My hike for this week - Massacre Grounds in the Superstition Mountains

So, I had my hike yesterday. Out of all the people that I email, only one person showed up and he had to go at a different time because he had to be done sooner! It was really a great hike, though, so everyone else just totally missed out! The weather was a gorgeous, sunny, 73 degree day, so I couldn't have asked for nicer weather. It was a little chilly to start with because it was pretty breezy, but once I got down in between the hills, it warmed up a bit. The wildflowers are just beginning to bloom. It was gorgeous!! The trail is called Massacre Grounds Trail because in 1800 there was a group of Mexican miners that got massacred by the Apache Indians in the grounds below the cliff that this trail ends at.

Here are some pictures of the desert wonderland!

Beautiful wildflowers

These look like daisies!

Poppies?


More daisy kind of things with a yucca....kinda a cool contrast!

Baja Fairy Dusters in abundance

Even the cactus got into the blooming act!

Cool view

It's hard to tell in this picture but this guy actually had 2 horses. One he was riding and the other was following along with no harness or lead rope or anything. I asked him about that and he said the two are sisters and they never stray too far from each other. How cool!

The view of the surrounding area


A look toward the Superstitions

Cool rock formations


Desert Stonehenge!

A couple of dry waterfalls

More scenery


Lots of mountains can be seen from here


A very recognizable spire to guide you along the way


Rolling hills

Beautiful!


The cliff at the end! That's a LOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG way down there!! Somewhere down there a bunch of Mexican miners died in 1800.







The view from the top of the cliff







This is a view of the cliff from down below








Another view from the cliff



One of the waterfalls. There's actually real water there!

Unfortunately, a group of about 15 teenagers showed up about a minute after I got to the falls and kind of took over so I really didn't get to enjoy them as much as I would have liked. I was going to take some video of them so that you could hear the dripping water, but alas, they were making way too much noise for that!

The other waterfall. This one was actually dripping pretty good! I think this is called Massacre Grounds Falls.


A view from the falls looking the opposite direction.



Another view of the waterfall.

A view of the falls from a distance

Another view of the falls from a distance

The falls

The saddle as seen from the trail head

Look who was waiting to welcome me back to the parking lot!

There were actually 3 of these little guys right in the path about 60 steps from the parking lot. I stepped down and one of them scampered away. I grabbed out the camera really quick and then had a devil of a time trying to find them again! I had to move my feet so that they would move again so I could find them. I saw two right away and snapped the pictures of them but as I was starting to move off, a third one moved! So cute! They were pretty little....definitely not full grown. I used to catch these guys up in Flagstaff when I was a kid! How cool to see some down in Phoenix too.

It was a fabulous hike and a beautiful day. I got a bit sunburnt but it's all good. There were only a few people on the trail (with the exception of the group of 15 teens) so it was very nice and quiet. A great way to start the weekend!

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. The Suns lost AGAIN...this time to the Spurs.

There's no question that we have to win the game on Tuesday. We play the Mavs who have the 8th playoff spot that we're trying to take over from them. A win wouldn't put us there, but it would get us closer! After the game I did a little housework and a little yardwork. Made some dinner and now I'm just chillin' watching some stuff on the DVR.

I didn't get to do a workout today, but I've been running since I got up this morning, so I'll call that activity for the day. Back at it in full force tomorrow with a morning and evening workout. I have a tanning session planned for tomorrow as well, so it'll be a busy day! With 3 home games this week, it'll be a busy week as well.

So, the bad news....I also have a sick kitty. My baby that I've had for 15 years since he was a 1 1/2 pound ball of fur that fit into the palm of my hand is feeling very under the weather. He isn't eating or drinking at all and I think he's lost quite a bit of weight. He's also kind of dispondent and very limp when I pick him up. I'll be making an appointment for the vet tomorrow. I can't have him sick....he's always been as healthy as a horse!

Anyway, better get some rest for the busy week ahead. I'll check in later!

Wow, has it really been a month?

Has it really been a month since my last post? Oops! I can't believe how time flies! Let's see....what has happened in the last month......

