I was feeling pretty spry
today when I started out walking. Made
it to Nutt Rd. and my knee started to feel a little edgy, then as I continued
walking it got angry. So I called Kim to
pick me up at the big tire. Iced it when
I got back to camp and stayed off it as much as possible to let it calm down.
It feels just like it did years ago after I had a roller blading incident; I
overworked it today and I have no doubt that it will return to normal….someday.
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Listened to Sunday’s sermon today during my walk. Topic was Letting Go: Anger and Hurt. I’ve always thought that irritation and anger are in the same family, just different versions/levels of the same feeling. Anger is a bigger version of irritation, like an adult is a bigger version of a child. In general, I’ve never thought of myself as an angry person, but I can get irritated fairly fast. For that reason, I was curious to see how anger and/or irritation would be defined. Theda gave the sermon and presented these three definitions of anger that she found: 1. A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility…2. Active displeasure toward something that’s important enough to care about…3. Anger is brief madness. After listening to the various points she made and then thinking about it, I’ve come to this conclusion: Getting angry or irritated when I can’t have things my way is wrong, no matter how slight or intense the feeling is.
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Got a call about the camera being finished; we had already decided to pick it up and then drive to Mt. Lemmon before my knee got silly. So, riding in the car all afternoon gave me something to do without stressing my leg any further.
The drive up to Mt. Lemmon was enjoyable; no fog this time which was a definite plus. The road was easier to travel as a passenger than the road to Tortilla Flat. Both are winding roads with a number of switchbacks but the road to Mt. Lemmon is wider and has the all-important guardrails; two things that made the ride much less stressful.
We made an overlook stop, a visitor center stop, and an ice cream stop on the way up and still made it to Ski Valley in less than 2 hours. Ski Valley is as high as one can go by vehicle
There is a road that continues upward but a barricade
prevents vehicle travel; however, I saw a sign for a trailhead so one could
probably hike up closer to the actual top. Took about an hour to come down. Again,
very thankful for the wide road and guardrails. But I must say that the times there
was nothing but sky out beyond the guardrail was a little unnerving. That didn’t mean that I could look down into
the valleys as we were driving…no, we had to be at a complete stop to enjoy
that view.
Saguaro cactus were abundant on the mountainside but disappeared between 4,000 ft. and 4,500 ft elevation. Ocotillo and Century plants continued until about 5,000 Ft. elevation and beyond that point pine trees take over as vegetation. Traces of snow appeared at about 6,500 ft. but it was only in the ditches or mountainside; there was none on the road.
Temperature comparison: 81o in Tucson and 53o at Ski Valley. Elevation comparison: Tucson is listed at 2,389 ft and the base elevation of Ski Valley is listed at 8,200 ft., with the top elevation of 9,157. It’s an actual ski hill with 200 skiable acres and 21 runs. It closed at 4:30 so we didn’t get to see if anyone was skiing today.
Saw many bicyclists on the mountain today…most were coming down and man, were they flying. It was a bit scary to watch them speeding past us…both my mom and I were imaging all the pitfalls of going downhill so fast. And there were several cyclists still going up the mountain as we were coming down. Hope they made it back down before it got dark. Talked to a cyclist who was having an ice cream break in Summerhaven…he said it only took him about 3 hours to ride up the mountain and that the ride down was the reward for all that hard work. In his eyes that was the fun part; my brakes would be ground down to nubs if I were to undertake a roundtrip on a bicycle. No way would I be able fly down that mountain as fast as some of the cyclists that we saw.
--------------------
Listened to Sunday’s sermon today during my walk. Topic was Letting Go: Anger and Hurt. I’ve always thought that irritation and anger are in the same family, just different versions/levels of the same feeling. Anger is a bigger version of irritation, like an adult is a bigger version of a child. In general, I’ve never thought of myself as an angry person, but I can get irritated fairly fast. For that reason, I was curious to see how anger and/or irritation would be defined. Theda gave the sermon and presented these three definitions of anger that she found: 1. A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility…2. Active displeasure toward something that’s important enough to care about…3. Anger is brief madness. After listening to the various points she made and then thinking about it, I’ve come to this conclusion: Getting angry or irritated when I can’t have things my way is wrong, no matter how slight or intense the feeling is.
--------------------
Got a call about the camera being finished; we had already decided to pick it up and then drive to Mt. Lemmon before my knee got silly. So, riding in the car all afternoon gave me something to do without stressing my leg any further.
The drive up to Mt. Lemmon was enjoyable; no fog this time which was a definite plus. The road was easier to travel as a passenger than the road to Tortilla Flat. Both are winding roads with a number of switchbacks but the road to Mt. Lemmon is wider and has the all-important guardrails; two things that made the ride much less stressful.
We made an overlook stop, a visitor center stop, and an ice cream stop on the way up and still made it to Ski Valley in less than 2 hours. Ski Valley is as high as one can go by vehicle
Saguaro cactus were abundant on the mountainside but disappeared between 4,000 ft. and 4,500 ft elevation. Ocotillo and Century plants continued until about 5,000 Ft. elevation and beyond that point pine trees take over as vegetation. Traces of snow appeared at about 6,500 ft. but it was only in the ditches or mountainside; there was none on the road.
Temperature comparison: 81o in Tucson and 53o at Ski Valley. Elevation comparison: Tucson is listed at 2,389 ft and the base elevation of Ski Valley is listed at 8,200 ft., with the top elevation of 9,157. It’s an actual ski hill with 200 skiable acres and 21 runs. It closed at 4:30 so we didn’t get to see if anyone was skiing today.
Saw many bicyclists on the mountain today…most were coming down and man, were they flying. It was a bit scary to watch them speeding past us…both my mom and I were imaging all the pitfalls of going downhill so fast. And there were several cyclists still going up the mountain as we were coming down. Hope they made it back down before it got dark. Talked to a cyclist who was having an ice cream break in Summerhaven…he said it only took him about 3 hours to ride up the mountain and that the ride down was the reward for all that hard work. In his eyes that was the fun part; my brakes would be ground down to nubs if I were to undertake a roundtrip on a bicycle. No way would I be able fly down that mountain as fast as some of the cyclists that we saw.
Trivia: Mount Lemmon was named for botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon, who trekked to the top of the mountain with her husband and E. O. Stratton, a local rancher, by horse and foot in 1881
--------------------40 Days of Lent opportunity: Share a favorite worship song on social media. This one was more of a challenge than the others. Picking a song wasn’t a challenge; sharing it on social media was the challenging part for me. Not really my jam but I’m trying to do this honestly and completely, so I sucked it up and posted my choice on Facebook, explaining the background behind my choice of Third Day singing Cry Out to Jesus. Here’s what I wrote: I first discovered this song shortly after Jeff died and listened to it many time as I, quite literally, walked through my sadness and pain. Every afternoon I would head into town, put my earbuds in to listen to a playlist as I walked through a neighborhood that was full of the comings and goings of everyday family life. It was a small escape from my empty house. This was always my first-choice song. It’s been thirteen years since it spoke to my heart and has remained a favorite ever since.
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