mountain macarena

Today was a fun day. My husband's work van need some work done at the dealer. Instead of only taking an hour or two it ended up taking all day. Without his van he couldn't go to work.

We spent the morning and early afternoon going to garage sales. One of the garage sales we visited was right next to the tail head to the foothills of the mountain near our house. When I mentioned my desire to hike that trail with my husband he suggested we do that later today.

(no, we didn't buy the rocking horse but we did find plenty of other stuff we needed)

Jay is an excellent garage sale shopper and can out shop me. Somewhere between one and two my stomach started complaining. We happened by a restaurant I had been wanting to try.... a place featuring Native American fry bread. After a yummy lunch of fry bread taco we headed home to make a quick transition to hiking mode. In our recently purchased rummage sale hiking packs we put water, camera, comb and pliers (in case of Cholla cactus crisis), and a small shofar. After collecting the dog and her leash we headed to the trail head.

Note the rocky trail....you really need to keep an eye on the path.

We stopped to admire this octi-catci (eight armed cactus-we make that up).

Because we got a late start we only walked about thirty minutes up the trail. As we walked my husband kept commenting on the danger of wild animals....coyote, bobcat, mountain lion....and how we should really have some type of protection when walking in such a place, especially as dusk was quickly approaching. This fact was reinforced by the hiker we passed who had a handgun in his pocket. I did ok with the lions and tigers and bears talk but when he started talking about snakes I was ready to head back to the car.

What a handsome dog...Lily loved the trek despite the abundance of cacti.


As the sun began to set the mountain changes to a golden hue.

A perfect end to a perfect day.