Friday, December 30, 2011

Loving the Arizona Sun!

After a couple weeks of cold and rainy weather the sun has finally returned.  We are always glad when it rains but it is sure nice to have the 75 degree days back with the pure blue skies. 

This week we are off to the Catalina State park near Tucson for a little hiking, biking, geocaching, and relaxing.  The park is full as usual this time of the year with all the winter visitors but with the new reservation system you can usually get a site with a few days of planning.  Yesterday our oldest grandson spent the day with us and enjoyed a full day of hiking and biking.  Bet he slept good last night…we did!  Today we decided to try out “Letterboxing” (www.letterboxing.org) for the first time.  It is a lot like geocaching but instead of providing the GPS location the letterbox description provides directions for specific landmarks.  For example, 180 steps southwest of a specific sign.  Our first try was on the Birding Trail here in the park but after finding the location there was no letterbox.  Second try was more successful and we found the letterbox right were the description indicated it would be found.  We stamped our log book with the letterbox stamp and stamped the letterbox log with our stamp.  Tomorrow we plan to make it a full day of geocaching about 20 mile north of the park near Oracle. 

DSC_2260

On one of our many hikes with the grandson

 

DSC_2280

The snow is almost gone from the mountains

 

DSC_2301

Found this big guy on the birding trail.  From the number of holes he is providing a home to a lot of birds

 

DSC_2306

The birding trail is very well maintained.  In general, fairly flat ground with two sets of stairs like this.

 

DSC_2313

As a special treat the Southerland Wash was running with the recent snow melt.  Yes we had to get our feet wet.

No comments:

Post a Comment