A Very Merry Christmas Was Had by Us

We have just had the nicest Christmas. Roger and Peggy Hancock came down from Utah to spend it with us. Christmas Eve day we walked out from the Genser Trail head. I love that trail, it's really pretty. It was a gorgeous day.
This is Jim and Roger.

This is Peggy at the top of the climb at the scenic overlook.

Christmas Day we went mountain biking from the 36th Street trail head. It's a blighted area, people build fires and drink in the parking lot. Christmas Eve someone drove through the gate, crashing it, and then into 3 boulders which he pushed several feet. Whoever did it, has some serious front end damage. Anyway, the trail that we had previously scouted on foot that looked so promising turned out to be a little slice of hell. It was steep, rocky and just icky. This was the one of the few nice parts of it.

Peggy has a book on mountain biking in Arizona. They list the trails in the Tucson Mountain Park where we were riding. This section right here is listed as the "Evil Wash". What do you know? They were right! It has lots of loose sand with big rocks embedded in it. This was one of the worst stretches of the day. I did much hike-a-bike.


Peggy, Jim and I had a nosh while Roger rode ahead to see if the sand ever quit and returned to a hard surface. It didn't, so we turned around and went back. It was just gruesome!


On the way back, Peggy got too close to a prickly pear and it bit her! This is one of the thorns that Roger pulled from her leg. It looked like a nail.


Christmas dinner. Lamb chops, yum. Jim did a superb job of grilling them to perfection.


Today was a MUCH better riding day. For the first time I can say yes, mountain bike riding is fun. Up until now, it's been open to debate. The four of us went out to Fantasy Island, an MTB park way out east, and rode. We had a nice, non-threatening warm up loop, with nice non-threatening whoop-de-doos, and then progressed to the northern half of the park which I have never ridden before because it was too scary. I rode a bunch of stuff I would not have attempted a week ago. After riding all the rocks Friday, this didn't look so deadly, so I rode washes that are normally too intimidating. It was a good day.

I'm going to a MTB skills camp for 3 days January 8. So much of mountain bike riding is non-intuitive (for me, anyway), I've decided to save time and skin and get professional help.