gluten free turkey first thing tomorrow morning and will take it to our friends, Jim's and Judy's, in Florence Gardens an adjoining park. There will be nine of us there for a late lunch.  Aileen is also doing gravy, Brussels's sprouts and dessert.  The others are all bringing food too so we will not go hungry!  

I led a small group of six machines on both Monday and Tuesday this week.  Aileen came along on the Tuesday ride and enjoyed her day.  That was her first time riding with the main group and specially with Blue.

There was a pretty good sunset here tonight and I was out with my SX50 while my supper got cold on the table.   Later after nearly full dark, I took my 6D out and took a few handheld shots.  This was at 1/20 second and was possible because this camera will auto focus in extremely low light.  The SX50 would not have handled this image.

I thought this group of saguaros looked neat erupting 

Here's 86 year old Blue enjoying yet another ride in the desert

We managed to find one saguaro blooming on our Monday ride.  We passed by thousands of other cactus and not a bloom to be seen.  I took the Tuesday group back to the same saguaro and again there was one lonely bloom, but on a different arm.

I've been seeing lots of roadrunners this year so far but none have stopped for a photo.  This guy crossed in front of me then stopped behind a bush.  By standing up on the ATV seat, I was able to shoot over the bush and catch this image.

This was a new species for me.  He is a Zone-Tailed Hawk.

Today being cloudy and fairly good light for flower photography, I took my bike and rode around much of Florence Garden Mobile Home Park to see what I could find.  These small flowers were on top of a tall cactus.  Since the sky was so crummy looking, I blacked it out to better show the blossoms.  I didn't spot the bee until I was looking at it on the computer screen.

Cactus fruit from last summer's bloom

This one was about head high so I was able to actually do a macro shot nice and close up