Today's Hike

Today we hiked a very crowded Silly Mountain. School must be out because there were a lot of children hiking. And lots of snowbirds too. Today we hiked a couple of trails that we hadn't been on before, the Jackrabbit Trail and the Coyote Loop Trail. We also took the short side trail to the top of Old Baldy, the hill on the southeast side of Silly Mountain. It's fun to hike on new trails!

Karen coming up the trail to the top of Old Blady.

Ross on the top of Old Baldy.

Ross in the cholla forest - lot's of sharp, pointy things!

Yesterday's Hike

Karen coming up the trail at Silly Mountain.

I Wonder What He Bought?

Seen On Today's Hike

Seen On The Trail Today

This nice looking tarantula.

Hike Of The Day

Wind Cave (yet again).

Today's Hike

Wind Cave again. This is the view looking towards downtown Phoenix.

Today's Hike

Petroglyphs seen at the end of the out and back Hieroglyphic Trail.

Seen On Today's Hike

Mutant barrel cactus on the Wind Cave Trail.

Today's Hike

Wind Cave again, but in the afternoon this time. I think the different lighting made for a better, brighter picture. This is an HDR photo from my iPhone.

Today's Hike

Panorama view from the top of the Wind Cave Trail.

Today's Hike

A crowded Saturday at the top of the Wind Cave Trail.

2 For 1 Hat Deal?

Today's Hike

View form the top of the Wind Cave Trail.

Kindle Fire

Karen and I both bought the new Kindle Fire. Here's a short review of it.

Most of the lukewarm reviews center around it not being as good as an iPad, but as one reviewer noted, it's designed for "media consumption," not "media creation." I bought mine so I don't have to carry around a large tablet and my Kindle 3. There are a lot of reviews out there for the device so here's what I personally like and dislike about it:

Likes
* Flawless integration with all of your Amazon content. If you're already committed to Amazon it's a no brainer.
* Vivid colors and a very bright screen.
* Amazon videos play without any glitches or hick-ups (unlike my Toshiba Thrive tablet.)
* Amazon app store. Nowhere near as complete as the Apple App Store or the Android Marketplace but it can only get better as millions buy a Kindle Fire.
* E-ink is nicer to read but not having to have a lamp turned on to read in low light is even nicer.
* 30 days of Amazon Prime for free. We'll be signing up ($79/year) once the free period expires. Just the access to all the free movies/TV shows makes this worth it.

Dislikes
* My main beef is the power button. They placed it on the bottom (like the Kindle 3) but it's a real button, not a rocker switch. I'm constantly hitting it while holding the Fire and turning it off or prompting a shutdown. I'm sure I'll get use to it but right now it's really annoying.
* No Bluetooth. It would have been nice to be able to use an external keyboard.
* The touchscreen isn't very exact. I have to touch above most objects rather than directly on them. Again, I'm sure I'll get use to it.
* The back of the case is slippery. You have to really grip it to keep it from sliding out of your hands while reading. Not a biggie.

Observations
* Some reviewers had a major problem with the Fire's lack of any external controls. You have to adjust the volume and other settings via on screen controls. I personally don't find that a problem.
* As a Kindle 3 replacement you give up some nice features (E-ink, freakishly long battery life and light weight) but having an almost full function tablet more than makes up for that.

Bottom line, we both REALLY LOVE our new Kindle Fires! For $199 it's pretty hard to beat.

Tempe Town Lake Bridge #1

We got our first look today at the new pedestrian bridge at the west end of Tempe Town Lake. Now we can cross the lake without having to use one of the traffic bridges that span it. Very nice improvement to an already great area!

Tempe Town Lake Bridge #2

Clear view of the bridge over the bladders that dam the west end of the lake.

Awwww!

Panorama App

I found an app for my iPhone that does panorama photography call 360Panorama. It was only $0.99 so I bought it to see what it could do. After playing around I'm fairly happy with the results. It doesn't do as good a job as my Fuji point and shoot camera's panorama function but it's more versatile. The Fuji limits you to 3 horizontal exposures per panorama. 360Panorama allows unlimited exposures, both horizontal and vertical. Here's a sample of a 360Panorama panoramic photo of Pass Mountain I took today.

Utah

On the slick rock just outside Zion National Park.

