December 30, 2009 to January 1, 2010

If I thought things were slowing down during the holidays, boy was I mistaken. On Wednesday we went out for our usual hike, this week to the Broadway Cave. It is not far from the resort, maybe five miles to the trailhead but it is a stiff climb up once we get to the side of the mountain. There was a good turnout and the weather was comfortable, although some of us donned gloves on the way up as it was still pretty cool. Everyone had been reminded to bring flashlights so we could see into the cave - it didn't go in very far though. There was lots of evidence of it being used by bats, but not recently. On the way back down one of our hikers brushed against a Cholla cactus. A ball of the cactus stuck to her hand with a number of spikes, and another ball stuck to her leg. Fortunately one of our group had an 'afro comb' and was able to remove them. He just put the comb in between her hand and the cactus and gave a quick yank! It was obviously quite painful but there was no other way and once removed the pain subsided fairly quickly (or so I'm told). From now on I'm going to make sure I have one of those combs in my back pack. At any rate she was able to continue back to the trailhead without too much discomfort and we all made it back safely. This is a great reminder of how one has to be careful at all times when out in the wilderness hiking. Sometimes we get too complacent to our own detriment.

When we got back from the hike Lise had to head out right away for her two hour softball practice. While she was doing that I was emptying the gray and black water tanks and recharging the water softener.
After an early supper we joined out friends and hiking buddies - Dick and Jan - and drove over to the Mormon Temple to see the Christmas lights. We had heard about this since we first arrived in Arizona 3 years ago. Certainly the outside lights were spectacular. We took pictures but none of them turned out as they were too shaky so I had to settle for an inside picture of some nativity scenes in their Visitor Centre. The best part of the evening was when Dick and Jan treated us to some yogurt ice cream at the Golden Spoon, a local frozen yogurt store. Yumm!
the cave entrance is near the middle of the hill

cave entrance and snack break

trailhead parking area - next to some pretty expensive houses

nativity scenes from countries around the world

Christmas Eve morning was spent running around to various grocery stores to restock our larders. After lunch Lise and I decided to go golfing at our favourite course. It was quite windy and really effected our game. That is not to say we were looking for an excuse as we enjoyed ourselves and had good hits and missed hits, about a typical day for us.

That got us back in time for a quick snack in advance of the New Year's Eve Party. The Resort put on a great party with live musical entertainment and we stayed out until 1:00 am, very unusual for us!

We had talked about going bicycling on the 1st but decided against and spent a quiet day at home instead.