We actually planned to hike the Go John Trail at the Cave Creek Regional Park, but our navigation system directs us to a slightly different place (still in the same area though). First we end up in a nice desert neighborhood with beautiful big million-dollar homes. The road leads down into a creek bed and there is water in the creek – almost one foot deep, across the road. We pass and continue until we find ourselves in front of a sign that prohibits trespassing. We don’t want to get into trouble and turn back to the creek, park the car and start walking. It is so nice to walk along water in the desert. It’s unbelievable, but in that creek there are millions of tad pols, in some places the puddles are just black and in other places where the water already dried up there are black patches of dead tad pols. What we don’t see though are frogs or toads.

After a while we return back to the car and then follow the signs to Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area. There we park the car in an official parking lot and start walking the Spur Cross Trail for a bit more than a mile then we turn left and take the Metate Trail back. The whole loop is about 3 miles (5km).

We are once again amazed by the variety of plants and flowers the desert offers at this time of the year. Sometimes you have to look closely but the desert can definitely be beautiful.