Today's Hike #1

Today we hiked Silly Mountain but with a difference. As much as we've hiked there we've never been to the top. I'm not sure why we waited so long to do it but today we went all the way up. The last portion of the trail that gets you to the top is quite steep for a short section. This is Karen coming down that section. The 360 degree view was worth the climb! We also saw a roadrunner hanging around at the top. And no, there wasn't a coyote chasing it.

Today's Hike #2

Karen at the top of Silly Mountain. The signs say "High Point" and "Trail Ends."

Today's Hike #3

Ross at the top of Silly Mountain.

Today's Hike #4

View from the top of Silly Mountain looking southeast.

Mesa Fire Engine Panel

So..... which button do you push to put out the fire?

Today's Hike

View from the Old Baldy Trail on Silly Mountain.

Superstitions

Superstition Mountains in the distance. Picture taken today on the Vista Trail at Usery Park.

AHHHHHH!!

Critter

Karen checking out a desert tortoise at Lake Pleasant today.

Lake Pleasant

Today we visited a new place (for us), Lake Pleasant. It's a reservoir north of Phoenix. We did a hike and went to the visitor center. Nice trip!

Trail Critter

Horned lizard seen at Silly Mountain. They sure blend into the landscape!

Moab, UT

After a couple of aborted attempts we finally made it to Moab, UT. We're going to be visiting both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. We're staying at the OK RV Park in Moab. We brought our camping equipment but decided to rent one of their cabins instead because, well, it's COLD here! It got down to under 40 degrees last night. Here's a picture of the cabin. It has a bed, a futon that converts to another bed and a 3rd bed above the futon. It also has electricity, a refrigerator, cable (we brought a portable TV along,) air conditioning which won't get much use and, best of all, a heater! The campground bathrooms are a short walk away. Luxury camping indeed!

Picture

Just a nice (I think) picture of the desert.

Today On Silly Mountain

We went hiking at Silly Mountain this morning. Karen headed back after our climb up the Palo Verde Trail and I continued on. After reaching the saddle below the summit I headed down and had a couple of interesting things happen. The first was coming across a guy on horseback coming up a pretty steep section of the trail! I was amazed that the horse could make it up the trail with a rider on its back. We exchanged greetings and I continued down the trail. The next interesting thing was meeting up with a park ranger headed up the trail. He was the law enforcement kind of park ranger, not the "Ranger B" kind. We chatted for a few seconds while he caught his breath. He told me he was on his way to the summit because people had called in reporting someone signaling up there. When I got back to the car I look through the binoculars and saw a young guy with a large (maybe 2' X 2') sheet of some material flashing it towards Phoenix. There were quite a few people up there and I'm sure it was innocent. Maybe it was a group of scouts practicing signals with a group on some other peak. Who knows. But it was something you don't see every day.

New Tablet: To iPad Or Not To iPad

After several months of debating whether to get a tablet, and which tablet to get, we bought one yesterday. Before revealing which tablet we bought I thought I'd go through some of the thinking and reasoning that went into our decison.

When idea of getting a tablet came up it was because of the iPad 2. After resisting the siren call of the original iPad the iPad 2 just too tempting. We went to the Apple Store several times too seae the iPad 2 and play with it. Just too cool! But after using it in the store and thinking (a lot!) about it I started having reservations. Besides the cost ($499 for the 16GB wifi only model) my biggest hesitation is that the iPad is basically a big iPhone without the phone! Did I really want to spend that much money simply for a bigger screen? Well, yes, I did but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

After looking at the iPad 2 at Best Buy (my iPad 2 lust knew no geographic limitations!) I took a look at some of the other tablets that were out there. Most of the offerings were running the Android operating system. The exceptions were the Black Berry tablet and the HP Touchpad. The HP Touchpad was discontinued very shortly after it came out (but it seems to be back on the market - maybe.) The Black Berry didn't have a 10" screen so I didn't really consider it either. That left the Android offerings.

The more I thought about Android the better decision it seemed to be. I know the Apple App Store has a lot more software available but I can get most of those apps on my iPhone. Android's very configurable user interface and widgets were very appealing. Another big selling point was Flash. Apple's iOS does not support Flash while Android does. It makes a difference! Many times I've tried viewing web content on my iPhone only to see a blank box and an error message saying I need Flash. So it boiled down to cost and features. DUH!

