A breath of fresh air.

Oy. I have so much to do, and some of it is tax-related. So, here I am, procrastinating. Some things never change.

We went for a hike on Sunday. It was a gorgeous day, absolutely perfect, so we packed a picnic and drove to the entrance of Spring Creek where we parked amid several trucks with horse trailers and made our way on foot. I swear if I had horses, I'd never take them anywhere. What a pain, what with all the loading/unloading/saddling/unsaddling/etc. I guess I'm just not a horse person. Taylor was asking me for one some time back, and I gave her an unequivocal NEVER for her answer. As far as I'm concerned, horses are expensive, dangerous, far too much trouble and completely unworthy of our spare dollars. She hasn't bugged me about it again, thank God. Our neighbors, an older retired couple, are total horse people. They are always hauling their horses here and there for whatever reason. Everyone needs a hobby, I guess. When I am older and retired, my hobbies will include world travel and unsuitable men. Vive la difference!

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Photos.

Adam and Taylor at Spring Creek. I swear, if I have to tell that child to stand up straight ONE MORE TIME… The grey fuzzy thing in front of Adam is our dog, Chloe. I foresee a haircut in her future.

We found a bee tree on top of a ridge. I've never found a bee tree before, so I was pretty excited about it. You can see a few bees in this photo, right at the entrance of their hive in the trunk of the tree. There were thousands of bees, though, and the hum was tremendous. They were very mellow bees, as we came right up to the trunk of the tree and tried to get photos. My camera is not adequate, though, and this was one of the best photos. I eventually got nervous, and had to walk away. I really didn't want to piss them off. After all, it's not like there's a pond or a stream anywhere to jump into or anything, and we were at least a mile from the car. I thought it was neat that we found bees in the forest. It's not like there's a hellluva lot around for them to pollinate. I wonder what yucca blossom honey tastes like?

Here is my foot, full of those little evil cactus heads that break off at the slightest provocation. I think they're little tiny versions of the giant Jumping Cholla you see around Tucson. This was taken right after I had squatted down to take a photo of a different cactus, and poked myself in the ass. You don't even know they're there until you get jabbed. I think we removed a couple of dozen from our shoes and pants and Chloe.

Heading back to the car, post picnic. We had beer and chips, a camera and a gun, sandwiches, chocolate milk, mints and chocolate-covered espresso beans all jammed into our fanny packs, plus lots of bottled water. It's amazing how handy those little packs are, and how incredibly much they can hold.