Weekend One

Hi everyone,

I have managed to last one week so far in the desert. This weekend found me by myself since Adam went back home for Easter, so I was left to my own devices for entertainment. Friday found me with a couple new DVDs in hand: The Fifth Element: Ultimate Edition, and The Ring. Since I have seen Fifth Element before I spent the evening with a fairly decent scary movie. I'd have to say that they this was better than your average fright flick (and no Mom it wasn't a slasher horror movie). After watching a bunch of the DVD extras I tried my hand at watch some Fifth Element, only to find myself passed out on the couch 30 minutes into the movie. :)

Saturday I had decided I would go out and see something that Arizona had to offer. After a morning of looking at the various cell phone providers (work wants me to have one...and I wouldn't mind anyway) and various tourist sights for Phoenix and Arizona I decide to visit South Mountain (just happens to be 15 minutes away). For anyone who is interested it is pretty much south of "downtown" Phoenix.

South Mountain used to be a Federal Park but long ago the city of Phoenix bought it. So after some brunch, and a stop at the store for some bottled water I headed into the park and found the Kiwanis trail head. The trail was only 1 mile in length (one way) and not particularly difficult, however it did offer me a chance to get a taste of the desert. One thing to note is that they really don't have soil as we would think of it back home, just crushed rocks of various granularity. Even with this extremely dry area there were still quite a number of flowers which were worthy of photos. Another is the trees, or rather the lack of anything approaching a tree. The closest things are what look like overgrown shrubs. Oh and yes there are lots of cactus...and they can become very tall (I wonder how old they must be). After making my way up and down and back and forth through a valley between two slopes I get to the end of the Kiwanis trail and learn from another hiker that I can reach the lookout at the nearby summit by continuing down the National trail a short ways (probably 0.3 miles). So of course I carry on. I eventually make my way to the lookout and it offers quite a view, both of the hills and of Phoenix beyond. I even took the opportunity to use my tripod and get myself into a picture (not a very good one though). When I start back down it has been about 1 hour since I started (I stopped and took a lot of pictures, around 75 during the trip). The hike back down goes much quicker, due to the fact I stopped less for photos and that it is down hill most of the way :). The hike both ways takes about 1.5 hours, no record for the ~ 2.6 miles.

After finding my way back to my car I decide to drive up the road to the actual summit of South Mountain. The drive up is a fun one, besides the 15mph speed limit around bends (would be nice w/ a sporty car and no one in the way). The view from the top is quite impressive (there is more visibility of the surrounding desert from this summit). I personally liked the look of surrounding and distant hills, something about the texture of the faces.

Now, there is no way I can upload all these pictures, but I'll upload a few of them (but first I'm going to go see if I can get a couple shots of the desert night sky).

P.S. The rest of the weekend was rather uneventful, consisting of me watch movies (Ring Two on Saturday night, Robots and Fifth Element on Sunday).

[Edit - Well it seems that the sky has developed a slight clouding problem, so no pictures of the sky tonight. I'll instead upload some pictures.]