Copious amounts of sand and 40mph winds make for a natural sand blasting machine. We were more concerned about the precious bikes swaying back and forth on top of the car than we were the shiny new Subaru we had just received the day before. I think this was a sign that we were supposed to stay in Moab but we had to head south and get to work in Tucson. We drove without stopping through hundreds of miles of this sand storm with visibility dropping to about 30' at times but we weren't getting out of the car.

Once arriving in Tucson I was psyched to find that Martha, our host for the weekend had a dog door in her house. What freedom! My people left me to play with the dog door while they headed out the Saguaro National Park to work with the park trails department on surveying a new trail. They didn't realize that this new trail was going to be in the wilderness where no bikes are allowed until they had been hiking for a mile or so. Despite the mix up, they trudged through the painfully sharp landscape for most of the day in search of a perfect route while I ate cookies, played in the yard, and slept on furniture at "home".

The Saguaro Cacti are the big tall ones in the background. Some where 30' tall and they don't grow their first "arm" until they are around 70 years old. Most of them have been around much longer than any of us and their uncanny resemblance to people gives them personality. They also have Cacti called Choya (sp?). If you brush against or even get too close to one, a big ball of needles pops off and embeds itself in your skin. I got a few of them stuck in my feet which I attempted to pull out with my mouth so I had no sympathy for Jason when he got one stuck in his arm and used a tool to pull it out. Wuss.
















Such a lady.

Surprise! Surprise! We are back in Sedona for a couple days on our way to Prescott where we will work this weekend. I get a day off from chasing bikes and the two leggeds are getting ready to try out the big bad Gary Fishers. That's right, they drew it out as long as they could but the Reigns are getting boxed up and shipped home tomorrow :(