Hiking to the Upper San Francisco River!
Hiking to a 'river' in New Mexico frequently brings to mind that line from the movie, The Princess Bride, where Vicini kept making the statement,
"Inconcievable"... and after about the third time, Inigo says, "I don't think that means what you think it means." What I mean by that, is that when
you are hiking to a river, you postulate the idea that when get there, picnic time! Wading, cooling off, and everything else that goes with hiking to a
river. In New Mexico, WRONG! Hiking to a 'river' means in reality, hiking to a drainage. If I remember right, there are only 4 or 5 rivers in NM that
run year-round. And the San Francisco is NOT one of them. Mineral Creek and Whitewater Creek run pretty much all the time, if you go up far
enough, you can find water. But both of these creeks blunder out onto the flats, and disappear into the rocks, presumably into the aquifer.

Beginning. The river is off at the bottom of the very steep hill in the center of the picture	Looking back west.
Ezra	Freckles & Ezra
Layer upon layer...	Some sort of thistle flower. Pretty.
Amazingly, this bone-dry river began flowing while we were lunching. Was it due to the incredible power of our magnetic personalities?? Doubt it. Probably had more to do with the couple of of afternoons of rain in the mountains to the north. But it was nice to think that it was staged for us. :-)
	What this shows, is that anything that can 'stand its ground' during one of these floods, ends up being decorated with detritus. There were examples of this all over this flood plain.
Cave with a tree.	Another buildup of driftwood, etc.
Coffee Bean gets amourous. Jeff is NOT pleased!	Ezra & Freckles... "C'mon, let's get on with it!"
Always been a sucker for neat rocks. This one I found especially fascinating.	This one looks like a gathering of small rocks in a bundle of clay. NOT! Hard as a bloody brick.
On up the drainage...	Some kind of multi-flowering bush. Jeff told me what it was, and I immediately forgot. From the goats standpoint, it was simply good eating!
Always fascinates me how plants can grow wherever there is a scratch of dirt. Like in this nearly vertical fissure!	C'mon guys! There's some really tasty stuff right up around the next bend!
Another rock worth a picture... at least for me!	Coffee Bean. He was my favorite until yesterday, when he wimped-out at a choke-point in Harve Gulch. Now he is on my list and will have to work his way back up!
Ezra says, "Enough already!!" I wanna go home... to the corral... where there's lots of water!	Lookin pretty dry here. I'm thinking that the really tasty stuff now is back at the OK corral.
Love the flora!	There are better cacti out there... I just gotta find them!
A 'flora' somewhat past its prime!	This was a fat little bugger that was somewhat less than personable... kindly suggesting that we get the he-- out of here and go home... so he could continue his sun bath!