Tucson and Utah

After leaving Sedona and the dome we drove to Tucson to continue the trip with Ute and Steveo. We had a casita rented in the Star Pass area--the casita was nice, but the dome is a hard act to follow. One of the perks however was access to their olympic sized heated swimming pool. We only went to the pool once, but it was so nice to do some swimming and Luke had fun getting into mischief with the wheelchair assistance lift that helps (normally disabled) people into the pool.
The other nice thing about the casita was that we finally saw a javelina!! There was much effort (mostly by Steveo) to put food out for them and go for late-night javelina searches, but in the end we saw one in the bushes right beside the casita mid-morning. Luke was the one who spotted it, but we all made it outside in time to see it.  It was awfully cute (they have a tiny snout and hoofs) and bigger than expected. They can be aggressive so we were lucky that it just wanted to be left alone.

We went to the Fantasy Island area for our first ride. The cacti are all blooming and blooming because of the rain so there was many photo ops. Here are some highlights:

Prickly Pear

Cholla!

Happy on my new bike

The polar bear licence plate is from the NWT

Dudes

The next day I was shuttle bitch for the Lemmon Drop on Mount Lemmon. I dropped them off near the top and then slowly made my way down, doing hikes and geocaching as I descended. I found zero geocaches...and the bikers, who don't geocache, found one without even trying. Sigh.
Ute had a crash right near the beginning of the ride--she had some big scrapes on her jaw, shoulder, leg and arm and Luke had to retrieve her bike from about a story below the trail. But she kept on riding because she is awesome! Luke destroyed the bearing on his hub and it sounded like popcorn popping on the front of his bike for the 5 hour ride down.
Ute and Steveo had the brilliant idea of partly freezing the water in their camelbacks--I'm sure they weren't the first to think of that, but having refreshing cold water during the hot days on the trails was wonderful! The weather was mostly in the high 20s-mid 30s, which is hot for this northern girl.

I also shuttled them up to the top of Mt.Lemmon again so they could ride the CDO (Cañada del Oro) trail, which is recommended not to be done solo. I dropped them off in the little ski village at the top named Summerhaven and it took me a full hour to drive back down. The road down is wonderfully scenic. Since I had a few hours to kill I went to my favourite Tucson store, Bookmans, and did a hike in Catalina State Park.
Meanwhile, the 8 hour bike ride descended about 7000 ft and went across rock formations along the ridge. Ute had two rattlesnake scares, they found flecks of gold in a stream, and they saw two gila monsters (I am SO JEALOUS). One started retreating, only to turn around and hiss loudly at them--such a bad ass! They have really beautiful markings--I don't have any photos, but if I get one from Ute I will post it.
They got to the bottom just as dusk was about to turn to dark. As I waited for them I saw many long-eared bunnies and a family of quails (the babies are ridiculously cute). I also learned that when a quail calls out it throws its head back, also ridiculously cute.

Our visit with Ute and Steveo ended too quickly! We hope to see them again soon :)