A change in the weather

On Sunday night, February 8, a weather system rolled through bringing 1.2" of rain overnight and much cooler temperatures. Daytime highs this week have been in the low 60s and at night we have had 40F - that means we have to have the furnace on in the morning. But after the rain, each day has had brilliant sunshine so we are still outside staying active. When it rains here in the Phoenix valley, the mountains have snow on their peaks. That will melt to fill the reservoirs and very soon the desert wildflowers will burst into bloom.
On Tuesday,Jack and I went hiking in the Lost Dutchman State Park - so named after a prospector in the 1860s who went looking for gold in the Superstition Mountains. He did find some gold and told others about it in a saloon in the mining town of Goldfields. But after spending time with the whiskey bottle, his mine could not be found again. We hiked 3.5 miles up into the mountains, up behind Green Boulder where we sat on a flat rock for lunch and were serenaded by a beautiful bird from the top of a higher rock. God's beautiful creation! After our hike to drove part of the Apache Trail to Tortilla Flat and had an ice cream - the normally dry creek there was running strongly right over the road - another evidence of the recent rains.