Both of us hit a wall last
night. It was too cloudy for Kim to
image...I had the journal entry written up and posted earlier than usual...we
were tired and in bed at 10:45 p.m. It’s
been solidly in the 80’s lately and the heat, while it does feel good, makes
one lethargic.
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We got up at about 8:30 a.m. but didn’t get
going on our walk until almost 10. A
family back in Charlevoix suffered the unexpected loss of a child. We were stunned at the news (found out through
prayer chain and Facebook) and it took us a bit to get going after that.
Stopwatch going we took off down the road at a
good pace. Wanted to make it under an
hour for two reasons: 1. To test
ourselves and 2. We started at 10 and wanted to be back before the chains went
up for bathroom cleaning. We set a new record for our 3 mile
walk...58:50.2. Under one hour!! Yessss!! And the chain was already up but technically
I still had a minute so I made a quick duck under the chain into the
bathroom. Not sure Stacy could have stopped me even if I was a minute late.
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I did some product testing on our walk
today. Last week I bought a headband
called Blu-bandoo...it’s a headband filled with granules that absorb
water. Soak the Blubandoo in water, tie
it around your neck or forehead for hours of cooling pleasure...or so the
packaging said. Once hydrated it could
even be microwaved for soothing aches and pains for up to 30 minutes...or so
the packaging said. Packaging also
warned against putting it in the freezer.
So today I soaked it in lukewarm water and wore
it like a headband with the cooling beads on my neck and the ends tied up top
of my head. Even lukewarm it kept my
neck feeling cool. I imagine cool water
would be better. On our walk I stopped
to run it under the water coming out of the irrigation pump to refresh it. That water isn’t cold either but the slight
breeze blowing over the wet Blubandoo was like my own little air
conditioner. Ten hours later the
granules are still hydrated.
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Bill and
Mary Trupiano had encouraged us to take a ride up to Sentinel Peak...the view
was spectacular they said. So today was
the day to drive up there and see the view.
However, I couldn’t find anything online that spoke to the condition of
the road going up there...was it hospitable for bikes? Decided to take the truck instead of taking a
chance with the bikes. Glad we did, too,
because the road up wasn’t the smoothest.
Sentinel
Peak is a 2,987 ft peak in the Tucson Mountains near downtown Tucson. A plaque along the
road leading up to the parking lot reads:
Below this 2900-foot peak
the Santa Cruz Valley was farmed by the Hohokam Indians as early as 800 A.D. When the Spaniards arrived in the 17th
century, the Hohokam had vanished and settlements of Piman people dotted the
Valley. Once called “Schuk-Shon”,
meaning “at the foot of the black mountain”; it was pronounced “Tucson” by the
Spaniards. The hill was a lookout for
these early Indian and Spanish settlers, who lived in fear of hostile
raiders. The whitewashed stone “A” was
constructed by University of Arizona students in 1915.
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Sentinel Peak
also has another name: “A” Mountain. The
history of the “A” according to wikipedia:
After Arizona football's 7–6
victory over Pomona in 1914, a civil engineering student
on the team convinced one of his professors to make a class project of the
survey and design for a huge block "A" on Sentinel Peak. Students
carried the project to completion on March 4, 1916, when the 70 ft. (21 m)
wide, 160 ft. (48 m) tall "A" was whitewashed on the east side
of the peak. The basalt rock used in the construction of the "A" was hauled
from a quarry at the mountain's base which supplied stone for many foundations
and walls throughout Tucson, including the wall surrounding the University of
Arizona campus.
The "A" has traditionally been painted white. On
March 23, 2003, four days after the start of the Iraq
War, it was painted black in protest.
Two weeks later, following much public debate, the Tucson City Council resolved
to have the "A" painted red, white, and blue in honor of American
troops. A decade later the council decided to restore it to its traditional
white. The "A" has on occasion been painted green for St. Patrick's Day.
The “A”
is best seen from a distance...it’s hard to really see all of it up close. However, up close gives a feel for the
enormity of the project. The “A” is not just
a few rocks put in place and painted. It
has depth to it.
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 |
| At the top of Sentinel Peak |
We walked the trail to the peak and yes, the
view from up there is spectacular. What’s
really amazing is seeing how incredibly sprawling Tucson and its suburbs are. There’s a lot of city packed down in a basin
that almost surrounded by mountains. Driving
through Tucson you get the sense that it’s big and has got a lot going on but
you’re limited to seeing just what’s in your immediate vicinity. Seeing Tucson from Sentinel Peak gives a good
perspective on just how big it really is...and why there’s so much traffic.
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Found another crested (cristate) saguaro on
the drive up the mountain. It caught me
off guard...nothing I had read in researching the crested saguaro had mentioned
there was one on Sentinel Peak. Kim
stopped so I could get a picture but I had to walk a short distance back along
the one-way road to get it. More steps, right?
Also most of the saguaros up on Sentinel
Peak had a very unusual look. They didn’t
have the typical looking arms of a desert saguaro...they had a mass of knobs
all growing hodge podge around the cactus. I've never seen anything like that before.
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The road up to the parking area was one way
and circled around the mountain with no guardrail on the edge. As we rounded a curve just past the “A” we
saw a ghost bike installed between the right edge of the road and the edge of
the mountain. We stopped long enough to
get a picture. The bike is a memorial to
Richard Ellwanger and this is his story:
By KOLD News 13
Staff | October 11, 2018 at 10:51 AM MST -
Updated October 12 at 1:21 PM
TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now)
A cyclist was killed and a woman is facing a murder charge after a
hit-and-run crash on 'A' Mountain early Thursday, Oct. 11.
According to a news release from the Tucson Police Department,
73-year-old Richard E. Ellwanger died about two hours after being taken to
Banner University Medical Center.
Ellwanger was biking up the mountain when he was hit by a vehicle
that was coming down in the wrong lane.
Police say 20-year-old Yanibra Moreno was booked into the Pima
County Jail on one count of second-degree murder, one count of leaving the
scene of a collision causing serious injury or death and three counts of
endangerment.
Moreno allegedly also hit two pedestrians and several boulders
before coming to a stop near the parking area. The man who was her passenger
was not injured.
The pedestrians suffered minor injuries. Moreno was treated at a
hospital for her injuries before being booked into jail.
TPD said Moreno showed signs of impairment. (It was later reported
that her blood alcohol level was .40, five times the legal Arizona limit of .08.)
--------------------
After lunch I had to make a stop at Claire’s
to get another nose stud...mine fell out somewhere. Luckily there was a Claire’s located in a
mall right across the street from Arizona Pizza where we had lunch. While we were at Claire’s Kim decided to get
his ear pierced again also. That makes 3
earrings for him.😎
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Thursday night is BINGO night at camp and we
got back to camp right at 6 p.m., just in time to join the fun. It’s a weekly
event but this is the first opportunity we’ve had to play. I don’t know how many generally play but a lot
of campers have left so I was curious to see how many would show up. There were about 10 of us playing and from
talk not too many would be there for next week’s game as they’re leaving before
then. But maybe there will be new
campers to join in the fun.
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Made my 10,000 steps and then some between
our morning walk and the climb to the top of Sentinel Peak. 😊
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No
bike miles today
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