Catalina State Park

On Friday we headed to Catalina State Park for some hiking.  Most of the trails are dog friendly so Charli accompanied us.  First hike in almost 2 years so we picked a trail without too much of an elevation change.  Hopefully we both remain healthy this year and there will be many more hikes to document.  I recorded our hike in All Trails, a hiking app, however I haven't been able to figure out how to get a map of our hike out of the All Trails program and into my blog.  I know its possible as I have seen other blogs that have done that.   I will have to do some research and it may be that I will have to purchase the Pro version.  I did get it into Facebook so some of you may have seen it there.

Here are the stats from our hike.  We took the Canyon Loop trail up to the point where dogs were not allowed and then branched over to the Sutherland trail, again up to the point where no dogs were allowed.  While the trails are dog friendly within the park many of the trials extend outside the park itself into something called Big Horn Sheep Management Area.  No dogs are allowed there.  Our hike was 3.3 miles with an elevation change of 325'.  Our moving time was 1hr36min and the total time was 2hr19min.  Lots of gawking and picture taking.   A couple times Lori had to come back and find me as I wandered off the trail and down to the creek bed.


We have been to Catalina State Park before and as we traversed the trails some of the scenery was familiar.  Daily admission is $7. and we decided to buy an annual membership for $75.   Between here and the Phoenix area we will probably get in enough hikes to make it worthwhile.

Must have had lots of rain here this fall as the hills are very green. 

Much of the hike was along a creek bed.
I love the water shots.  Such a nice contrast with the dry desert. 

This guy was traveling along side us.
He dove into the bushes a couple of times looking for dinner but came up empty.  

A Saguaro forest. 

Some nice contrasting colours with the leaves turning

Deserted bird nest

New camera lens gets down to 24mm so the low wide shots are pretty neat. 

Lots of green creeping up the mountainside. 

Often Saguaro's have one or two arms.
Most of these were like an octopus. 

A few more low and wide shots.  

Bought a couple Camel Back packs a couple of years ago.
Carry lots of water and plenty of room for extra clothes, lunch and,
most importantly, extra camera equipment. 

Following the hike we made a stop at Total Wine.  Its kind of like a Costco for liquor but without a membership requirement.  Our inventory of Merlot and Zinfandel was running dry and there is no shortage of choices at this store.   I keep trying different wines and if I can narrow it down to one I may pick up a case and bring it home.  Will have to pay duty but it will still be cheaper.  About the only thing thats cheaper down here is liquor, gas and certain foods.  Given a 35% exchange rate the day of buying cheap in the US is long gone.   Even with the $ at par many items are priced the same here and at home.

We have been having problems with the furnace in the RV and had arranged with an RV repair service to diagnose the problem.  He arrived at 5:00 and within about 30 minutes had figured out we needed a new Limit switch.  He didn't have one in his inventory as he said these switches very seldom go.  Just our luck.  He was out of town on another service call on Saturday so I went to a nearby RV parts store and purchased the switch.  He came over to our place on Sunday and within half an hour we had a functioning furnace.  $90. for his service call plus $25. for the part and we have heat.  I'm hoping that this will solve the problem.  We do have an electric fireplace and an electric space heater however at .13 cents a KWH its a bit expensive to run them.  Although the Propane furnace is a beast when it comes to using propane and also uses electricity to run the fan.  Propane is about 50% more expensive down here than at home so I'm not sure which is the most cost efficient to run.  Overall its not a big cost as we usually only need heat for an hour of so in the morning till the sun heats up the skin of the trailer and perhaps a bit at night when we are watching TV.  

The last few days I have been up on the roof of the trailer washing and repairing some separating seams.  By noon its a bit warm up there so I probably have another morning to apply the UV treatment for the rubber roof and then clean the roof of the slides.  Then its time to wash and wax the sides.  Its $3-400 to pay someone to do this so we will see if my commitment to doing it myself remains or if I make a phone call.

We have also been to a few movies the past week or so and those on Facebook have seen that I have learned how to "check-in".  So far Fantastic Beasts gets 3 stars, The Mule gets 4 and Bohemian Rhapsody gets 5 out of 5.  Lori's ratings may differ.   We finally hit Texas Roadhouse for dinner after many recommendations from friends and it certainly lived up to its billing.

Thats it for now.  We are planning a few more hikes before Christmas and will be taking Mark & Jan to the airport as they are flying back to Utah for Christmas.