Rivers & Rattlers!

Yesterday as I was returning home from town, there was a car stopped alongside the dirt road and people looking at….something.  I slowed and a man came over and said there was a big rattlesnake crossing the road! Sure enough….I just caught the last 3′ or so as he slithered into the weeds, but he was a big one. The body was 2.5 or 3″ thick! So I’m guessing he had to be 5-6′ long. Yikes. I thought it was still too early for rattlesnakes this far north! We’ll have to be way more careful.

I got the riverside site I wanted! And it’s great!!  Here’s a view from the far side of the Verde River. It’s supposed to be a good trout stream but I was surprised that the water is not completely clear. Really nice that it has water in it; so many of the streams and rivers in AZ are dry right now.

Here’s our fire ring, not that we’ll use it:

And the views from the camper:

I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying here the full 14 days allowed! It’d be perfect if only I could get a wifi signal here. I get 1 bar of Verizon, just enough to send and receive texts. Some weird people were camped on the other side of the river until this morning, when they threw several watermelon rinds down the riverbank (some went into the river, some not) and then threw a full plastic bag of garbage onto their blazing campfire, and left. I don’t know what they were but they did not speak English…..something Eastern.  I walked over today and there’s still a bunch of smoldering garbage in the fire pit. I hope it doesn’t attract bears.