Snowbirding Magnus Style, Day 9

Wednesday, November 12

A stay-at-home day. Mostly.

We did waffles for breakfast, although I supplemented mine with beans, rice, and a 2-egg  omelet with sauteed vegetables. Of course the beans, rice, and vegetables were all cooked at home and brought along in the freezer.  And then on top of that, I ate a whole waffle. Pigs!

So clearly I needed exercise. We drove over to the start of the Romero Ruins trail and walked up to see the ruins. It was a prehistoric village of the Hohokam Indians, dating back to around 500 AD. It was mostly chunks of rock and collapsed walls, but there was an interesting dip in the the ground that archaeologists believe was a sports ground. They’d found the remains of a ball there, and other signs to indicate that it was an arena or play area of some sort.

The remains of a house or some sort of strucutre

A young barrel cactus

A young saguaro

 It was a lovely little walk, although it was only a third of a mile around instead of the .8 miles that was listed in the park map.

Aside: I think that park map is crazy. It listed the route from the equestrian center up to the start of the 50-year trail as 1.5 miles. Which is ridiculous.  I would have rated it no further than one half mile. 

But it was awfully hot when we we got there, and we were easily persuaded to quit when we returned back to the parking lot.  By then it was fairly close to noon—waffle breakfasts take a long time—so  we put Molly in the air conditioning and popped ourselves over to the Walmart. The Walmart supercenter sign is right across the street from the park--you come out of the park at a stoplight, go straight, and you’re there. But the actual building is a good quarter mile away, along a  road that winds through a big shopping center development. All pretty much brand-new and still under construction.

The  Walmart, like the restaurant of the night before, was packed full of old people.  I guess that’s to be expected—this is Tucson in November.  And I guess, if you want to get technical about it, I’m an “old people” too. But I’m not so darn slow-moving!

We survived with our spoils, although once again I was reminded that I need to buy everything I want before a camping trip and not count on finding things at a Walmart stop, halfway through.  They didn’t have jellybellies, for one, or any kind of jelly beans at all. And none of my Spicy Chili Rice Crisps.

After that I got in a very small lunch (on purpose, because Poke for Supper) and had an hour or more to read outside in the sun. At high noon the sun was nearly overhead and it was murderously hot, but by three o’clock in the afternoon it was at a considerable angle and the outdoors was quite pleasant.

Then on to Molly’s long walk. Or in this case, my long walk but Molly got to come along.  She got plenty of good smelling ops along the way but we didn’t see any rodents, varmints, or even (very many) other dogs. Starting at the equestrian area, we took the bridle trail up to the 50-year trail and then followed it for a long way.  Another trail split off—the something-or-other ridge trail, and we were going to go that way but  I saw a person up there on the ridge and decided to take the road less peopled.

 

Our trail went up so high that I could see Tucson and I-10 off to the west, plus of course our campground and the road going to east to the other trails.  It turned out that I-10 was only two miles away from the entrance of the park. It would have been a lot easier to leave the park next day by that route, taking Tangerine Drive westward over to I-10 and then going south instead of going back down Historic Route 80, but google said it was 13 minutes slower to go that easier way. Construction backups, it seems.

 

So we’ll go whichever way the trucker app tells us to go.  And tomorrow we’re off, so we will find out what it chooses.

 It’s a funny concidence, that the Trek blogger Peg Leg wrote this:
Any ailment that only flares up maybe once a week or once every two weeks for a day isn’t that bad.
Coincidence? Just this morning after a very long pre-breakfast walk I had my front right leg pain flare up again. First time in a while. But it didn’t persist.

Reminder to self, another time we should get site 48. It’s a back-in site, but close to the trail and would be very convenient for Molly and me. And I hope there is another time—it’s a lovely place and a great campground. There are lots of little Palo Verde trees, plus other little mesquites. and on the slopes there are saguaros, cholla, ocotillo, and barrel cactus. Nice. Nothing was blooming except a few small wildflowers, but the barrel cactus was in fruit...is it edible? Yes -- The fresh fruit is tart and lemony with hints of rose and guava, while the seeds impart a neutral nutty flavor.
Palo verde: