More Hiking, A Trail Gone Bad, and A Move (Quartz Trail to Taliesin Overlook)

View From Dot' Condo at 3:35

View at 6:25

Dry Stream Bed Trail

Quartz Trail

Quartz Trail Homes

It' 6:30 and Evie and I our both up, drinking our coffee, enjoying the morning sunrise.  The mountains  are still shrouded with shade, as the sun is not yet high enough to coat them with light, turning them green.  We take our last hike of our vacation in Scottsdale today and it looks like another sublime morning to do so, blue skies, no clouds, a high of 78º.  We hope to be off by 7:30, back by 10:30. walking a trail we walked last Saturday, up to the Dog Ditch Wash trail to the Taliesin Overlook,  then back on Dog Ditch Wash to Ringtail, and back down to the trail head.  I know these names mean nothing to most people but they will help us remember the trails for the next time we are here.  We would love to return in late September, for more hiking, perhaps heading north as well to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and Yellowstone.  At least, for now, that's our pipe dream.

Yesterday was our last day staying with Claire and Henry, so before we moved to Dot's Condo, we went on a hike in the Mc Dowell Mountain Preserve, where we had hike earlier in the week.  We wanted to find a loop, so we would be on a new trail.  We looked at the map and it appeared part of the Quartz Trail, which we walked on Sunday T-boned the West Ward Trail.j  If you went east/left, it ran into the Taliesin Trail, which climbed up to the perch where it met the Quartz Trail, and the it was an easy two mile walk to our car.  Well, to make a long story short, we followed what was the first part of the Quartz Trail, but were never able to find eastern leg of the Westward Trail, running into a golf course, then school, so we had to turn around, back track to our start and then take the same trail we had taken on Sunday, the Quartz Trail up to its connection with the Taliesin Trail.  It's a pleasant enough trail, following a dry bed bed between houses most of the way but I had lost my early morning mojo (I don't like back tracking), so it was arduous for us both, as we had to push ourselves to finish and perhaps because of our past two hikes in the cool Canyon woods of Sedona, we were really warm, both of us sweating a good part of the way.  We ended up, however, getting our six miles in, walking for two hours and forty five minutes. And since we had taken the walk on Sunday, we had few good pictures for the day, alas.

Inaccurate Signage

We got back to Claire's around 11:00, packed up our clothes, and were easily moved in to Dots by 12:30. She has a great condo, a marvelous view of the Mc Dowell Range,  and it's very comfortable.  Like most people I know her age, she does not like to use the air conditioner, preferring like us in the summer at the lake, to close up the house during the day, opening it up at night when it's cooler.  She rarely uses the air conditioner even in the summer, which I cannot imagine but it certainly saves on the electric bill.  We both are cold weather people, so we think it's warm but the first think Dot said when we arrived was how cold it was.  Go figure...like something out Seinfeld, where Mom likes it cool, Dad likes it warm.

We relaxed at Dot's most of the afternoon, while Dot spent her time cooking up a storm, never sitting down as usual.  She had a corned beef cooking in the crock pot and was cutting up veggies and chicken for our stir fry dinner.  I went out briefly to pick up  some bok choy but that was it for the day.  We ate our stir fry around 6:00 and sat around the table talking until 7:20.  Dot then did the dishes with some of Evie's help and we then watched TV together until about 10:00.

Dusk 7:25