Catalina State Park and beyond

Leaving Catalina State Park -- Heading south to Patagonia Lake State Park

We have been staying at Catalina State Park since Monday, February 15th.  We have really enjoyed being here for the past two weeks.  There is SO much to do here, especially if you like to hike, ride bikes, ride mountain bikes, birdwatch, look for Arizona wild flowers, etc.  We have spent much of our time here with friends..... Friends from Cottonwood, AZ, friends who live here in Oro Valley, and friends of our friends/ new friends!  I have hiked almost everyday.  Steve has hiked and has gone mountain bike riding quite a lot with his Oro Valley friends.  We feel like we have really gotten to know this place well.  We love the campground here.  We have been in the same site - A 21 - for the entire two weeks.  Steve has already gotten on to the State Park website and made reservations for our site here next February.  The weather has been above normal temperatures.  The hottest day we experienced was the day we were hiking up to Romero Pools and beyond.  It was a beautiful hike, but the next time we do it, we will pick a cooler day.  Yesterday, while Steve was doing a mountain bike ride with the guys on the Arizona trail, I went bike riding on The Loop.  The Loop, when completed, will be a 131 mile system of shared use paths in and around Tucson.  I rode about 32 miles, out and back.  I only have my mountain bike down here in Arizona.  I was sure wishing I had my road bike yesterday.  I couldn't believe how many people were on the trail.  You certainly see MANY people out on ALL the trails here. It is fun!

Tomorrow we are packing up and heading south to Patagonia Lake State Park.  We are looking forward to hiking, riding bikes AND kayaking on the lake there.  I have heard it is a great place for birdwatching, too!  We will be there for about five days and then will be heading to Organ Pipe Natonal Monument.  

The more we are "out here" living this lifestyle, the more we love it!  So many places to see, so much to do...... Life on the road is good!

Friends

One of the many fun things about this lifestyle is spending time with friends.  We have SO many friends from Estes Park and other places who have decided to spend either part of the winter or all of the winter in Arizona.  And, yes, there are a few who live here year around.  It doesn't matter where we are staying ~ Lost Dutchman, Cave Creek, Catalina, McDowell Mountain ~ we seem to have friends nearby.  Many of our friends have decided that they like this camping/RVing lifestyle, too.  This week we have "old" Cottonwood, AZ neighbors/friends who are going to join us at Catalina State Park.  It is great fun to hike, mountain bike, share meals, share fun times and just reconnect with all of these people.

We really enjoy meeting and talking to new people in the campgrounds.  It is always fun to see what people are camping in ~ truck campers, tents, tent trailers, motor homes, small trailers, 5th wheels!  Many types of camping RVs for many different kinds of people.  The thing we all have in common is that we like to "be out here".

Hiking in the Santa Catalina Mountains

Steve & I are staying at Catalina State Park in Tucson.  We will be here for two weeks.  We have hiked most of the trails in the State Park, so today we drove north and drove out Golder Ranch road.  We hiked on the Baby Jesus trail along Baby Jesus Ridge.  It was a great hike in the desert, sunny, 82 degrees, and we had the trail to ourselves.  We saw a couple other hikers.  Now we are back at the Lazy Daze, enjoying the sun, reading and writing my blog.  Life is good.

We love this campground.  We are in A loop and are in site #21.  Our view of the Catalina mountains is amazing.  The sunrises and sunsets are beautiful.  We have enjoyed the moon, too.  It is a full moon tomorrow.

A new post - trying again.....

So, here we go again.  If I posted to my blog, as often as I think about posting to the blog, I would have SO many entries/adventures.  

SO much has happened since my last entry in September.  Life has changed ALOT since then.  Steve & I have started the new phase of our lives.  Retirement.  It is pretty nice.  So far, we love our new life.  Home is still in Longmont, Colorado.  Home away from home is in our 1999 Class C Laze Daze motorhome.  We have decided this winter to spend most of the time in Arizona.  We love all the State parks and Regional parks in Arizona.  Our favorite places to camp and park the Lazy Daze are Lost Dutchman State Park, Catalina State Park, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, and Cave Creek Regional Park.  We have stayed at all of these places this winter and plan to be in Patagonia Lake State Park, Organ Pipe National Park, and Deadhorse Ranch State Park in March and April.  We are also planning to do a short backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon in March.  

Most of you are aware that I post MANY of my photos to my Facebook page.  I am going to try and do a much better job of posting to my blog and including pictures here.  I would like to get to the point where this is a blog that travelers/hikers/adventurers/ backpackers would like to read AND also see many of my photos.  That is my goal.  

My biggest "problem" writing the blog is that I love to be outside hiking, mountain biking, taking pictures, camping, and backpacking.  I haven't learned how to sit still long enough to actually take the time to write about all our fun adventures and share the stories and pictures.  That is what I want to start doing now.  I have found many travel/adventure blogs that I like to follow.  Now I am hoping I can make my blog be one of those that people will want to read.  

A very interesting hike in Indian Peaks Wilderness

Have you ever had one of those days that doesn't turn out at all how you expected it would?  Well I sure had one of those days, today.  I woke up this morning knowing that I had to go hiking.  The weather is amazing, the aspen trees are so beautiful, I love to hike.  There were so many reasons for me to go hiking.  Since Steve is out of town, mountain biking with the guys, I had to decide where to go - alone.  As all of you know, we hike all the time, and we hike together.  So....  today I decided to go to Camp Dick, near Peaceful Valley and hike to Red Deer Lake.  We have done it several times and I knew there would be plenty of people on the trail.  

