Feb. 14 to 20, 2009

Most of Sunday was spent at the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport picking up our Yukon friends. They came in on two separate planes, one early afternoon and one early evening. Naturally both planes were running late but with easy access to flight information over the internet there wasn't much problem that way. We did put on over 140 miles going back and forth though :-) Not a problem for us, just helped fill out the day. Art's golf clubs didn't arrive with him but the airline was able to retrieve them after they were routed through Chicago and then back to Phoenix. Not bad since they were shipped from the Yukon - Huh?

We've been out to the golf courses twice so far and expect a couple of more next week before he has to leave. I was hoping we'd have some pictures of them in front of their rental RV but I haven't managed it as yet. Maybe later.

They've been enjoying the beautiful weather and it has warmed up considerably over the last two days and is now in the 80s, with the same type of weather forecast for some time to come.

Wednesday's hike was up Picket Post Mountain. Lise and I have never been up before and we knew it was a tough hike; but it was much tougher than we thought. We made it to the top though and we found the famous mail box on the top of the mountain. It was filled with letters and notes, and a journal, placed there by previous hikers. We added out names and comments and are now part of that history! We liked the hike but it was pretty tough and somewhat dangerous in places and we don't think we'll be making that climb again. We're not getting paid to do this; and we don't want to fall off somewhere and do some permanent damage. In fact, I believe this hike was harder than Flat Iron and that's saying something!

Looking up the canyon we're going to be traversing

my beautiful wife silhouetted against an awesome backdrop

This picture represents a pretty good depiction of the kind

of climb this was!

View at the top

Our motley crew of hikers surrounding the mail box

On Thursday, while Art and I were out golfing and Alma was deep into shopping mode, Lise went out on a bicycle ride with our friends Terry and Tina from the park. They drove out to Tempe and biked on the paved bicycle paths up there. They biked about 24 miles in total and stopped up for lunch at a pizza place in Scottsdale. We'd been looking for that restaurant for some time now as we'd heard it was quite good. So, next time Lise and I head up there we'll have a good place to stop for a light lunch.

Friday was going to be our rest day as we'd had a pretty busy week, but our friends Claude and Marlane, also in the park, invited us out for a hike so naturally we accepted - being gluttons for punishment. It was a much easier hike among small rolling hills and was a good way to stretch out those muscles that had been tortured on the earlier hike. We brought sandwiches so were able to have lunch while sitting on some rocks looking out over the surrounding vista. The weather was perfect, about 74 F and the hike was thoroughly enjoyable.

That's our week so far; I'm sure we'll have lots to report next time. Be well - summer isn't far off :-)