Sitting here in our
trailer at 6:45 p.m. on February 18, 2019, I am lamenting the really crappy
weather outside. One the one hand, I’m happy for Arizona – they really need the
rain – but selfishly this has been an unusually cool and wet winter in the
desert.
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| The end of the La Milagrosa hike |
My former editor,
Roger and his wife, Jessica, arrived here last Friday and we’ve barely seen
them as everyone is locked inside escaping the cool weather. Well, I did spend
an hour today talking to Roger and Jessica in their trailer this afternoon, so
that was good.
This morning I was
supposed to lead the easy hike, but with the rain chances well above 20 percent
I had to cancel. Enough people showed up and were disappointed at the cancellation
that I went ahead and invited them to join me on a short hike to check out the
conditions on the Ventana Canyon Trail – which is the hike I am supposed to
lead tomorrow for the harder hiking group.
My plan was to just
hike the first 1 1/2-miles of the canyon to see how wet the creek was and to
determine how doable the hike would be to do tomorrow.
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| Lunch on the mountain |
We got about a
half mile in and were about to cross our third creek crossing when we had to
abandon the hike due to high water. We probably could have crossed, but it
would have required some major jumping from pointy rock to pointy rock and with
all of us with ages north of 70 it seemed like a really bad idea.
Rain clouds were
forming and I just didn’t want to try anymore dangerous stream crossings and
then possibly get stuck by a flash flood when the heavy rains came. So we
turned back and drove a couple miles over to Sabino Canyon and walked 1.2-miles
along the flat trail there until we came to a flooded bridge where we ended our
hike and returned to the parking lot.
Two days ago a
local person had to be rescued from a flooded creek because they didn’t turn
back. Just don’t want to make the news that way.
When I got home
from the hike I took the propane bottles off the trailer and drove them to a
propane place to get them filled. With temperatures predicted in the high 20s
at night for the next couple nights I did not want us to run out of the
precious heating fuel in the middle of a freezing night.
Later today Joan and
I went grocery shopping and retired to our trailer to stay warm.
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| Gabe Zimmerman hike |
So headed backwards
from today, we went to the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of
Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor for Piano & Orchestra and
Symphony No. 7 in E Major (CAHIS 13) by Anton Bruckner a composer who lived in
the 1800s.
People who really
know me are probably surprised that I would spend any time with such culture,
but I really do enjoy classical music and the Tucson Symphony, conducted by
Jose Luis Gomez, is an incredibly talented group of musicians.
The piano soloist
for the Tchaikovsky piece was Barry Douglas, an Irishman with an international
following. He was just incredibly good. He played the entire piece without
music and wowed the crowd. He returned for three curtain calls at the end of
the piece. If you are interested look him up on You Tube and you can see his
incredible career.
We went with the
former Voyager chaplain and two of his friends. We had a wonderful time and had
dinner at Macaroni Grill, a place we had never eaten before. We will eat there
again, it was good.
Saturday, 2/16,
was special as Helen and her husband Tom, came for breakfast. Helen is a former
Flint Journal colleague of mine and they were in Tucson for a brief visit and wanted
to see us before they left town. We had a very nice visit at the Voyager Grill.
Before they arrived I went to the “Coffee and
Donuts” event in the ballroom to plug the Michigan Party which is coming up
March 4. Hopefully we’ll have better weather by then. Otherwise the Michigan
Party will very much resemble a Michigan party in winter.
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| Train on Cienega Curve |
As mentioned
previously our friends Roger and Jessica arrived from Phoenix and will spend
the next month parked just four spaces from us on 9th Avenue here at
the resort. Joan attended both her Women’s
Bible Study and polymer clay jewelry class.
She met me in the
Catalina Room where we got information on the “Early Bird” specials for booking
our space for next year. Tucson, here we come again.
Thursday was Bible
study day, with my morning Men’s Bible Study and my evening mixed Bible Study
which I lead. It was also Valentine’s
Day and Joan and I exchanged mushy cards for the holiday. We also attended the
afternoon lecture and heard author Dave Hocking discuss the start of the Apache
Wars, which was romanticized in the famous western movie “Broken Arrow.”
The talk was
fantastic and I ended up buying two of the author’s books on the Apache Wars.
After the lecture I dropped Joan off at the Gem Show so she could pick up a few
more shiny objects to use with her jewelry making.
Now we are back to
Wednesday, 2/13. The day started with Market Days and ended with a Linda
Ronstadt Tribute Concert in the ballroom. I also helped take down the tables
from Market Days and set up the chairs for the concert. Another busy day at
Voyager.
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| Water on the La Milagrosa Trail |
Tuesday dawned
with me finally getting to lead my first “hard” hike as a coordinator here. My
first hike was supposed to be on February 5, but we were forced to cancel due
to the threat of rain. I ended up calling my friend Mahlon who was visiting
from Flint and we were able to get in a 9-mile hike before any rain came. We
climb up the trail to Bridal Wreath Falls, but stopped short (this is my third
time this season up this trail) and took a spur trail that led to a loop trail
to get us back.
OK, back to the
Feb. 12 hike. The trail is called La Milagrosa and is a really difficult climb.
Although the total elevation gain is only 1,300-feet (with incredible views)
you actually climb a total of 2,000-feet because of several false summits that
require you to climb up and down some fairly steep peaks on the way to a
beautiful waterfall area which is 5-miles from the trailhead.
