Wednesday

I know today is Sunday, but I am writing about Wednesday from my trip. This was not a test to see who is sober.

Wednesday we got up and DH decided to join Late and I for our usual morning walk. He had a few things to do, and so we left a little later, hitting the sun higher in the sky. He also kept us out longer than usual. I still didn't have sun block with me for the morning walk, which ended after twelve noon. I was wearing little board shorts and a tank top. The tank top kept slipping lower - I kept pulling it up, but nevertheless, I got burned. I had my hair in another ponytail with a hat on again (they insisted on the damn hat) and my back burned, also. In fact, when we got back, it was a nice, deep shade of purple.

I announced that if they were ready to take off some place for the day to go, but I was going to spend a little time in a cool shower and then with an ice pack on my lower neck/upper back. I have had sun poisoning before and wasn't looking forward to anything like that. I took the shower, read for a while with some ice on my back, and then was ready to go.

No one else was. They all decided to go take a nap. Even their son, DS, was quiet.

Eventually we all packed into the car (with me as usual packing a small cooler full of water and snacks) and we went to Mount Lemon for the day, which is in  the Coronado National Forest, in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, off the Catalina Highway. It was a hot day, (really! In AZ in the summer, it was hot!) maybe 105 degrees or so? But by the time we got up the mountains 9000 feet or so, it was cold. Late and I had sweatshirts with us, but the guys just got cold up there. It was maybe 70 degrees when we hit a little town up there called Summerhaven. There is an observatory there, but we didn't get to it.

It was an interesting ride for me. I had never been up mountains like that in a park. So many huge rock formations, for miles and miles, full of desert life and plants and trees. The higher we got, the greener it was. At least it was summer and there wasn't any ice on the roads.

We constantly parked the car and got out to walk around and take pictures. We took little side hikes, one time up a trail with this sign nearby:

It took me a while to get comfortable scrambling around on those big rocks and getting any where at all near an edge with a drop off. After a while, I lost some of my discomfort with it all and was as brave as my friends were, who had been in mountains many times before. (I have hiked up a mountain trail in TN, that was 2 hours up and two hours down without stops, but there were trees all around, not quite the same concept at all. It was a difficult hike/climb, not a major drive up for an hour into the mountains.) I am so happy they took me - I might never have found an opportunity otherwise for this (and the other) experiences.

Here are some of the views we saw. There is no way to give justice to the majesty of the mountains with a simple snapshot, but I did the best I could with what I had.

Some where down there is a river.Late and I walked down to it.

That is Late, taking her own pictures.

Late again. She wasn't late, but she is Late.

I even let her use my own camera for this. Note the regular t-shirt from the desert museum. I had to cover the burn.

Looking down on Tucson.

DS, Late, and DH

Scampering along - but I needed help getting off that rock, it was too high to jump down.

I felt on top of the world up there! It had an incredible view!

See what I mean?

Eventually we drove up into Summerhaven, had cookies that were so big mine lasted for three days, and then on to dinner that night. That may have been the night we went out to a steak house, and I ordered mine rare. It was cooked through, and not very good. Fortunately, I was too tired to care or to eat very much of it.

Late and I decided to take the next day off. We told the boys they were on their own. DH was all excited to go hiking where Late wasn't willing to go; DS wasn't excited to go hiking at all. It was too hot for him. He wanted to go with us.

Fat chance. We were going shopping and out to lunch in nice, air conditioned places. At that point, Late and I were very happy that I had rented my own car, even though I/we only used it 3 times.