SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK

Friday, February 17 – We headed to Saguaro National Park on the west side of Tucson this morning. We enjoyed a hike among the magnificent Saguaro cactus. We just love the cactus, rocks, and desert environment!

We started our stop at the Visitor's Center to get information about the available trails and what they would recommend for our physical condition. We prefer not to get on a trail with too much elevation gain (over 750-800 feet) over a short distance. With their help we decided to connect a couple short trails together to end up with a hike of about 4 miles. The trails roamed up and down of the side of the mountain keeping elevation changes to a manageable level.

We started on Wild Dog Trail which meandered among the Saguaro cactus and the rocky foothills of several nearby mountains. There were hundreds of “Kodak” opportunities, and Marsha took advantage of many of them.

We then walked about half a mile down a dirt road and connected to the short Signal Hill Trail which wound up a small rocky outcrop filled with numerous petroglyphs. Some possible purposes of rock art (petroglyphs) include: hunting, fertility or spiritual symbols; boundary markers or landmarks; records of important events; clan symbols; and solstice and calendar markers. This was an interesting addition to our hike today.

Prehistoric Hohokam Rock Art.

We finished the hike by retracing our route back to the trail head. We covered 4 miles in a little less then 3 hours and taking about 10,794 steps. A perfect hike in the mountains around Tucson, AZ.

Guess what! We are finally caught up with our posts. We hope to never get that far behind again!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope y'all come back real soon. Have a great day!

SIGHTSEEING IN TUCSON, AZ

Thursday, February 16 – We've been hearing tons of gun fire since arriving at Justin's Diamond J Campground in Tucson, AZ. A couple neighbors informed us that they were having a shooting tournament at the nearby The Tucson Trap and Skeet Club. This morning we headed out that way to see what was going on. 

Man, were we surprised! This club has 50 skeet shooting stations (4 shooters/station) on 380 acres, a 9,000 sq. foot club house, buildings for various shooting clubs, a restaurant, bar and 200 FHU 50amp RV sites (available to club members only).

A very unique way to carry a shotgun.

There were nearly 200 contestants shooting this morning, and the competition goes on into the night. The shooting range is lighted. These shooters were sure going through the shells and clay pigeons. A great deal of money here not counting the thousands of dollars many of these guns cost or the hundreds of RV's parked in the campground. But the men and women shooters and spectators were having a fun day!

We then headed to a historical section of Tucson to see some of the restored historical homes. Nice that these homes were saved and restored.

Our next stop was the Old Town Artisan area. 

This block of about 20 small stores were filled with items produced by local artists. There is also a restaurant where we could enjoy lunch or dinner. We were surprised with the pricing. Although many of the pieces were pretty expensive, a person could also pick-up a piece at a reasonable price. Of course, Marsha found a couple “early Christmas” presents for a couple of her friends.

We guess rocking horses are out and rocking pigs are in.

Our last stop was one of the many Tucson bike trails. We had loaded our bikes in the truck so we could ride the Rillito River Park Trail. This trail is still under construction and will eventually be a circular route, called the Loop, and will cover about 25 miles. The trail along the east side of the river is complete, so we wanted to ride down and back on the same side.

Our good intentions soon flew out the window when we realized the direction we were heading was a very gradual uphill slope. After about six miles of huffing and puffing, we sadly decided to turn around and head back to the trail head. Ahhhh.... going back was much easier! We have some conditioning to do, that's for sure!

We returned to the RV Park to relax for the rest of the day. Blogger friends, Larry and Gerry, Road Runner,  stopped by for a short visit. They are staying at the opposite end of the park. We had a nice chat and enjoyed the visit.

Yesterday, we were lucky enough to meet up with friends from our church back in Canton, Ohio. Barb and Bob are spending a month in Tucson, and we both had Wednesday afternoon free. What a blessing it is to not only do we get to meet up with blogger fiends, but meet up with friends from back home. 

Bob, Barb, Marsha, Paul

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

TUCSON MOUNTAINS...BROWN TRAIL

Tuesday, February 14 – We had hiking on our minds when we rolled out of bed this morning at Justin's Diamond J RV Park, in Tucson, AZ. Even though the sky was overcast, we knew it was the perfect weather for a hike. 

We headed a very short distance to the Tucson Mountain Park, and the trail head for Brown Mountain Trail. Our friends, Pam and John, Oh The Places They Go,  suggested hiking this trail in a counter-clockwise direction getting the difficult climb out of the way early. We are glad we did and suggest that to others hiking this trail. By the way, we parked at Juan Santa Cruz picnic area to begin the hike.

We began our hike climbing into the nearby mountains using a series of switchbacks. We climbed about 767 feet according to our iPhone app “Map your Hike.” We then followed the trail along the ridge of three mountains. This required several descents into the saddle areas between the mountains and then re-climbing to the top of the next mountain. There really isn't any casual level walking on this hike.

This is not a trail for flip flops!

Lots of switchbacks. 

We stopped after about 2 miles, thinking we were about half way through the hike for a mid-morning snack.

The trail was listed as 4.2 miles, but we actually covered 5.5 miles when finished. We should have put off that break for another mile! After our snack, we started the decent down the last of three mountains. This is a pretty rugged part of the trail and we were glad to have good hiking boots and hiking poles.

Pretty rugged trail. Wear your boots and have your poles ready.

Once we reached the top, we looked on both sides of the mountain. One side was flat and the other lead to more mountains.

Signs that Spring is just around the corner.

Once down, we followed along the foothills of the mountains to return to the trail head. Of course, we got confused at one area where several trails crossed and we roamed around the area for awhile trying to find the right trail. Eventually, we got straightened out and returned to the trail head. 

We were way up there.

We really enjoyed this hike. It was strenuous at times for Paul with his heart condition but nothing outside his limits. Just huffing and puffing, and the need for occasional breaks, especially on the uphill portions of the trail. We covered 5.5 miles in a little over 4 hours. We took 14,878 steps. We agree with the trail rating of moderate....especially for “old farts” like Paul. lol

We finished Valentine's Day with a “date night” at the nearby casino. Casino Del Sol is less than 10 miles down the road from our RV Park and is one of the best casinos we have ever been to, including big time Las Vegas. We both even came home with some winnings, although added together it totaled less than a dollar.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!