Yesterday I finally decided to pull the trigger and buy a tablet. I considered the Motorola  Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy but ended up buying the new Toshiba Thrive. Features that matter to me were very simular on all tablets. What sold me was the price. The Thrive was $100 less than the other 2. There seems to be a bit of a price war brewing in the tablet market.

So far I'm very happy with the Thrive! Android Honeycomb 3.1 is very stable. And the Google integration (I use gmail, docs and other Google products) is wonderful!

Something You Don't See Everyday

Gondola in the desert. This was taken at the Venetian in Las Vegas.

Good Hand!

Too bad it was only a nickel bet!

Las Vegas

We're in Las Vegas again for a few days. We were across the street from the Bellagio around 8:00pm when their fountain show started playing. We couldn't hear the music but part of the fountains were visible. It looks really good at night.

Colors

We were treated to some cloud cover while hiking Silly Mountain today. I noticed that the subdued lighting brought out the colors on the rocks. The camera on my iPhone doesn't do a good job with color balance. There were lots of greens and yellows on these rocks. Trust me.

Flagstaff

We're back from a couple of days in Flagstaff. We had originally intended to spend 2 nights there but a bed bug problem (yikes!) forced us from the somewhat affordable Motel 6 to the quite unaffordable Hampton Inn. The Hampton Inn was twice the price of Motel 6 so we only stayed 1 night. We got a couple of hikes in including the Sandy Seep Trail. Here's a picture of Ross on that trail.

Another View

We hiked Silly Mountain again today. This is another view from the saddle near the summit.

Today's Hike

You can't really tell in this picture but we had a rare cloudy morning here in the Valley of the Sun. That makes for much cooler hiking. As we've been doing the last couple of weeks we hiked Silly Mountain today. This picture was taken at the saddle near the summit and shows Karen coming up the trail.

Problem Fixed

Seen inside the men's room at a McDonald's near the Tempe ASU campus. The door lock was broken and this was the fix to the problem. Notice the thought that went into this solution; it's more than long enough to be held by either hand while seated on the "throne."

Seen On Today's Hike

A pincushion cactus in bloom surrounded by bushes.

Water Over Path

Today we took our folding bikes to Tempe Town Lake and rode on the multi-use path. The path is routed under most road crossing which is one of its many appeals. The downside to this is that flooding does occur, especially after we get a good monsoon rain. We had one of those a couple of days ago and the water filled the retention ponds. Here's what we found today. The water was only a couple of inches deep so we were able to ride through it. Note the water flowing over the edge of the retention pond's wall on the left.

Clouds

We saw this interesting cloud formation over the Superstitions yesterday morning on our drive to hike Silly Mountain. Unfortunately my iPhone didn't expose the picture very well. The shafts of sunlight, a little visible here, were quite striking.

Bellagio Fountain

Here's a short video of the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas "performing."

Road Trip

Not much going on... a little bored... where to go???

Vegas, baby!

Here's a picture of the Colorado River about 10 miles south of Hoover Dam on the way to Las Vegas.

Today's Hike

Here's some news - it get HOT here in the Phoenix area during the summer. Duh. We don't get to hike/bike as much as during the fall/winter/spring but we still get out every day and do something. Today we went to Usery Park and hiked the Merkle/Vista Trail. It took about 35 minutes to hike, enough for a summer hike. Here's our new Versa in the parking lot with Pass Mountain behind it.

Snake In A Bucket

We were at Usery Park today for a Ranger B brown bag-it lunch talk. After the talk ("All About Venomous Insects") Ranger B showed us a snake that had been captured near the Wind Cave restrooms. It was in a large plastic bucket waiting to be picked up by a local snake expert who was going to microchip it. This was a western diamondback rattlesnake and, at about 2' long, was a fairly small specimen.

Hot Hike

Today we went to McDowell Mountain Park outside of Fountain Hills and hiked the Lousley Hill Trail. While not positive we're guessing that the temperature was somewhere around 100 degrees. For us, hot weather hiking means that we go slower than usual and make sure to drink enough water. The good thing is that you rarely, if ever, come across other hikers. So you can add 2 things to that expression: The only things out in the noonday sun are mad dogs, Englishmen....and Ross and Karen.

This picture was taken near the summit with Karen come up the trail.

Must Haves

Besides fuel economy and comfort options like power windows and keyless entry, our only 2 "must haves" were an Aux port on the stereo system for hooking up the iPhone (to play music) and enough room in the back for our folding bikes. It took a little work but mission accomplished.