Sunday February 1st 2015

Crikey, I can’t believe a whole month has whipped by since my last post.  We moved a massive 100 miles down to Tucson a couple of weeks ago.  A change is as good as a rest, is our motto.

We have been busy pickleballing and hiking in the area.  One of our favorite places to hike is Sabino Canyon in north Tucson.  We decided on a nice 10 mile loop trail for a good day out.  It looked pretty easy and well marked from the map in the visitors center.

Surprisingly there is was quite a bit of water running in this desert area.

This Saguaro cactus skeleton is still managing to stay upright amongst it’s living relatives.

I asked Dean to move this rock out of my way.  He is such a good guy and was happy to oblige.

Tucson city is in the distance.  The trail was pretty good so far.

This is where we lost the trail.  We figured at this point either go on over the hills in front and bushwhack down a steep but shorter route or possibly spend the evening backtracking down the way we came up, or hunker down for the night between some boulders.

That little knob in the distance is where we bushwhacked down from.  It was at least a 1500 foot drop down to the road.

We had to slip, slide and scramble through cactus and scratchy shrubbery.  You can see why this specimen  is called a fishhook cactus.  Thank goodness we did not land on any of these.  Almost every plant in the desert seems to have thorns, spikes or hooks.

However several other kinds managed to attach themselves to our legs and arms.

By the time we made it to the tram stop, we were a bit bashed up.

A shower, the couch, ice packs and adult beverages helped ease our pain although it is taking quite a while for all those scratches and scrapes to heal up.

Over Christmas Jay scarfed down a lot of my cheese and took a wheel home too.  We just had two days of rain so I buckled down and fixed another couple of wheels.  Should be ready in 4-6 weeks.

My lovely sons also snagged most of my soap at Christmas.  Hope you are staying nice and clean lads!  Had to get a few more batches done to replenish my stock.  Now the sun is shining again and it is time pickleball.