Hello from Scottsdale again, where I'm fulfilling the first of two planned cat-sitting gigs for my friend Susan.
Since I last wrote I've been back down in Tucson staying with my friend Greg and his friend/housemate Lois and helping them with a few projects around the homestead there, the biggest of which is erecting a couple of fence segments to enclose the back yard.
Lois took Greg and myself to a couple satellite venues of the gem and mineral show the first day I was down there and we enjoyed many social occasions and happy hours as well so we weren't working too hard. I was also able to get together and hike with my friends Dave Steffen and Nichole Robillard who were on a short trip to the area.
When we reached a point on the fence project where we were waiting for supplies to arrive I took off again for more exploring and camping south of Tucson and that's when I got the call for the cat-sitting gig. This one will be from 2/15 - 2/21 and the second will begin 2/26 and last for about two weeks. Tough life, eh?
Yesterday was pretty gray and rainy and driving up here from Tucson I stopped to explore some potential future campsites I'd identified using satellite view on Google Maps and had some lovely views of the Superstition mtns.
Oh, and at Greg's suggestion I stopped and got a haircut on my way out of town!
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| Susan at happy hour before I left Scottsdale the first time I was here |
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| This was a room adjacent to another happy hour in Tucson with Greg and his friends. I liked the architecture and decor. |
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| Greg with his cat Tyler. Tyler is my special buddy at Greg's house. For some reason Tyler likes to chew on my ear bud cable. The first night he severed one of the two ear buds, so now I'm down to mono sound, which is fine since I'm usually just listening to the news anyway. But the second night I woke up to him chewing on the primary part of the cord and shoed him away. In the morning I saw he'd bared some wires but the one ear bud still works. Now I have to hide that cord. Luckily this seems to be the only kind of cord he likes to chew (I was afraid he'd chew on the power cords to the laptop and phone as well but so far he hasn't). |
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| Greg and Lois at the bead and jewelry section of the gem show. |
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| Nichole and Dave at the start of our hike up Bladgett's Ridge in the Sabino Canyon recreation area. |
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| Taking a break on the way up. I think it was about 7 miles round trip and approx. 2500 ft elevation change. |
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| Now you can see how high we're getting. This is looking south and that's Tucson in the background. |
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| The summit, looking east. |
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| from the summit looking north. |
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| My new haircut! Still subject to bed head when I'm out camping, though. |
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| On Tuesday night I camped in south Tucson, in an undeveloped ravine area east of Rita Ranch. It wasn't very picturesque so I didn't take any pictures there. But the next day I drove south and circumnavigated the Santa Rita mountains, ending up on the western side of Mt. Wrightson, on a bench area above Amado (just south of Green Valley). This was a nice spot (with good cell phone reception) with views of the valley below and the mountains beyond and Elephant Head and Mt. Wrightson behind. And best of all there were acres and acres (probably hectares) of ocotillo (my favorite cactus, which you can see in the picture above) covering the ravines. They were just starting to bud out at the tip of each of those branches, and I can only imagine with the recent moisture that they'll soon be blooming in firey glory! I hope I get to see that. I may have to try to go back to this place because I haven't seen such expanses of ocotillo anywhere else so far. |
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| The inside of my ocotillo observation blind. |
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| Sunset on a rare cloudy day. |
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| Superstition Mtns. yesterday evening as I was driving back up to Scottsdale and scouting future possible campsites. |
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| I love how green it is! No ocotillo here though. |
Okay cats and kittens, be good and I'll chat with you again later. -- Chris
More pics (and maybe some short videos).
