Mixing it up and down (the canyon!!!)

Started the day off with a beautiful 5mile run at 630.......took the liberty of catching some more ZZZs and going later, then hit the pool for a 70 min workout. Had planned to do little errands, clean, straighten up the house, grocery shop, per Saturday usual!! BUT, my wild n' crazy homegirl Becky wanted to do something outrageous! (Hold onto your panties, we scaled the side of the mountain!!)

Hehehehee....so much fun!! You see, we fill our days (and nights) with all sorts of "scheduled" run/bike/swim workouts and races, and tapers, and more races, and more tapers. Well, dammit! Its time to have FUN and let loose!!!! I can fake it and say that I am a hiker. But I am NOT a hiker. I like to run trails, not walk them. So when Becky said "hike" I thought, "sure, leisure stroll thru the desert landscape!" Boy, was I wrong!

Becky doesn't hike, she blazes trails. She bushwacks. She took me to the site of not one, but TWO rusted busted and destroyed cars that had--Yes!--fallen over the edge of the road and I am pretty sure that the people inside didn't survive (Don't worry! the cars have been there for years, i am sure! It wasn't grim!)
Becky is a hard-ass. And she is hilarious, so you better be able to hold on for dear life and avoid peeing your pants in the process, cause she'll make you do that too!!!!!!


It involves scaling down--and I do mean STRAIGHT DOWN-- the side of a mountain.
(That's me giving the "thumbs up" since I made it down without falling on my face!) By 1215, we were heading out from Seven Cataracts down to 7 waterfalls of the canyon at mile 9 of Catalina Hwy. Being the inexperienced hiker and thinking we were headed on a more horizontal path, I opted to wear my worn out, retired running shoes--the ones I wear around the house for random things like cleaning my patio or washing my car????Note to self: Purchase shoes with better traction for next "hike" with Becky.

By 1259, we had reached Destination Water...LOVELY....Streams flowing, brilliant waterfalls, green leaves, trees, some harmless gardensnakes floating about! I tell you, I forgot I was in AZ!!!!!!The goal was to meet up with a group of Becky's guys who were rappelling down from mile 14 Windy Point on Lemmon! We never did see them, but ended up hiking to the most gorgeous of the 7 waterfalls, and I felt like I may have died and gone to heaven! Becky and I named it Arizawaii! as in, "are we in Kauai!?!??!"



The pics are of us on our journey both IN and OUT of the canyon. I think its safe to say that this hike was more Novice/Intermediate bouldering. Oh hip flexors, shut up already!!!


(Above is my hiking mentor/instructor/overall awesome friend and very experienced hiker, Becky!) Look over her L shoulder!! THAT's one of the destroyed cars that was hanging by a string off the mountain!


Becky also modeled the "Totally Gay Ass Homemade Rain Slicker"--also known as a Glad trashbag to be used in case we got caught in what was predicted to be a killer storm this afternoon. Looks like we missed it based on the blue skies in the pic. In fact, I got a killer sunburn on my shoulders instead! Who knew?!! It was total cloud cover when we left home!?!??!


Off to sip a glass of red and and mellow out!