AZ January

Desert living is good.  After much searching, Tim and I found the perfect trifecta – free peaceful, desert camping with killer sunsets, 5 bars of bandwidth, bike trails out the front door.   Where does this seemingly impossible working mountain biker’s utopia exist?   Just North of Tucson in an area called Old Pueblo there is a an annual 24 hour bike race.  In these cactus covered foothills, bikers have developed over 25 miles of trails through AZ ranch pastures.  Since it’s all public land, any one can camp for free with an Arizona State Lands permit.   Here Tim and I settled in for 5 days of working and riding.

Brie and Auntie Me

Finally on Friday, we came out of the desert, cleaned off the sand, and went to town to see the Wilmore clan.  We hooked up with Brett, Peg, Joe, Brittany, Timmy,  SeungCheol (visiting foreign exchange student) and 2 of SeungCheol’s fellow students for a hike up to Bridal Veil Falls.

Douglas Springs

Hanging with Timmy in the desert

The day wrapped up with an insanely good meal at Takamatsu for Korean BBQ.   SeungCheol and the boys did a lot of the ordering so we assured to have the best.  Each table has a grill in the center where you grill your own meat and vegetables.  At our table, Tim, Brittany and Bernie (Brie’s best buddy) got all-you-can-eat sushi, Joe and I grilled up ribeye, pork belly, and marinated pork with all the Korean fixin’s.  We walked out stuffed.  Once the kids settled in for the night, Brett, Peg, Tim and I decided the best way to top an night of BBQ was a visit to Dunkin’ Donuts for a donut and a coffee.  All the calories burned during our week in the desert were replenished in one night.   We topped the  donuts with martinis at the Hideout.   The bouncers were very pleased when we offered them donuts from our supply on our way out.

Next day we packed up to begin our drive North.  Our ultimate destination is Park City for 429apalooza.  We are taking the leisurely route, with a 4 day side trip to Scottsdale to see Ann and Scott.   On our way, we stopped to take advantage of Scott’s Christmas present:  one session for Tim and I in a Skydiving Simulation Chamber.  Crazy.  Thankfully we had an instructor in there with us or we’d have been blown through the roof!

Tim's heading up

and up...

My turn

We'll learn this trick on our next lesson

The next stop on the journey towards snow and ice was Friday night  in Vegas.  We had to stop in to place some Superbowl bets.  We arrived to the Mandalay Bay parking lot at about 11 pm and walked into the casino.   5 hours later we returned to Frank only $30 dollars poorer (thanks to some offsetting wins at the black jack table), full of chicken and margs.

Vegas Stopover

Saturday morning, we hightailed it out of Vegas (1 night is enough!) and settled at our favorite camp spot outside of Hurricane.  In 20 hours we managed to squeeze in 2 bike rides down the JEM trail before driving to SLC.  We’ll spend the next 3 days with Jimmie and Keri Shell-Schwab before the 429ers arrive on Thursday.  Thank you to the snow gods who are ensuring that it will once again be an epic weekend!