HIKING UP SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN

IT WAS A COLORFUL BUNCH OF HIKERS ON THE TRAIL TODAY

We had a few reminders Monday night of why we avoid RV Parks if we can.  We are parked close to the overflow area & there were some kids in there last night with a boom box & heavy metal music.  Not nice!!  We have a big Class A parked across the park road from us & I figure they are big city folks.   I had set up my telescope outside before it got dark figuring on having a look at the night sky later.  Well, that was not to be.  The Class A had fired up his big 29 million watt security light & totally flooded our whole area with blinding light.  The rest of the park was in quiet darkness but this guy left that light on all night & I was afraid it would peel all the paint right off our RV.  Guess they were afraid of the dark & figured robbers would be surrounding their rig at any second.   They probably live in a big city where big security lights are the order of the day.  Moved my telescope around to the other side of our RV but was disappointed again.  Pretty much the whole western sky was wiped out because of light pollution coming up & out of Phoenix.  I just quietly packed my telescope away & that was that.  Yep, just give us the good old peaceful sanctity of the star studded black desert night sky any day.

 

EARLY MORNING SUNRISE IN THE PARK

Now, I'm not complaining about the LOST DUTCHMAN STATE PARK.  It's a nice State Park.  It's just the usual complaints I have wherever there is a gathering of people or whenever we are in a large people infested area!!  And here' a bit of sad news......This Park will be closing in early June.  Other Arizona State Parks will be closing as well.  They are already in the process of closing roadside Rest Areas.  It's quite a degenerating society we live in these days but I'm not going to throw my 2 cents worth in or I'll be sitting here ranting all night long about this whole social dilemma!!

 

KELLY TRYS TO PULL A CACTUS THORN OUT OF MOTORMOUSE'S PAW & SHE IS NOT A HAPPY LITTLE CAMPER ABOUT IT

We decided to do one of the Park's trails today so picked an easy one heading up Superstition Mountain then cutting across & coming back down again.  Not a long hike so I didn't bother with my hiking boots.  Climbed aboard the Siphon Trail at 8:45 a.m. & an hour later we had once again deviated from our planned hike & climbed a tough one thousand feet to within a thousand feet of the summit.  We always seem to have a habit of doing that.  Oh well, we do the same thing on the road as well.  It's just us!!  Turned out to be a busy trail on the way up & we got in behind a group of hikers.  I had been hoping for a quiet morning trail but it just didn't end up that way.  Oh well, I'm not the only one in this world I guess:))

 

TRAIL STARTS OUT QUIET BUT SOON A WHOLE GAGGLE OF PEOPLE CATCH UP TO US AS KELLY FIELDS A DEERPARK LODGE CALL.

I won't try to describe what a beautiful morning it was or how spectacular the panoramic views were.  Hopefully some of my photos will do that for me.  I can tell you that by the time we got back down off the mountain three & a half hours later we were too very tired, & sore, RV'ers.  Legs were rubbery, knees were barking & the bottoms of my feet felt a bit tender from all the rocks along the trail.  Remember I just had my old comfy shoe laceless running shoes on.  It was a morning of wonderment, & a morning of reminders of how truly fortunate people we are.

   

(click pics to enlarge)

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the RV just relaxing our tired muscles.  It was one of those rare afternoons when I wished we had one them there fangled hot tub thingys.  Managed to catch up on a few blogs between dozes & we renewed our stay here for a couple more days.  We don't eat out a lot but today we decided to head on down the road to a place called, Filly's for supper.  Had heard some good things about it.   Turned out it's just a popular local Roadhouse & we felt the OK food was overpriced.  I don't really much care for bar food.  We both had chicken & ribs.  Tomorrow night we plan on checking out another place called, The Mining Camp Restaurant.  Drove by it on the way back & it looks groovy:))

MET THIS COUPLE FROM BAYFIELD ON THE TRAIL............BAYFIELD, WISCONSIN THAT IS:))

Also tomorrow we plan to give our tired muscles a break & take a long driving tour along the APACHE TRAIL.  Our friends Mike & Maureen did this trip a couple years ago & it took them about 5 hours.   It is a 120 mile loop highway that promises winding mountain roads & spectacular vistas, with  lakes, a dam, & historic stops along the way.

We have 4 green bars on our Verizon connection here but the signal is weak & keeps dropping us.  Took me slightly over 2 hours to publish last night's blog.  I had to keep re-connecting.  Our Skype has not worked well either so haven't made any phone calls.  Because of the many pictures I took today I will attempt to upload them into a web album.  It's 7 o'clock right now & I haven't even begun to dig the pictures out of the cameras so I had better get rolling if I want to get to bed by midnight.  Ohhhhh, I need a holiday...............

To see all of today's photos go to our PICASA WEB ALBUM

GROANER'S CORNER:((  And a woman once said, "Men are like a fine wine.  They all start out like
grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and
keep them in the dark until they mature into
something you'd want to have dinner with."

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.