Water returns to the Rio Grande in Las Cruces

When Margaret's sister, Lois, came to visit she wanted to see the Rio Grande.  She had seen it in movies and other scenes, but never actually seen it for real.  She was quite surprised to see a dry river bed.  I thought it appropriate to follow my blog post showing the bike path along the dry river bed with a post after the water had been returned.

This is just about as high as the Rio gets.  You can make out the high water mark on the bridge over the river on Pacacho Avenue (Interstate 70).

The bench where this couple is sitting by the river is where Margaret and Lois sat and visited while waiting for me to finish my 6.6 mile bike ride. It took me 40 minutes to complete the ride.  I don't know if that is good time.  It was a pleasure to ride all the way to the end of the bike path and back non-stop at my own pace.

This is the drainage ditch featured in my previous post about the bike path.  Notice how much fuller it appears.  It does not really have more water flowing down it. 

The high water from the mighty, muddy, Rio Grande forces the water to back up in the drainage canal.

These mud hens enjoy the fresher water of the drainage canal. There had been a mother duck with six little ducklings frequenting this location, but they must have moved on and given the location over to the mud hens.  When the little ducklings were still fuzzy, we watched the mother swim them up river.  We did not expect to ever see them again.  To our amazement they were back in the canal again the next day.

This is one of our resting benches about half way down the bike path. The scene has definitely improved, but there is now more competition for the bench.

One of the walkers along the path pointed out this gopher snake to us.  He quickly began to gather a crowd.  Fortunately I had my camera along and took several photos of him.  Actually I don't know the gender of the snake:).

I will close this blog post with a photo of a beautiful flowering tree. I wish I were more familiar with the local vegetation so I could offer a name for this plant.  As always, I welcome any suggestions or comments for the postings on this blog.