Back in Hiking Nirvana

The view from our Tucson digs, a casita that is actually larger than our

craftsman bungalow in Des Moines.

This year we decided to spend two months in Tucson and one in Bisbee. In past years, we found ourselves driving to Tucson almost weekly for the dining scene, movie theaters and other entertainment, and of course the hiking. With five surrounding mountain ranges, Tucson is a hiking paradise. However, the city itself is an ugly and unsustainable hellscape of big-box stores and fast food chains, crisscrossed with four- and six-lane roads jammed up with  young Fast and Furious wannabes in souped-up Hondas and Toyotas with ridiculous after-market rear spoilers and rasping glasspack mufflers weaving in and between elderly snow birds, themselves with dubious driving skills, and careening family caravans full of newly-minted consumers, all out on shopping sorties to buy some more crap they don't need. 

I brought a bike this year because for all it's auto-centricity, Tucson is a great place to ride, with a pretty well-developed bicycling infrastructure, predominated by a bicycle "freeway" called the loop, which is only a mile-and-a-half from our casita.

Morning tea with a view. The mountains in the background are the Santa Catalinas, home to several of my favorite hikes.