Thursday, March 05, 2015

Arizona, Hey Wontcha Go My Way.


Because I am hoping this is the last cold day of the Winter, I thought I'd celebrate by documenting our last full day in Arizona last year. We got all crazy and did a trail run AND a bike ride that day. It was amazing.


When we rode up Mt Lemmon, John had noticed some horse trail signs. He thought they might make cool trails for running.


So, we drove up there, with the intent to use those trails. We also had our bikes on the rack of our car, because we wanted to get in one last bike ride before we headed back to the frozen tundra too.

I loved the technical downhills.
 There was a guy getting ready to ride his mountain bike on the trails. He stopped me and asked if we were here to ride or run. I told him we were here to do a trail run on the horse riding trails. He said those may not be the best trails, because they went straight up the mountain and then straight down. He pointed to some trails on the other side and said he thought they would be better for a run. The trails had a nice mix of up and down hills.

I was in no shape for the intense uphills and was happy to let John go ahead at his much faster pace.
 He didn't steer us wrong. If I lived in Tucson, I would try to run those trails at least once a week. They were perfect.


We stopped at a Safeway at the bottom of the mountain and bought sandwiches and chocolate milk, so we could get a little fuel before our bike ride.


We went to the other side of Saguaro National Park, where they had a fun, curvy, eight mile loop where we could ride our bikes. We each went around a few times and tried to avoid crashing our bikes down a hill, into a pile of rocks.


After our ride we checked out San Xavier church, ate at a cool restaurant called, La Cocina and then headed to 4th Street to check out The Surly Wench Pub..


I figured if they were going to name a bar after me, I might as well check it out.

It might be because I grew up there, started riding bikes and running there when I was a kid and have HUGE nostalgia with it, or that I'm just done with Winter, but I don't think I would ever get tired of running and riding my bike in Arizona.

2 comments:

A in Texas said...

I love exercising vicariously through your blog - Oh I read Tara's blog - phew! I'm tired!

I remember St. Xavier's - visited when I was 17 and took tons of photos for high school photography class - very nice place (for a church and all).

I love AZ too

Churlita said...

Ha ha. I hope you got a good work-out then and that you enjoyed the scenery.