Tucson and surrounds were just as lovely as we remembered.
We flew out after work Thursday evening, and after a short layover in LA arrived late, grabbed our rental car ($44 for three days, thanks autoslash), a few food essentials, and went to bed.
Friday morning we enjoyed our coffee watching the sunrise and then buckled down to work. Hobie's casita is awesome but not terribly conducive to two people try to have work phone conversations at once. I stepped outside for one of the conference calls I was leading and the first person who dialed in said to me 'is that an owl?'. Why, um, yes it is. Nevertheless, we made it through the workday and on to the good stuff.
In Tucson, everything ought to be slow moving and unrushed. But in reality, you start rushing everyday around 5:00pm. That's because sunset it coming up and it would be a truly tragic shame to miss such a thing. After wrapping up work we settled in for cocktail hour with the sunset and then drove into town for dinner, since we hadn't had time to grab much more than cereal the night before at the store. We dined at Pasco's, which presented itself as sortof foodie-Mexican. I wasn't terrifically impressed but it was still quite good for the price.
For the next day we had decided we wanted a long, hard hike. We settled on Mt Kimball, one of the higher peaks in the Santa Catalina Mountains. It starts on the Finger Rock trail and we ended up getting a bit more than we bargained for. It was 10 miles roundtrip, but 4,200 feet of elevation gain. The elevation was brutal, especially because the trail was rocky, uneven, and difficult. Not to mention in the desert - you can't ever look around to enjoy the scenery while you're moving. Something with spikes will get you!! Despite the fact that we're apparently out of shape from the long winter, it was a beautiful hike. It started low in the saguaros, wound it's way up the wall of a long steep canyon, to a saddle with a nice view of the Tucson Valley, into a forest of ponsderosa and oak, and to the top of Mt. Kimball with 360 degree views of the Santa Catalina range.
That evening we again enjoyed the sunset, played some croquet (we didn't know the rules so pretended it was like put put golf), and cooked up a great dinner of a fresh steak salad. And that was a night!
