Driving and hiking

What up with all y'all?  Winter in Tucson continues to be extraordinary.  Last season was really cold and windy, this season has been warm and calm so far.  It's odd because both years are La Nada weather patterns.  I think the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is helping by keeping us under a ridge of high pressure.  Whatever, we are enjoying it.
The RV park has new food trucks this year.  I'm posting a picture of this one for our Canadian friends. I just checked their menu on Facebook, and see that they have regular poutine, poutine with bacon, hotdog poutine and pulled pork poutine.  So, all of your poutine needs can be met here.

Yesterday we had to take the bus for a drive.  First we went out to Tucson Truck Terminal.  It's a good truck stop.  They put the diesel in for you.  Our fuel tank tends to spit if one tries to fuel too quickly, and the attendant was very careful with it.  They also have 4 homemade soups every day.

There is a gift shop.

Then it was out to drive up and down the roads in the Tucson Mountain Park.  The entrance road has a bunch of rollers.  When you drive that in an RV with air bags, it's almost like being weightless at the top of the hill.  As was the case on New Years day 2013, the black tank was not clearing itself.  Bad, very bad.  One wonders if it's a function of being in one place for so long. 

This is the far end of McCain loop.  I find making the left onto this road from Kinney to be hair raising.  Jim says it's fine.  Anyway, driving through the park, up and down, left and right, clears any problems a black tank might have.

Today we hiked.  We went up Bowen, down the other side out to the stone hut and then back up the big hill and down.  It's a hilly and rocky route.

Looking back towards Tucson.

It was about 5 miles.  It was enough hike for my soft non-calloused feet.  It'll be good when the callouses return.

The brittle bush are blooming.

Other than riding and hiking, there is not too much to report. 

Lunch at Char's Thai

We had a group ride to a Thai restaurant today.   It was a beautiful day with a good turn out.

There was a large picture in the restaurant that I just glanced at.  It registered as a south west landscape.  Someone at the table really looked at it, however, and noticed that there were people in the landscape; people that did not look like they were from Arizona or Utah.

I love this.

After lunch the group dispersed.  We ended up running into two of our friends on the Rillito bike trail.  We saw a bobcat crossing the trail.  I was not fast enough to get a picture of him.  He walked across the pavement, and down into the wash.  We all went over to look at him, and he gazed back at us.  And then he was gone.  So I have swiped two pictures of bobcats off the internet.

They are just lovely animals.

Jim and I ended up with 40 miles today.  They were flat miles, but they count as time on the bike.  My posterior and I are still negotiating on how much time we want to spend sitting on the bike.  So far, the posterior has the final vote.

A New Camera in the House

Do you not love Costco?  Do you not love the phenomenon of going in for ONE THING and coming out with stuff you didn't know existed?  Surely I'm not the only one who has experienced this.  Anyway, we went in for the one thing, walked by the camera display, and this jumped into my hand.  Before I knew it, I was filling out the slip to buy it at the check out counter.  It's pretty cool.  It's very small and light.  It uses the same CMOS sensor that the Canon Elph 310 and the S100 use.  Low light performance is maybe not as good as the Elph, but it does have 30X zoom.

 

Today I took it out to the Mission Xavier del Bac to see how it would do.  This has a fair amount of zoom on it.

 

Inside, using the Program mode and 800 ISO.

 

Same settings.

 

Back outside.

 

 

This was taken at home, with a lot of zoom.  Notice the plane upper right.  The palm fronds are a little fuzzy due to the wind blowing them.

 

Sunsets are good, but not great.  But good enough, I think.

 

The strap that came with it is just awful.  Something better will have to be procured.
We're going to Europe again this year, bicycling will be involved.  I'm thinking I will take this and an Elph.  The Panasonic is a great camera, but it's not something that I would take on a bicycle.
So there you go, that's what we're up to.

Lunch at Cafe Desta

Today was a lunch ride.  Cafe Desta was the destination.  I was raised in the American south on a fairly typical rural Alabama diet.  My family relocated often, but my mother cooked what she knew.  It's not terrible food, but it's bland.  Hence, I have the palate of a three year old.  Cafe Desta is Ethiopian. I am happy to report, it's really good.  I had Kik, Fosolia, and Injera.  The first two were very good, the Injera - not so much.  It's like a crepe, but it's sour dough and it was not working for me.  Jim had the Alicha Doro over house salad and it was excellent.  I'm having that next time.  They cook with a lot of tumeric.  If you're in the area, give it a try. 

 

After lunch we rode back to the park.  We took a new route to see where it went.  This was taken from a pedestrian bridge over a flood control channel.   Unfortunately the route debouches onto Ajo, west of I19 where there are no bike lanes and much traffic.

It was a glorious day.  There was no wind and it got into the low 70s.

An Egret and Picasa's New Auto Backup Feature

We saw this water bird today at Christopher Columbus Park.  As we started to sneak up on him to get a better picture, he flew away.  Wretched bird!  It's an egret, which is a type of heron.  I know this because I just googled it.  All things are knowable on the web.

Are you a Picasa user?  Apparently the brain trust at Google has implemented a new auto-backup feature for photos.  If you have a ton of photos and they start auto backing up, AND you're on a limited data plan, that backup could exceed your data limits.  A blogger brought it to my attention, and he'll be talking about it again tomorrow.  This truly sounds like the work of the devil.  I haven't seen the popup window yet, but this feature must die. 
Other than this maties, I have zippity doo-dah all to report.

Pima Canyon Trail Revisited

Greetings Earthlings!  How is your new year progressing?  Here, so far, so good.  We've had a brunch ride with friends.  The next day we had a ride up Gates Pass with the guys who are way faster than me; thought I might have an aneurysm on that one.  Yesterday was a recovery day from the aneurysm inducing ride with the faster guys.
Today we hiked.  Neither one of us seemed to be in the mood for the bicycle, so we headed out to the Pima Canyon trail head.  The Sierra Club site calls it an easy trail.   I would have to disagree, I think trails with two foot high rocks which must be scaled repeatedly merit more than than an "easy" rating.
Here is a crested Saguaro along the way.

Happy cactus are in the canyon.

We got farther today than we have before.  After slogging through the rocks, the trail goes into an area with many cottonwood trees, and less arduous terrain.  It's pretty there, there's a lot more green and there are trees.  It took us an hour to get to that section.

This is a canyon wall.  The moon was still up.

So, we still have not made it to the dam.  The trail head to the dam is 3.2 miles. I'm still somewhat reluctant to go more than an hour out with the foot.  Although the hike towards the dam is mostly uphill, it's actually easier than the returning leg.  The repeated stepping down off the big rocks gets tiring.
It was a good day. After the hike we went to a Whataburger.  Jim has never been to one.  They're still pretty good.