Camping with the cactus

This weekend was our first experience camping in Arizona at Lake Havasau. It was beautiful there! We left on Friday afternoon, approximately 1 hr after we said we would and after almost forgetting our tent and camping chairs...who really needs those?! :) It was about 3 hrs away as we drove through the desert and hundreds of tumbleweeds (which I think are so cool!) and cactuses (cacti?). -sidenote- my mom had told me a story of when she grew up in California, the kids would make large forts out of the tumbleweeds. I hadn't really believed her since I had only seen 1 or 2 tumbleweeds and didn't think that their forts were really that big, they were just big to little kids. Well both sides of the roads were lined with tumbleweeds....anyways (mom I believe your story now! :) )
We got to our camping site right as the sun was setting so we quickly put up our tent and set up. We saw several quail, which is what Brent and Bella were going to hunt the next day, so Brent was getting excited thinking that he was going to have good luck. We woke up the next morning and drove out through the desert on some little tiny dirt road (if you could call it a road, more like a bumpy path) to the "spot" that was perfect for hunting. Bella bolted out of the car running through the hills only to come back with cactus prickles stuck in all her paws, nose, and tail. We spent most of the day picking out the cactus prickles with pliers. So all of the quail that we saw at our camp site and on the roads were nowhere to be seen. I think they felt safer in town. It was really pretty to hike the foothills and see jackrabbits and spend the afternoon outside. I called it quits for the day because I felt too bad taking out any more thorns from Bella's paws, otherwise I'm sure Brent would have hunted all day and probably been successful. We went to the lake that was deserted because I'm sure Arizonians thought it was too cold to be sitting at the lake- it was 65 degrees!
It was a fun camping experience...here are a few pics from the weekend.