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.

Wild Skies in Tucson

This is what we saw this morning.  Fog!  In Tucson!  The temperature equaled the dew point, and we had really dense fog.

Later, it cleared up and we had a beautiful day.  It was not that warm, so we headed for a hike in the the Tucson Mountain Park via the Sarasota Blvd entrance.  The sky was just amazing.

We saw a bunny in the brush.

We still wonder why this wall exists.  On the other side is a sandy wash at the level of the top of the wall.  This required a fair amount of effort to create.  What???

On the way back it started looking ominous.  Rain was not in the forecast, but still ....

More ominousness.

Isn't that the most amazing sky?  We got back to the truck before the weather reached us.  It rained pretty heavily on the way home and in the RV park.  After a couple of hours it all moved east and it returned to being a beautiful day.  The weather this winter has just been weird.  It's supposed to be back in the 70's in a couple of days, and I am looking forward to that.

Other than this, I have nothing interesting to report.

We're Out of Food Again

Well, I see it has been several days since a post.  I hate when I do that, we forget what we've been doing.  The calendar reveals there were a couple of doctor's appointments.  There was also a rainy day, which I will not complain about given the weather the rest of the country is enduring.
Friday I had an outpatient procedure which required anesthesia and intubation.  I will say I was impressed with the surgery center's approach to pain management.  There was IV morphine accompanied by oral percoset immediately upon awakening.  Yeah baby!
We did a short ride Saturday, but I was pretty tired and slow on the bike.  Today was better, we rode the trail out to Camino de Oeste.  The Ironwood Hill still kicks my butt some, but I definitely was riding stronger.
It's been windy.  In addition to rain, we also have much higher humidity.  We've had clouds in the afternoons.  The humidity has been nice, our fingers aren't cracked as they have done in past years.

Tomorrow we must go to the grocery store.  We hate doing that because of the current flu epidemic sweeping through Tucson.  One wonders if we should lay in a stack of surgical masks for shopping trips.   I really do not want the flu.
Other than this paltry offering, maties, I have nothing of interest to offer.  Perhaps we'll go somewhere to provide some blog fodder.

A New Hike in the Tucson Mountains

Today we parked at the Genser Trailhead.  Instead of going the way we usually do, we went the short route which takes us through this wet area.  I'm not sure where the water comes from.  Today it was pretty wet, with enough water to actually trickle.  It's pretty in there.

We walked past the place where we usually stop.  We discovered that the trail actually continues for quite some distance, with a fair amount of up.  Here we are at the top of the ridge.  The light green square on the left is a reservoir cover that used to be dark green.

This is looking back in to the Tucson Mountains.  It's a good hike.  We really enjoyed it, both for the up and for the fact that we haven't been there before.

While we were gone, the RV park filled up.  All the northerners are now down here.  It's nice in November and December because there are very few people in the park, and one can do laundry at will.  That's over for a couple of months.  Jim was at Costco around 10:30 this morning, and he reports that it was full of the aged.  When I lived in Tucson thirty some years ago, we used to complain about the snowbirds and their erratic driving - now we are part of that demographic.  It's tough to become a cliche.

Relocation and Another Ride at McDowell

Originally we had planned to leave Fountain Hills today.  However, we decided to extend two days in a vain hope that the weather would warm up.  To extend our stay, we had to move to a different site.  Thus we found ourselves checking the slide toppers this morning prior to retracting the slides.  They were coated in ice.  Yes, ice.

Jim had to get up on the ladder and remove ice before we could bring in the slides.  It was really cold!  Look at Jim's feet, he's wearing flip flops.  We need to leave our state of denial, and dress for the climate we have and not the one we want.

We finally got the bus relocated and dragged all of our hoses to the new site, two spaces down.

In the afternoon we went back out to McDowell and rode with Gayle.  It was chilly, about 47.  It's a tough temperature to dress for.  I was hot when the trail went up, but then when the trail went downhill we were all getting ice cream headaches.

Here is Jim wearing his super fuzzy arm warmers. 

It was a good ride.  I'm glad it wasn't any longer because we were getting really cold at the end.

New Year's Weekend

Happy New Year to you, Earthlings.  We are currently in Fountain Hills staying at the Eagle View RV Resort.  Given the gunfire that we endured last New Year's Eve in Tucson, we decided to get out of town while our roof was still intact.  
We arrived on Monday.  Tuesday we met up with Gayle and Jim, who are currently camping at McDowell Mountain park.  It was a glorious day.  We rode up Bluff, did part of Pemberton and then slogged back up the Tortoise Trail.  It was a very pleasant day to ride, and we really enjoyed it.  See the beautiful blue sky? See the shadows?

All of that changed Wednesday.  It rained, it was windy, it was cold.  We went to Camping World and then over to Scottsdale Fashion Square so we could walk inside.  It was nuts.  When did New Year's Eve become a major shopping day?  The first garage we drove in to was just grid locked.  We found another that was half empty.  So we walked laps in the mall and gawked at the high zoot stores and the people in the mall.
Today was also frustrating.  It's cold!  We had planned to meet Gayle and Jim out at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, for a hike.  However it was 18 degrees colder there than at the RV.  We were dressed for the wrong climate.  We wandered around a bit and then bailed.  Too cold!  See the white stuff on the cactus?  Snow.

There was a lot of snow on the mountains in the distance.   The point and shoot does not do it justice.

So, after bailing on the preserve, we came back to the bus, put on more clothes and walked around some more.  There is a storage area across the street that has some interesting RVs kept there.  There is a Spartan Imperial Mansion that needs to be refurbished.  There are also two 45 foot long 5th wheels - they are enormous.  I can't imagine towing something that long. 
Hopefully it will warm up enough tomorrow to go ride the mountain bikes again.  We are here for two more days, and then we return to Tucson.