PacTour AZ - Staging Day

After driving all day yesterday, we drove the bikes out to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum to check it out and do a little hike.

First a little ride.  Turk standing in a sea of yellow flowers.

Jim and Paul riding tandem, Paul snapping photo, of course.

The Turk nestled in a bed of prickly pear cactus.

Paul next to a Jumping Cholla cactus.

And some creosole.

A Harris Hawk.  

The Javelinas may be metal, but I bet Wes might still pop off a round or two at them.

Metal Lizards, not quite as scary as the real thing.

The plants and cacti were labelled for our viewing pleasure.

And some were nicely presented in "Catus Cups."

No doubt why this area is called the Saguaro National Park - look at the sea of Saguaro cacti.  You'll also notice the "dust devil" in the background.  We won't see much Saguaro after we climb out of Tucson.  We're at 2500 feet here, we'll spend the rest of the week above 5000 feet.

The mandatory photo of a beautiful woman for Wes

Small pretty white flowers growing from the rocks.

Turk and Jim enjoyed the day and the hike.

We finished back at the hotel - Paul listening intently to Lon's rules and regulations regarding the next 7 days of riding.

8 days in the desert.  PacTour AZ training camp, week six AKA "Mountain Week."  This is the 3rd time in 4 years Jim has done this week.  The Turk is her for the first time, as is Jim's tandem riding companion, Paul Freemyer.

We spent 14 hours Friday driving out to Tucson in the Yukon Denali aka the "Red Beast."  We chose to drive since we were taking the tandem and 900 miles isn't all that bad.  Everyone was tired, so we split the driving into 2 hour segments each, very nicely.  Jim and Paul entertained the Turk with about 8 hours of New England Journal of Medicine interviews on the iPod.  The last 2 hours we watched last week's Milan - San Remo race on DVD.  Afternoon lunch was at a mexican food restaurant in Van Horn, TX.  Dinner was at McDonalds in Lordsburg, NM (aka what it will all look like as we near the end of time according to the Don, Matt's dad.)

Saturday am we slept in (Paul slept at least 10 hours which probably equals a normal month of sleep for him.)  Brunch at Waffle House (why the het don't we have a Waffle House in San Antonio?!?!?)  Then out to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum for a 8 mile hilly ride to stretch the legs and test the bikes.  Spring is in bloom here in Tucson with lots of flowers and cactus color.  Jim got hit by a Jumping Cholla, they really do jump onto you.

Dinner at a Sushi restaurant (Paul's first time eating sushi) then an early bedtime for the 5:30am wake up.  We'll be on the road for the 90 mile ride to Sierra Vista at 7am Sunday am.

Thanx for reading.