In November I suggested to my wife, Julie, that we go to Arizona for a few days the beginning of January without the kids to recover a bit from the holidays and get away from the cold. It turned out that I picked the wrong weekend to go. On Friday it was 65 degrees and it felt almost hot on my lunch ride. Saturday which is the day we flew to Phoenix it hit 67 degrees. Oh and I found out after I booked the flights that my friend was doing a 3 day hut trip to the Peter Estin hut while I was going to be gone.

We flew out of Denver Saturday morning and there was a great sunrise as we were getting to the airport. We were bouncing around in the back of the shuttle from the off-airport parking so the pictures I tried taking didn’t come out very good. We had a good flight to Phoenix but as soon as we got my bike box, I got worried. I always make sure the straps are really tight and the ends a folded back under. When I picked it up, the straps were loose and the ends where hanging out and showed signs of being snagged.

This could only mean one thing. The TSA had decided to open it up. Fortunately everything was in good condition and nothing was missing. When I flew back from the Adirondack 540 in September, the TSA opened while I was still at the check-in counter and decided my CO2 cartridges posed some risk so they took them. They would have let me take them to my car but it was half way across the country.

We stayed at the Fairfield Inn Mesa since my work gives awards for solving something difficult or putting in extra effort. Most of the things we can choose don’t interest me but one of the things is a free hotel night. I had 3 awards I’ve gotten over the last few months and that’s how many nights we were staying. Right away I started putting my bike together and had pretty much everything together except for the seat post. I have a tendency to over tighten the seat post binder because I’ve had too many bikes where the post would slip. Just as I thought I better not tighten any more, it snapped. Fortunately Adventure Bicycle Company was a couple blocks away and they had a binder that fit.

Once my bike was up and running and I headed off toward Apache Junction on the route that the guys at Adventure Bicycle Company had told me was good. Most of the way there was a bike lane and the traffic wasn’t too bad. I rode a little over 20 miles and my wife picked me up on AZ 88. We drove a little past the end of the pavement to the trailhead I had started from a couple years ago for a 5 day backpacking trip. Then we turned around and had dinner at Tortilla Flat. It is kind of an wild west type of place. One interesting thing was that there were thousands of dollar bills wallpapering pretty much the whole restaurant. In the gift shop they had prickly pear ice cream and it was very good! It tasted almost like cherry and strawberry cheesecake. It was so creamy and tasty!

Sunday there was a century ride going on not too far away but we wanted to go hike a loop around Weaver’s Needle. I rode back out to Apache Junction and then down to US 60 and my wife picked me up a few miles before the turn off to the Peralta Trailhead. The guide book I’ve used for all my hiking in the Superstition Mountains is Hiker’s Guide to the Superstition Wilderness. It has a 12.4 mile loop hide that starts up the Peralta Trail, goes on the Dutchman Trail, back the Terrapin Trail to the Bluff Spring Trail that took us back to the parking lot. I had hiked the first half on my last backpacing trip there. There are a lot of really cool rock formations along the loop.

Monday I wanted to get in a long ride so I rode out to Tortilla Flat and got another scoop of the prickly pear ice cream. I thought I could get in 90 miles before I meet my wife at the turn off for the Woodbury Trailhead at 2 pm. Soon after I left the hotel the wind started blowing really hard straight into my face. I think some of the time it was blowing at 20-30 mph. Once I got back from Tortilla Flat and started out US 60 the wind had shifted and I had a bit of a tailwind. Since I was fighting a headwind most of the time, I only had 75 miles in when my wife meet me. We ended up going past the Woodbury Trailhead up to Rodgers Trough Trailhead. Down at the highway the elevation is around 2,000 feet and up at the trailhead it’s nearly 5,000 feet. There are a lot of really good views on the way up the jeep road. We went about 2 miles down the canyon and then hiked back. Along the way we say a spot where I had camped on one of my backpacking trips. On the way back into town, I got out and rode the last 16 miles to the hotel.

Tuesday morning we packed up and then headed off to the airport. It was a great trip and a good break. It just went by too fast.

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