Blackett's Ridge and some photo catch-ups

Things are going great for us here in Tucson! Weather's been good, ever since about the 27th of December. We've been wearing shorts and T-shirts, turning on heat first thing in the morning "to take the chill off," and waiting till late afternoon till we go for our walk. (Jack gets up very early and does his "power walk" at about 6 am. For me, day begins when it is at least starting to get light.)

On Tuesday, December 30, we went on a hike up Blackett's Ridge -- one of our favorites, but also one of the more challenging hikes we do. This trip was no exception to that "challenging" comment. I got started too fast, and ended up kind of split from the rest of the group, because everyone else was faster than me. :/ Jack ultimately took pity on me and slowed his pace so that we could walk together.

Lee took a collection of nice photos, which you can see here. One of them I'll post here. This is Jack and me:

I'll have my photos from the hike posted.. soon. They're in my other camera.

I told you that Jack came down here with our friend Gary, from Big Rapids. While he was here, we did some fun things, including a trip to the International Wildlife Museum:




And we went to Saguaro East, where I took a couple of photos. The first cactus and the one that Gary's beholding, are saguaros. The 2nd and 3rd are a cactus called, appropriately, "jumping chollas." These cacti shed those little spined lobes, and these seem to "jump" out to your pants or your hands. Since the spines have tiny hooks on their ends, these are difficult to get OUT of your skin, too!






Annette, here's the amazing Edible Arrangement you and your family sent!


And here are some photos from Thanksgiving with the Louisville clan:


Here's Jack telling Michelle how to do the potatoes. Notice how carefully she's listening:

Everything is going pretty well. We're still working on getting Jack moved into my cottage, and that's been difficult, just because these cottages are a mere 400 square feet, and I've gotten accustomed to living in the whole thing by myself! And, in addition, Jack's used to living with more things than I am, so we're doing some compromising about what stays and what goes.

To make storage less of an issue, we put together a little Rubbermaid tool shed just yesterday. It's 7.5' x 3.5' and we have it tucked over in one corner of our backyard. Cute and it should hold Jack's tools nicely.