February 6th

Today we bid farewell to Jo and Bud who loaded their car and headed north to Canada. We wished them safe travels and happy birding on the return trip home.

While Jo and Bud headed north, Barry and Dana headed for the pool for an hour of sun before lunch. As it was a clear day we decided on a road trip to the top of Mt. Lemmon. As I have previously describe the bottom 7 miles, let me try to describe the remaining 17 miles to the 8,000 foot elevation marker. To help, I have included several photos that Dana took from the 4Runner as we went up, and as we descended. Apart from the amazing rock formations on the rapid ascent, there are a few interesting features of the landscape. One is that unlike our mountains back home where the tree line means where the trees end, here the big trees, in this case Pine, grow above 6,000 feet. You go from desert cactus to oak and sycamore to big beautiful pine trees. And, at this time of the year there is plenty of snow over 6,500 feet. Being a weekend there were plenty of locals from the Tucson area up the mountain playing in the snow. The "pull-off" areas were cramped with cars and trucks. In open areas you could see some kids and adults on plastic sleds while others loaded large snowballs or made snowmen and put them on the roof of their vehicles for the drive down the mountain. On the way down the mountain it was easy to see where the snowmen met their fate as they fell to the pavement. Keep in mind it was 70F in the valley and around 40F up the mountain. It seemed that the snow was a bit of novelty for many of the locals.

After our return down the mountain we enjoyed tea and coffee at Le Buzz, a local coffee hangout for cyclists. Then it was grocery shopping and time to head home for dinner. Got to watch a bit of Hockey Night in Canada on the cable TV Service. Although we missed the game, it was great to see the Canucks end their 2 game mini skid today in Boston.

Super Bowl Sunday tomorrow. We'll get to see all those great commercials and hopefully a great game. I've no "favreate" as my team, the Vikings lost to the Saints a couple of weeks ago. Plan to enjoy a cold MGD and the game.

That's all from the desert. Cheers!