Archive for January, 2013
Off to Texas
After dinner last night Trisha received news that her mother was not doing well so we decided to get to Texas as quickly as possible. Thus we arose early, checked out of the Hilton Conquistador and drove 903 miles from Tucson to New Braunfels, TX–an exhausting 15-hour trip.
Saguaro National Park/Sonora Desert Museum
This morning we spent a couple of hours at the fascinating Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, a wonderful collection of desert plants and animals. This provided a nice introduction to desert flora and fauna and, surprisingly, we had a scrumptious lunch at the on-site Ocotillo cafe. The cool temperature and small number of visitors made for a quiet, leisurely morning. After lunch we sped back to Saquaro National Park West and meandered along the Bajada Loop Drive getting a real feel for the vast and stark Saguaro cactus forest. We spent several hours on the short six-mile drive and Trisha even hiked up the Signal Hill Trail to get a close up of the petroglyphs and desert panoramas. On our way back to the hotel, we got a nice overview of the area from Gates Pass.
- Me in the shadow of a Saguaro along the Bajada Loop road
Cedar City to Tucson
We were greeted with another crispy morning: 6 degrees. After a bowl of oatmeal we were off to the south west skirting the edges of Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks and the Grand Staircase Escalante and Vermillion Cliffs National Monuments. The snow-fringed red rock formations during the first hour of today’s trip were truly stunning.
As in the past two days, the weather was superb; we had bright sunshine all day with the temperature as we entered Tucson pushing 60 degrees. Quite a change from the morning. At one point the GPS sent us in the wrong direction for fifteen minutes and slow traffic around Phoenix made for a full ten-hour drive. But we’re looking forward to three great days in Tucson.
Boise to Cedar City, UT
Today was one of the longer segments of our winter trip. We were greeted with a super chilly, near zero degree temperature to start the day. The new Acura even warned us that the tire pressure was low–we lost about 4 psi overnight. Once again, the weather was almost perfect. We had one forty-five minute stretch of snow blowing across the highway but otherwise it was another day of bright sunshine. We had pizza delivered to the motel room so I could watch the Oregon v. Kansas State football game.
Entering Utah from Idaho
Off to Arizona
It was another spectacular winter morning in North Bend as we turned east onto I-90 headed for Boise, Idaho. I have been watching the weather closely hoping for a window of clear days for the first two stages of our drive to Tucson. And we got that today. Only the roadway through Snoqualmie Pass was wet; after that we had clear, dry pavement and even a few hours of sunshine
Near the end of the day, as we approached Boise, we were treated to a lovely sunset over the Snake River:
Nice Start to 2013
It was a glorious albeit nippy first morning of the new year and I started things off with eighteen holes at Mt. Si. I played ok to record an 84 but did get my second eagle ever, a short chip in on the 520-yard par five 16th hole. I had chipped in from off the green on hole 9 earlier and just missed a chip-in on 17 too, so it was a fun beginning to a new golf year.
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