I really had a blast in Tucson and I think Isabel did too. First of all, we met Melinda (@unredacted) and Duffy (@bittabuffalo) and they showed us a wonderful time in Tucson. Melinda was a wealth of information at the Desert Museum (and a great companion despite her feeling under the weather, so enchanted she was by many things at the museum) and humored my extra stop at Gates Pass to catch views I don’t get to see in the flat Midwest. She also has an orange tree in her backyard, which gave us oranges for fresh squeezing on Saturday morning. And we ate fresh eggs from Duffy’s chickens, which were perhaps the best eggs I have ever eaten in my entire life. They cooked up beautifully, the yolks were a brilliant orange-yellow and they smelled almost buttery while frying. Truly delicious! I felt spoiled.

Gates Pass:

Duffy took Isabel and me up on Mount Lemmon where we hiked the Green Mountain trail and achieved a first ascent on a random boulder along the way (a route we still need to name, ahem). We had planned for much more climbing, but the busyness of the weekend allowed us just this one accomplishment. While hiking we also spotted an anatomically correct snowman. A rare species, indeed.

All of us ran Meet Me at Maynards, a downtown Tucson running event on Monday evenings. It was here that I learned I can run four miles without stopping to walk! It’s all in the pace, who knew? I just needed to slow down a bit. It also helped me to run with a partner, and I’ll say that Melinda makes an excellent running partner. Now it’s got me thinking about running a half marathon (Indy Mini, I’m looking at you). Thank you Melinda, Duffy and Tucson, for helping me discover this about myself. Also, thank you for enlightening me about slime molds.