Last week Greg and I went up north to visit red rock country. Because of recent rains the countryside is lush and green:
Among other places, we visited Red Rock State Park, a small and accessible park with a nice visitor center that gives lots of information about the ecology and history of the area. Unfortunately, due to budget problems in the State of Arizona, it's scheduled to close on June 3.We enjoyed walking along Oak Creek, which rushed and tumbled along like a small river:
Because of Oak Creek, this park is also a riparian habitat with many beautiful trees. Though most of them were not yet in leaf, the sight of so many large deciduous trees is unusual in our dry state.
Red Rock State Park lives up to its name. The colorful red sandstone gives a rich texture to the landscape.
And you can begin to see red rock formations as soon as you get out of your car at the visitor center.
The next day we bought a Red Rock Permit, which allows you to park in the Coconino National Forest and hike closer to some of the big rock formations. We hiked around Bell Rock, along with lots of other people:
And, again, I enjoyed looking at the rock textures,:
as well as looking up at the red sandstone formations against a big blue sky.
I couldn't resist a short film clip of these hard-working red ants in the red, red dirt:
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