I got to the trailhead at 10 am and there was still plenty of parking.  The day was perfect - blue sky, sunny, gold aspen leaves, warm.  Perfect!  I started hiking and was a little surprised at how few people I saw on the trail.  I was mesmerized by the yellow, orange and red Fall colors.  And, as you all know, I take LOTS of photos.  I was so excited, because I was alone, and could stop and take as many pictures as I wanted.  ( Steve wasn't saying/thinking "oh my gosh, she is stopping AGAIN to take another picture"!)  So as I was hiking, alone, I had lots of time to think, meditate, pray.....whatever you would call it.....  and I decided I wanted to start writing my blog AGAIN!  This has been a real start/stop blog.  When we traveled SO much this summer, I really decided I wanted to start doing my blog, again.  

So, as I was thinking all of these thoughts and deciding what and how I wanted to write when I came home today, I really had it all figured out.  And, since I am not really a writer and would much rather just post pictures to my Facebook page, I was pretty excited that I had come up with an interesting blog post. 

By now, I have walked at least 5 miles and I was trying to figure out how much further it was to Red Deer Lake.  I was hungry, so I ate a granola bar and continued up the trail.  I passed the Indian Peaks Wilderness boundary sign and glanced at it.  (and took a picture, of course).  I continued to hike and take pictures.  When I was almost to the place where the trail leaves the Middle St. Vrain Creek and continues up to Red Deer Lake and Buchanan Pass, I heard this guy yelling.  He was really yelling.  But, I couldn't hear what he was saying, so I stopped.  I saw him and then his dog came running towards me.  By now, I could see and smell smoke!  At about the same time I hear the guy yelling, another guy came up behind me with his dog.  This guy had started hiking about the same time I had.  He got really upset and wanted to know why "guy #1" has a campfire!  And he was really upset!  By then, I realize that the first guy is yelling, because there is a fire, and he needs help trying to put it out!  I throw my pack and my camera off and go running over to him with my little 23.7 oz Arrowhead water bottle!  I am sure the guy is thinking that I am crazy!  Well?????   Meanwhile, "guy #2" is convinced that the fire was started by "guy # 1".  Wow, was that weird!  So they are yelling at each other and I am thinking, "come on guys/ we need to get this fire out, NOW".  Oh, and they both had dogs.  We had to calm the dogs down and then we madly started pouring water on the fire, which was spreading!  Luckily, the fire was close to the creek, so we just kept running over to the creek and filling our bottles and then running back to the fire to try to get it out.  Many trips to the creek and back!  Finally, "guy #2" gets me his nalgene bottle out of his pack and hands it to me and tells me to use that, too!  So, Now I have two small bottles!  Then, here come more backpackers, a couple, and we yell at them to help us. I stayed for about an hour, throwing water on the fire.  There was a small pine tree that had caught on fire, and we were trying to get that out.  We were all amazed at how hot and how quickly, the fire was spreading.  Finally, I realized that I was the only one of us that was doing a day hike.   They all had backpacks and were spending the night.  I finally said, "I think I need to go back and report this.".....  oh yes, that would be a good idea.  

I said "goodbye' to all my new friends and started jogging/ running back down the trail.  But, I had 6 miles to get back.  All the way back down the trail, I kept thinking......  Cell phones don't work, we have NO way to report this fire, Steve isn't with me, so we don't have the DeLorme inreach, etc.  SO, I finally get back to Camp DIck and both campground hosts are off duty!  I still don't have cell phone service, so then I have to decide - "do I drive all the way down Highway 7 until I get service, or do I drive toward Nederland?  So, I drove to Nederland.  Oh my gosh!  I could not believe how many people were on the to Peak to Peak highway taking pictures of aspen leaves!!!!!  I called  Roosevelt National Forest, but the are not OPEN on the weekend.  I finally called the Boulder Sheriff and talked to a very nice dispatcher, who relayed the message on.  As I got to Lyons, I had a voicemail on my phone from the Allenspark Fire Department.  I had to tell them where the fire was, my name, when we found it, etc.  

SO...what I learned from all of this -

Always have the Delorme OR Steve with me.  :-) !

Don't build a fire in the wilderness, especially when the fire danger is SO high!  

It really is bad, that our cell phones don't work "out there"!!!!

I really do believe that if it weren't for the five of us, running and throwing water on the fire, the outcome could have been really bad!!

The other thing I kept thinking, over and over-  I was truly mad at the people who had built a fire, illegally, and how careless they were.  I kept thinking they were "stupid", but then kept thinking what we say to the grandkids.  "People aren't stupid, but people can do really stupid things!"  And these people did something really stupid, and the results could have been much worse, if we hikers/backpackers had not been there to put their fire out.

So, I will end this now....  I never made it to Red Deer Lake and that made me a little sad!  But.....  I took lots of pictures on the way up the trail, before all the excitement began....  

And,  tomorrow, I am headed back with my sister to view and see and take pictures of all the beautiful aspen on the Peak to Peak highway.  Maybe, we will see some of you out there!  

And.... for those of you on Facebook, I will probably post some of today's pictures! :-) !  

PLEASE  NO fires!  

We love Colorado, Arizona and Utah!

Our two week trip in April to pick up the Lazy Daze in Arizona and bring it home to Colorado was amazing!  We loved going to Coyote Buttes South and then to White Pocket.  We will be going back to both places!  We ended the trip in Capitol Reef National Park in Utah.  Capitol Reef is another one of our favorite  places!