At the end of January, I went up to Colorado for a few days for training. Since my aunt lives in CO, I went up on Saturday to spend a couple of days with them. I got in around noon and she picked me up at the Denver airport. I was surprised as we flew out of the clouds that the ground was brown! It's January in Colorado!! Isn't it supposed to be white? We went back to her house and then to lunch. Afterward, we decided to play tennis since it was a "nice" day out (about 40 degrees!) After about 2 hours of that and it started to get dark, we called it quits and she took me to a Whole Foods and then to my hotel to check in. Then we went to dinner and a movie at their friend's house. The next day, I decided to take a walk in the snow that had fallen overnight! How cool was that? Mother Nature decided to give in to my request to see some snow while I was there! According to weather.com it was about 30 degrees, so I bundled up and started off. Found a nice golf course to walk through. Took some pics with my cell phone camera since my regular camera is too big to carry around in a blizzard (well, not a real blizzard, but to a Phoenician like me, it seemed like it!) Here are a few:

What a beautiful winter wonderland, huh? So, after my walk, I had lunch at Qdoba and then my aunt picked me up and showed me around Boulder a little. I got to see the Mork and Mindy house, the Jon-Benet Ramsey house, and various other Boulder attractions. It was still snowing heavily, so we couldn't go up on the mountain but it was really pretty! We capped the day off with dinner at Cheesecake Factory (at which I did NOT have any cheesecake!!)

The next day started training and that was cool. I was staying at a hotel 1.7 miles from the training center, so I decided to walk it. Nevermind the 12 degree weather!! I was a literal snow-woman when I got there...if a snow-woman had a bad run in the makeup department!! My mascara was running all the way down my face and my face was bright red from the cold!! LOL! Good thing I found the bathroom before I went into class!! During the lunch break, I met someone who is an IT person and is into fitness and nutrition as well! Do you know how few and far between we are??!! We chatted a bit over lunch and I tried to convert him to the TT way of life....I don't think he took the bait, though! I walked back to the hotel afterward and took this picture along the way...

The next day was my last day of class. It was -7!! I went ahead and walked in it anyway, but didn't wear any mascara to alleviate the horror movie look. The sun was out, though, and I was able to see the mountains! The nice fitness pro guy offered me a ride back to the hotel after the class since it was so cold (Thanks, Mark!) Who am I to look a gift-horse in the mouth? I gladly accepted and even though he wasn't ready to leave when I had to go (because I had to catch my flight) his boss took me back and I didn't have to walk the final lap. Flight took off and I got home to nice warm Phoenix weather....Ahhhhhhhhh! It was a nice change being in the snow, though, and it kind of invigorated me!

Hmmm.....what else to report......The Cardinals lost (as you knew from my previous post). That sucked. We'll get 'em next year!

Went for a few more hikes. I don't have the pictures off my camera yet, but when finding the pictures above on my Blackberry, I ran across the cutest puppy in the world picture! See!

Jesse fast asleep

And then here she is hanging out with her brother.....awwww....so cute!

Jesse and Curry hanging out together

So then I had to go find a couple more to get Nutmeg and Gandalf in here. Gandalf is really not photogenic, though, so it's tough to get a good one of him. This one is pretty good, though!

Gandalf, not happy about someone taking his picture!

My baby Nutmeg....raised by me since she was 6.5 weeks old!

Anyway....Then we had the All Star game here in Phoenix. Whooo hoooo! Lots of activity and big parking messes. Here's a few pics:

The building all done up

Across the street at the Block Party. Cool B of A building in the background!

Me hanging out with the entire Suns team at the NBA Jam Session

Well, this post has rambled on awhile! I think I'm pretty much caught up now. I'll be back to post some pictures of my hikes, though!

Superbowl loser push-ups

Well, as everyone knows by now, our Arizona Cardinals lost.... boo hoo.... I had a little side bet going on with some folks from Turbulence Training that the loser would do 100 push-ups. So, guess what I got to do? Yep....100 pushups.....here they are in two parts. Had to take a 5 minute rest break in between! Feel free to critique my form!

Sorry....my head gets cut off a little at the end of part 2.

This is the first time I've posted a video so I don't have all that cool editing software to make it all pretty, but you get the idea!

Cards will be back next year. We're going all the way next year!!!!

My weekly hike....

I started out doing the Wind Cave trail in the Usery Mountain Recreational Park. It was a nice trail with about 860 feet of elevation gain and about 3.2 miles long; took me about 2.5 hours to do. But there were about 5000 people hiking that trail today, so it did nothing to fulfill my need for solitude and peace. Here are some pictures of the beautiful area and views.

So, just so I know, Phoenix is that way, right?

Really? Do you have to be so explicit??

Sorry, this just cracks me up so I had to put in one more picture!!

Beautiful view from part of the way up the trail.

Part of the way up the trail.

View from the Wind Cave

Other side of the wind cave.

I spy a whole bunch of hikers hanging out below me!!! Dive bomb!!!

Nice framed view from the top.

Clover!!!

My camera battery died halfway through, so I had to use my cell phone camera....Not the best quality!

