Ilanarama!

We like to get down to southern Arizona in the spring and fall (some previous trips), and while we've most frequently gone to the Scottsdale area, this year we decided to get a VRBO a little further south - in the Gold Canyon area east of Phoenix - and explore some new-to-us trails with our friends Frank and June. We went down in late March, so yeah, I'm a little late in posting, but I've been busy! It was a good time to go, not too hot for riding, and it was nice to escape winter for a little while.

( 4 days in Arizona )

All in all, it was a lovely minivacation and a nice way to ease from ski season into biking season. And fun to be in a different place with very different scenery!

Gathered in one place for your reading pleasure! (And also so I can easily find these posts.)

Canyon Country vacation part 1: Navajo Bridge and the White Pocket
Canyon Country vacation part 2: Cottonwood Canyon area (Hackberry Canyon, Yellow Rock, Paria Box, Hoodoo Forest, Catstair Canyon)
Canyon Country vacation part 3: Skutumpah Road slot canyons (Lick Wash, Bull Valley Gorge, Willis Creek)
Canyon Country vacation part 4: Escalante area (The Cosmic Ashtray and Upper Calf Creek Falls
Canyon Country vacation part 5: Capitol Reef NP (Hickman Natural Bridge, Rim Overlook, Fruita, Capitol Gorge)
Canyon Country vacation part 6: White Canyon

Or, if you'd rather just look at photos without boring text, 184 photos at Flickr.

As I mentioned in my post about our spring trip, pretty much as soon as we came back we made plans to return to the Scottsdale area with friends for Thanksgiving. Rolfe and Kristin are a couple we've done many vacations with, and Frank and June are also good friends we like to do things with; all are mountain bikers, though none are crazy expert lunatic riders, and so we felt they'd all enjoy the easy-moderate riding of the McDowell Sonoran preserve. In addition, Frank and Rolfe are Britt's occasional golfing partners, and Scottsdale is a popular winter golfing destination. (Also we are all vaccinated and boosted, and careful about activities among people.) So we rented a big house, divvied up the Thanksgiving feast responsibilities, and headed south for a four-day Arizona adventure.



( Pictures and words )

Flickr album (photos, no words)

Our original Thanksgiving plans had us moving into our new house, but if you've been reading this journal, you know that our move-in has been delayed until sometime in January. This left us with both a hole in our schedule, and some frustration, since we've been putting off vacationing in order to keep an eye on the building process. Because of this, Britt suggested we - go on vacation. And I had the perfect idea. During last year's Thanksgiving trip to Arizona, during which Britt and a couple of our friends rode a hard point-to-point trail while I car shuttled for them and did easier day rides, a real highlight was my solo day at the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. I had told Britt that someday we had to take a trip there together, so he could experience it as well - and so we decided to go to Scottsdale, Arizona, and stay in a hotel near the Preserve, and ride there and in other nearby areas. (Of which there are many. We rode and hiked in the two large connected areas on the east of this map, and also on the "Sonoran Loop" which is the furthest south part of the large area at the top-center of the map.) Spoiler alert: excellent decision.

I'd actually been up for camping, but Britt wanted to go full-vacation-mode and stay in a fancy resort. As it happens, Thanksgiving is still low season in Scottsdale - one of the waiters I spoke with said that it's really not that busy until Christmas - so we were able to get a decent deal at The Boulders. This is a lovely resort with two golf courses, but for us the main attraction was that it is only a few miles from a connector trail to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. (Well, that and the hot tub. And the four restaurants!) Also, the name is not a lie:



( Lots of photos! And me blathering on! )

In conclusion:



(40 photos - and I might add more - and no blah blah blah at Flickr. I haven't put captions on the photos yet, though, and...I might not get to it, be warned.)

We went down to Tucson late last week, as my husband's company was holding board meetings on Thursday and Friday at the fancy Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. The plan was for me to work from the hotel room during his meetings, and then we would have a micro-vacation over the weekend.

On Thursday I got miserably sick (maybe the delicious food at the fancy resort restaurant had issues? It tasted good, anyway!) but by Saturday I was ready to vacation. We drove our rental car (a Ford C-Max hybrid, which we both liked very much!) to Kartchner Caverns State Park and took a tour of the Big Room. These caves were kept secret after their discovery in the 1970s, so when they were finally developed after the land was purchased for a state park, the formations were in nearly pristine condition, unlike most tourist caves (even in National Parks!) where casual use over the years has destroyed a lot of the delicate ecology. Development was undertaken with extreme caution, so that now the caves remain in exceptional condition; we've taken quite a few cave tours over the years and were very impressed! No photos allowed, but the website has a video tour.

Afterward we went to the Pima Air and Space Museum which is the largest privately-funded aerospace museum, with over 300 aircraft of various vintages. We took the (free with admission) "Highlights of Aviation" and "World War II" walking tours, and lucked out with an amazing docent, Don McLean (no kidding!) who told us many more stories than were on the placards in front of the planes.

Sunday (all of it) was spent hiking the Ventana Canyon trail to The Window, 6.4 miles and 4260 feet each way. Britt had gone to school at the University of Arizona here many years ago and had fond memories of this hike - I figured it must be good if he still remembered it after 40 years. It was pretty cool: we started out in Sonoran desert, with saguaros all around, and by the end - a natural arch in the rock - we were hiking through the snow among pines!



We should have got going earlier than our 9 am start, though, as we ended up hiking out the last half hour in the dark. Still, it was a great hike, and I definitely felt it the next day. The best of our crappy cellphone photos are on Flickr: Ventana Canyon.

As many of you know, my husband Britt was working in Bakersfield, CA for much of this winter. As his project began to wind up, I flew out to stay with him (I worked from his hotel, since I telecommute anyway) and then on Friday, January 27th, we packed up the Sportsmobile (he'd driven it out, originally) and headed home, taking our time and visiting tourist traps and national parks along the way.



Our first destination was Joshua Tree National Park. We are both rock climbers - or used to be, anyway - and had heard about the climbing there; we were not prepared to actually climb there, but we wanted to see the rocks, and hike around, and so on. We spent two nights at the entirely gorgeous Jumbo Rocks campground, and two days visiting pretty much every corner of the park accessible from the main road.

( More photos and rambling about Joshua Tree NP )

( Trailer parks and tourist traps. And a wolf. )

( Petrified Forest National Park )

Oops, I almost forgot: more photos (a total of 30) at Flickr.