Picacho Peak or Bust!

Well, we busted. There is no way we can hike (or at least I am unable to hike) to the top of Picacho Peak at an elevation of 3,374' with an elevation change of over 1400' in a little over 3 miles on the Sunset Vista Trail on the South side of the mountain. A little too steep for me.

The wildflowers are at their peak or probably a little past peak, so an area that is noted for plentiful blooms is Picacho Peak State Park, so Jim & I took off this morning to experience it this year (our first time to this area even though we drive by all the time).

Most of the flowers are Mexican Poppies that are on the North side of the mountain.

We hiked back in from the DeAnza Loop looking for patches of poppies.

We did discover other color blooms beside yellow.

After the photo op, we had our picnic lunch we brought. Great view while having our lunch.

Here's Picacho Peak from the South side, we hiked about an hour to get to this point, to reach the peak it looks straight up. No thank you, it looks great from here.

A beautiful day except for the 15-20 mile winds with gusts to probably 30, but it kept it nice and cool for a hike. The temp was probably in the upper 70s. Just a great day out in nature and AZ beauty.

Now we're enjoying our back patio with a corned beef brisket on the grill to celebrate St. Patrick's day (maybe a couple of days early) with a corned beef, cabbage, red potato dinner.

Wildflower Time

The plentiful rains this winter has produced an abundance of wildflowers. Unable to resist this bounty  for a photo op, my hiking partner, Cindy Klinge and I set out this morning to the Phoneline Trail in Sabino Canyon. The day was overcast, so some of the flowers were not open, but we had plenty others that were performing their annual show, the desert just comes alive this time of the year. Here are some of the 89 photos I took. Maybe you will see some of these flowers in my paintings. Hope you enjoy.

Fords on Fourth Car Show

The 2014 GT500 Super Snake and the 1967 GT500 were shined and polished arriving at the Fords on Fourth Car Show Sunday (March 8th) before 7am to become part of the many wonderful Fords on displayed on Fourth Ave in Tucson. After getting our registration packet and some finishing touches on the cars, we were ready for the crowds.

Of course we had to display our Cops and Rodders "Best in Show" plaque on the Super Snake. I don't know which car got more attention, but the '67 does attract people, but so does the wide body on the '14.

This year we were parallel parked on the West side of the street being able to show the cars off better from all sides. And we definitely attracted attention with these 2 cars. Chuck, Kim, Allie, & Rob came out to support us for a while in the morning. We appreciate their company.

The day turned out beautiful with the temp climbing up to the high 70s, which in turned brought out more of a crowd to see all the great cars. The show had 230 cars registered.

 The voting for the best cars in each category is done by the entrants and Jim walked away with two first place plaques.

 Here are the two plaques that are added to our "Wall of Fame".

It was a great day, but for some reason just sitting/standing around talking to car people all day is tiring, so it was great to get home after putting the '67 back in the shop building (I counted that there are 9 locks/alarms/doors that need to be undone to drive the car in the building, then 9 to lock everything back up again). So once we got home and hit the patio with a NBA game on, we quenched our thirst with a beer. Then since we won 2 first places, of course we needed to open a good bottle of wine to celebrate.