It was a really nice hike but kinda short. I felt like I needed more....more hiking and more solitude. So, I set out to find the oldest Geocache in Arizona which was only 4 miles away. I was only 3 caches away from my 200th find, so I thought that would make a nice one for my 200th. There were several trails that were kind of pointing in the same direction toward the cache and about the same distance away from it, so I picked the most likely, the Great Western trail. This is a road that actually starts in Canada and makes its way down to Mexico via backroads. It's a dirt road that is traveled by 4 wheelers, atv riders, horses, and hikers. I set my GPS to the coordinates of Geocache (the oldest one in AZ) and I started off. I walked for about 1.75 miles before I realized that I wasn't getting any closer than .6 miles to the cache and the number was starting to go up more. I decided that I had apparently chosen the wrong trail...bummer. But look at the beautiful views I saw along the way! Still with the camera phone, but you can still see how pretty it was....

The sign explaining the trail.

Beautiful rocky hills in the distance.

The desert is so green right now!

More green desert

The road.

More road with pretty hills in the background.

So I started to head back and figured I'd pick up whatever caches were on the way back. The first one I found was called Looking North. It was a pretty view, so I stopped here and had a little lunch. I was going to put on some sunscreen at this point since I could feel like I was starting to get a bit toasty, but I couldn't find it, so I guess I'll just have to be a bit burnt. After lunch, I went to Veintisiete (I think that's supposed to be 27 in Spanish). Finally, for my 200th cache, I found We Proceeded on. Kind of fitting, actually. Here is the cache description:

named after the overly used motto of the lewis and clark expedition.they wrote it in their journals rather often.

I may actually be related to Meriweather Clark, so that's kinda cool. So, I will "proceed on" and continue caching....200 is just a stopping spot along the way! So, however inadvertant this was for a 200th cache, it actually is kind of fitting for this caching adventure. For this little hike, it was about 4 miles long and took me about 2 hours. It was fairly flat, though.

So, after a long day of caching and hiking, a total of 7.2 miles and 4.5 hours, I headed home with a couple of stops along the way for sustanance. Good hike!

Had a fabulous hike yesterday. I had a co-worker and his wife and dog join me this week. Went to Chipotle afterward to refuel. Yummmmm. The pictures below are from the hike in the McDowell Mountains - Gateway loop trail.

Tom's Thumb

A bunny or mouse amphitheater - can you believe this is Arizona???


Beautiful blue sky and stately cacti

The Gateway Saddle

The trail...it's so green!

My co-worker, Will, and his wife, Adrienne, and dog, Sydney

Looking out from the Saddle

It was a great day for a hike. Strangely enough, soon after we were done with lunch, the sky clouded up and it got a bit chilly. Weird that it waited for us but the weather must have known that I really needed that hike! I've been a bit sick with a cold and was in the cough stage so I got a bit winded (that and probably because I hadn't hiked in a month) but was able to make it through.

On the way home, I decided to stop at REI to get properly equipped for the next hike. I got a set of trekking poles that shrink up small enough to stick in my backpack! Got home and watched the Cardinals game (yea! Cardinals win!!!!) and then I headed off to the mall to exchange some Christmas presents and then to Whole Foods for some cat food and people food. A very long day but so much fun to be out in the wilderness for awhile. Hoping next week we'll have a few more participants in the weekly hiking club!

Well, here it is December 31st....New Years Eve. I don't have any plans for the night...I usually don't like to be out with all the crazies on this night of the year.


So, with the start of the new year, let's reflect on all that has happened in the past year. Family has pretty much stayed the same (still 2 dogs, 2 cats), I have started hiking, I started doing Turbulence training and am in the best shape of my life (although not the smallest shape of my life), and I became the co-troop leader of our Dog Scouts of America troop.



With all of those, I think that I am starting to enjoy life a little more. My TT buddies from all over the world keep me entertained during the week and the hiking and Dog Scouts keeps me entertained on the weekends. I need to start posting more about those things, but here are a few pics of events that happened over the past year....








Our Dog Scout troop performing a Drill Team routine at the Phoenix Mercury game on July 17th, 2008.

















Me and a co-worker hiking the Dixie Mine Trail in the McDowell mountains.

Hike up Humphrey's Peak on my 34th birthday to the crash site of a B-24 Bomber that crashed on the side of the mountain in 1977. Really cool and very surreal as all the wreckage was completely free of debris even though it's been up there for 30+ years!

It's been a great year and I've made great strides in my physical form, but hope to make many more changes in the next 11 1/2 weeks. The newest Turbulence Training contest just started for me on the 28th of December. I'm committing to finishing strong in this one! The plan is to do the Elimination Diet starting Jan 5th and continue it all the way through the contest. If I give myself an inch, I take a mile, so I don't want to even give myself the inch at all this time.

So, here's to a happy and very healthy new year! Hope everyone has a great one!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Welcome 2009!