Fountain Hills
Today we drove out to McDowell and Fountain Hills.  It was a beautiful day, a little breezy but warm and sunny.  I saw a female cardinal or a Phainopeplas but of course scared it away before I could get a good look.  We will go out to the McDowell Mountain Park another day for some serious cardinal lookin'.  The town of Fountain Hills is a planned community established in 1970 - prior to that the area was a cattle ranch.  The centrepiece of Fountain Hills is the beautiful fountain, one of the world's tallest man-made fountains.  It was built in 1970 by the same fellow that constructed the London Bridge in Lake Havasu.  The fountain sprays water for about 15 minutes every hour at the top of the hour.  It sprays water at a rate of 7000 gallons per minute.  Under ideal conditions the water can reach a height of 560 feet.

We arrived at 12 noon and as we read the sign it said the fountain came on at the top of the hour an runs for 15 minutes.  No water was coming out of the fountain, and as we read further on the sign it said if the wind was over 10 miles an hour it would not come on.  Seriously???  I was so disappointed.   However, the walk around the lake was no disappointment at all.  This man made lake is made out of re-claimed sewage water of some sort so there is no swimming or boating.  But a great space for a walk, the birds and family outings.

 There were a lot of coots and ducks.

 There is even a little island where the birds really love to perch.

If you look at the base of the mesquite tree in between it and the cactus you will see a heron.  With the binoculars I could see how beautiful he was, so feathery and awesome.

These are American Wigeons and they have a beautiful green stripe on their head. We also saw some mallards and Bufflehead ducks.

In behind is the area where we went for a picnic the other day at Saguaro lake.  This is such a beautiful town and the houses are extra special custom built homes.

 the houses are so pretty and unique.

The front cactus is actually this person's mailbox.  Coool

 

All around the path of this lake are beautiful sculptures.  This last one is a memorial of some sort, the names are engraved on the leaves.  These are giant wind chimes. Beautiful

 Well, would any blog be complete without a cactus lesson?  This one is a totem pole cactus.  It is smooth and has no pokey things.

 Real mature Susan!  But seriously - look how the arms sort of form, this is such smooth neat cactus.

 This one is a Senita cactus

And this is a San Pedro cactus. It blooms at night in July and the fragrant  white blooms are up to 9 inches in diameter.

And look what happened. An hour went by and the wind went down and the beautiful fountain came on for us.  YAY

While I was reading up on this town I discovered that 94 per cent of the population of approximately 22,200 are white.  86 per cent are between the ages of 18 and 65. The median income for a family is $92,000.   It certainly appears to be an affluent community.  I also noticed that there is a lot more to see  -  like a lot of artwork scattered in the community.  Apparently there are nearly 100 pieces of publicly displayed artwork throughout the downtown and at public buildings.  There is an Avenue of the Fountains which has 8 fountains.  Awwww too bad we will have to go back!