8 March ‘08
Friday
There are a million and one trails around Arizona and yesterday Louise and I joined 11 others from our campground and headed out for a 6 mile hike.
It was another “Arizona Winter Day”, blue cloudless sky, and the temperature in the low 70’s. For most of us it was what you might call a “moderate” hike, but I’m sure we will feel some after affects tomorrow if we don’t take a couple of Tylenol at bed time. The desert is still very green and the spring flowers, well they are starting to show some early color. Even the cactus is a healthy green but no less dangerous to the touch.
We were all lucky with the cactus spines, but a few had found their way into some of the soles of the hiking boots. A couple of the hikers were on the watch for rattle snakes, but none were seen or heard. I was amazed at the amount of trash that was dumped…tires, beds, clothing, furniture, you name it and it was “DUMPED”. It is pretty sad that those people will go out of their way to take their trash to the desert instead of to the dump… Who knows, it could be that the Goodwill would have taken some of it but no, the dumb bastards have to take it out into the desert and create another “landfill” of shit!!! OK, I’m upset…but it is a shame and an embarrassment that someone who lives in this country would do this to “Their own neighborhood”. Louise and I purchased some good walking/hiking sticks last December at the Palm Desert market and this was the first time we had used them to hike in the hills. I must say, they really worked as advertized. I/we will most definitely use them more and more as we go out walking the streets or hiking the hills/mountains. One of the beautiful sites that we came upon was Mt. Picacho.
We are going to take the day this Sunday, and head up there. They are having a Civil War re-enactment of The Battle of Picacho Pass and we thought it would be interesting to attend...we’ll write more on that later.