Mesa, AZ - Butt Shots & Beans in Your Ears

Another day, another hike. We began with donuts at our favorite donut shop, Bosa donuts. But, it’s a shorter hike so let’s sit down here and just relax over our treat and coffee. That means that Gary can have coconut which he dearly loves but is too messy to eat in the car while he’s driving. He got a filled coconut (and was it ever filled, not just a little teaspoon full of custard but at least 1/4 C) and a coconut sprinkled. Me - I went wild and crazy and got a chocolate old fashioned - not my usual plain old fashioned. Whoo-eee, life on the edge for Mr. and Ms. Excitement.

As we were leaving, one of the guys at the table usually filled with some older guys said. ‘you were here last year, weren’t you?’ ‘Well, yeah, we were.’ ‘And, don’t you two have a motor home that you travel in?’ Yeah, that’s where we’re well known: to the old guys in the donut shop. I guess that’s better than being known to the FBI in the post office.

Loved the donuts and now we’re off. Shucks. Why couldn’t we have stopped with the donuts and now be heading home? Nope, gotta earn them now. This trail is a nice steady uphill with a real payoff at the end. Just what we like. But, the uphill is inexorable, it never goes down, not even one little bit. Always onward and upward. Pretty quiet - very few people out on the trail on a Wednesday. Then Gary says: ‘look over there.’ And, it’s a javalina just staring at us. As I fumbled with the camera bag, he slowly turned and began to amble off. I got my usual butt shot since he was too fast for me to get anything else.

My usual: butt shots of deer, butt shots of bison, butt shots of javalinas. I’m nothing if not consistent.

We climb up and finally come to a saddle where we can see into the next valley. Here they are scraping out a new development and they are even pouring some cement for something. If you look closely, you can see a white arch off to the middle left which is the cement pourer.

As I’m quietly hiking along with thoughts of climbing - and what I’m going to cook for dinner - all of a sudden Gary begins to sing - loudly;

My mommy said not to put beans in my ears

Beans in my ears, beans in my ears

My mommy said not to put beans in my ears

Beans in my ears

Cripes, Big Gar. What in the world put that song in your mouth? And, now in my ear. Personally, when I hike I like to have a song with some inspiration, some uplift some motivation, some stimulus. You know - something like:

Who put the bomp

In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?

Who put the ram

In the rama lama ding dong?

Who put the bop

In the bop shoo bop shoo bop?

Who put the dip

In the dip da dip da dip?

Who was that man?

I'd like to shake his hand

He made my baby

Fall in love with me (yeah!!)

OK, enough with the personal philosophies. Here we are at the top of Sunrise Mountain with 360 degree views. One direction, you see the Superstitions, in another the Sonoran Mountain Preserve, in a third, the haze over the city of Phoenix. We took our Atticus sigh (Following Atticus is one of my favorite books), sat down and enjoyed the view. (Yep, I always get the butt shot.)

We could even see the fountain in Fountain Hills.

On the way to the top, the last few 200’ were really rocky and filled with scree, loose rocks which slide with every footstep. Really my bane - I don’t like to hike down a hill on scree. Not with my wry sense of balance. Thus, we took a different way down Sunrise, which had no scree. Ah, I’m always going to take this way down from now on. But, we ended up at the same place, hiked back down the mountain and took another trail at the end to get more distance.

Here’s an old Jeep trail that now is part of the trail system. I’m not taking our Jeep on this road.

Finally we got back to the car and headed home.

On the way home, I happened to notice the tan lines on my knees. How come I have lines in my tan? I’m sure it doesn’t mean that I have sagging skin on my knees. No, no, I’m way too young for that. But, by golly, I’ve got these lines.

A nice day of hiking. But, I’ve still got those Beans in Your Ears in my head. I can’t get rid of that song.

‘Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.’
                        Anonymous