Everything's Coming Up Roses! Part 2

On the last blog, we climbed partway up Mt Lemmon (near Tucson) to stay at the campground at Rose Canyon Lake.


Wandering around Tucson

Per our normal, I woke up earlier than Chris, so I read in bed while he snoozed on; once we were both awake, we started our normal camping coffee/chai service and prepared for breakfast - gourmet breakfast sammies with Butcher Box breakfast sausage, fried eggs, sliced Asiago cheese, arugula, and a lemon thyme aioli we made at home before we left, inside a Dave's Killer Bread English muffin (high fiber, because that's how we roll).  Does it sound delicious?  It was, and we were very proud of ourselves.  So proud, in fact, that we documented this via a bunch of really crappy pictures:




Okay, so Bon Appetit won't be calling us anytime soon
with food photography assignments.
I promise this tasted amazing.

Figuring we needed to do something to burn off the approximately 8,000 calories we'd just (happily) ingested, we put on our workout clothes and strolled down to the lake.  Our campsite backed up to a steep embankment that led down to a hiking trail; we figured it would dump out at the lake, and we were right!  


The placement of these benches cracked us up.
I guess it's a seating area for groups
already inside the same COVID bubble.

We first took the high road that ran around the top of the lake, enjoying the birds' eye view it afforded us:


Rose Canyon Lake and its dam


Since this area was higher than any other part of the campground,
it was, coincidentally, the only place with cell service.
I believe this is me checking the score
of the previous night's Lightning game.


This area had a bad bout with wildfires a few years back,
and you can still see the scars it left.
More dramatic photos of this in next week's blog.



In fairness to Chris here, 
we were meeting friends in Tucson later this day, 
so we did need to see if they'd texted us.
I promise we weren't on our phones the entire time.

After climbing back down the trail, we headed around the southern side of the lake.


Looking at the dam at eye level,
across the lake.



The lake was the lowest point of this part of the mountain,
so you were surrounded by several higher ridges.
We saw more than a few of these giant rocks,
being held in place by these wispy-looking little trees.
It was somewhat unnerving,
since you were walking right under them.



Chris climbed up this slope - 
I stayed safely (and sanely) at the bottom.

Returning to the main entrance to the lake, we strolled back to our campsite along the road, keeping a close eye (and ear!) out for oncoming traffic - folks were starting to head to the lake for a day of fishing, so more than once, we hopped into the underbrush to avoid a car or truck full of anglers, intent on their mission.  We made it back to Arlene unscathed, cleaned up a bit, and changed into slightly nicer clothes; it was time to head back down Mt Lemmon and into Tucson proper to meet our good friends Bryan and Jen for lunch!

Since the Spencers had a birthday party to attend and wouldn't meet us until later, we made a quick stop at Walmart for various and sundry items (including two shallow plastic bins, which we'd soon put to use to improve our "off-grid dish-washing" process).  We also took this opportunity to visit a few local spots, including Portal Cocktails, a really cool cocktail bar not too far away from our eventual lunch destination.



What a cool place!
The restaurant it was located in (Ermanos) also looked fun.


The fancy ice cube in Chris' drink had their logo!

We wandered around town a bit more, grabbing some to-go options at Dillinger and Crooked Tooth Brewing and window shopping up and down 4th Avenue.



It was finally time for lunch and to see Bryan and Jen!  Of this, of course, I have ZERO pictures, so here's a shot of us from last October, when we met them at Alamo Lake for some camping.


Want to play, "who forgot his sunglasses?"

Lunch itself was fine, but far better was catching up with these two, sharing stories, and planning upcoming adventures.  Bryan and Jen are some of the earliest friends we met when we moved to Arizona, and it's always awesome to have a chance to spend time with them.  Eventually, we parted ways, and we headed back up the mountain and to cooler temps.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening very similarly to the night before - relaxing and enjoying our campsite, making hot dogs and zucchini for dinner on the grill, and whatnot.  



Hammock time!


Unfortunately, once dusk fell, the bugs became insane (it was less windy this night than the prior one), so we packed everything in and spent the rest of the night inside.  We made another valiant attempt at S'Mores, but over a real campfire is truly the only way to go.


I was being VERY closely monitored by Chris
during this experiment, which was fair.
Campers do catch fire pretty easily.


That is a sad-a$$ marshmallow.

Around 9, we crashed for good, ready to rest up before another day on the mountain!  In the next blog, we take a slightly longer hike before heading back home, into the 7th circle of hell.

Later!

Amy

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