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| La Milagrosa views |
The way the hikes work
is that one of the coordinators (in this case me) leads the hike, another
coordinator is in the middle of the pack (we had about 17 people on the hike)
and one brings up the read (they are called the ‘sweep’)
That way if anyone
is having difficulty they can tell a coordinator and we can get them help or
take them back down. No one is allowed to go back alone. On this hike we had a
couple folks who started struggling toward the last mile of the hike on the
outbound leg and so the “sweep” stopped with them and waited for us to start
back. As steep as the hike was up, it was really tough going down and my knees
ached for several hours after the hike, but were much better the next day. The
La Milagrosa hike is particularly difficult because the trail is not marked and
you can make a wrong turn that takes you in the wrong direction at several
spots in the trail.
Because of that me,
Mahlon, Norma and Dave did that complete hike the Friday before the Tuesday hike.
That’s right, I did this grueling hike on Friday, Feb. 8, making it all the way
to the end and back. But it gave me the confidence that I wouldn’t get the
group lost when I did it for real on Tuesday. I’m not going to do it again this
year though.
Mahlon, you may
recall, is my friend from Flint, who comes to Tucson for two weeks every
winter. I always try to carve out a couple hike days with Mahlon who is a
really, really good hiker. Our first hike on Saturday, Feb. 2, had to be
cancelled because his wife had to be hospitalized with pneumonia just a couple
days after they arrived here. We are praying that she is getting better at
home. When she arrived back in Flint they went straight from the airport to
McLaren Hospital in Flint where she spent nearly a week in the hospital.
Well, my idea of
doing this blog post backwards has now been derailed as I skipped Monday,
Sunday and Saturday by talking about the Friday La Milagrosa hike.
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| Hike views |
So on Monday, Feb.
11, I took the easy hiking group on a trek on the Gabe Zimmerman Trail south of
here. This is a relatively easy hike along the Arizona Trail and Cienega Creek.
The trail is name for one of the people killed in the horrific shooting that targeted
Congresswoman Gabby Giffords a number of years ago. Gabe Zimmerman was her aid
and he lost his life in that shooting.
The trail meanders
along Cienega Creek and passes by a point called “The Cienega Curve” which is a
popular spot for railroad photographers who stand her for hours taking photos
of freight trains as they traverse the rail line next to the creek. Because of
the vantage point and the curves in the tracks they get great shots of entire
trains. If you google you can find hundreds of those photos. We were lucky a train
came along while we were hiking and I snapped my own photo which I will post
here.
Everyone seemed to have a good time and everyone got back safely which is my definition of a successful hike.
Monday night we headed to Meet Me at Maynard’s as we usually do (except for tonight Feb. 18 because it is pouring out).
On Sunday, Feb. 10, we went to church and then met Mahlon and Colleen (our Flint friends) for lunch at Choice Greens. We had a very nice visit even though Colleen was not feeling well and not her usual self. After that Joan and I went shopping and then returned home for a quiet afternoon.
On Saturday, Feb. 9, I went to Coffee and Donuts to plug the Michigan Party and then helped set up tables for the Valentine’s Dance with “Two’s Company.” Later Joan and I went to that dance and had a great time.
I already told you about Friday, so now I can get back with my clever reverse account of our last 18 or so days. Except I forgot to , Feb.
7, I attended my Men’s Bible Study, led my evening mixed Bible study and in
between Joan and I attended the lecture series at 1 p.m. This was a well
attended event probably because the speaker was the granddaughter of Eleanor
Roosevelt. She had fascinating stories about growing up with her famous
grandparents. The woman now in her 80s lives here in Tucson.
Except for Joan
attending the Gem Show, the big event on Wednesday Feb. 6 was the concert in the
ballroom. No music this time but two very funny comedians and one of them was
an excellent ventriloquist. The ventriloquist name was Michael Paul and he has
some very impressive appearances on his resume.
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| Frank on a hike |
He picked three
people out of the audience and did a hilarious bit with them. He would tickle
them on the back and they would move their lips and he would put words in their
mouth. The poor woman chosen is a nice proper lady that I know and he kept
making her say “I want sex!”
Now every time
people see her in the park they ask her “Do you still want sex?” She doesn’t think she will ever live down
that performance. She is probably right.
I already
mentioned that Tuesday’s hike was cancelled and that Mahlon and I did another
hike. As usual on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday Joan attends here aquacise
class.
On Monday, Feb. 4,
Joan continued her volunteer reception duties at the resort health clinic and
we headed downtown with our friends Bob and Joan for Meet Me at Maynard’s. We
ate dinner at HiFi Restaurant downtown with them.
Superbowl Sunday
we went to church and watched football. That was pretty much it for that day.
On Saturday Feb.
2, we went to “Dance with Dolores” in the ballroom.
On Friday, I took
Frank hiking again and he fell again cutting both knees and an elbow. At 92 he
does really well, but I need to find a smoother trail for him because I am
going to be in big trouble with his friends if he keeps falling on our hikes. Joan did her usual Bible study and jewelry
making.
On Thursday was my
Bible study day and Wednesday’s concert was a Peter, Paul and Mary Tribute that
was, as they all are and have been, excellent.
So now you are
again up to date on all our activities here in the very wet, and cold desert.
