More Hiking, More Biking in Tucson

Greetings from the desert.  Decent weather has returned and happy we are about that.  While we were waiting for the blustery winds to abate there was hiking.  We returned to the recently discovered hike in the Tucson mountains last Thursday.  Here is Jim, ascending a steep bit of the trail. (This trail is going to the top of Second Ridge.)

We continued on past the point of stopping last time, and walked along a ridge to the very end of the trail.  This is what you see at the end.  There is a pretty steep drop off at that point.

Someone left this wedged in the rocks, there are pencils and a notebook so one can record that one was there.  We dutifully left an entry and put it back.

There's a fair amount of land out here.  One wonders why there couldn't be a few more trails built.

The sun was dropping behind where we had been and was lighting up the rocks a little.

In addition to hiking there has been riding.  Today we did the Santa Cruz trail to the Rillito trail to Mountain and back loop.  We were heading up the trail when we were buzzed by this guy.  He landed in front of us and sat still long enough for a photograph.  He is a big hawk.

After the hawk flew away, we looked up and were surprised to see a P3 Orion.  It's a submarine hunter.  Why is it here?

This is a structure along the trail.  There is a circle of these brick things, sort of like Stonehenge.  It's a good place for a nosh and some conversation.

Today's key learning is to not ride through the UofA campus at the quarter to the hour.  It was wall to wall moving people and bicycles, heading out to their next class. I think my reflexes are not as fast as they were, dodging bikes, people, cars and the street car was challenging.
Other that this, I have zippity-doo-dah to offer up in a post.  We need to go somewhere so I have pictures of new stuff.