Can you get enough?

Enough Sweetwater rides with my sweetie? Not possible!

Enough Sweetwater pics? Not possible!

I can only speak for myself, but I can’t get enough of either.

Something we’d never seen before here (above). There was a puddle in the middle of the trail, and that inverted Saguaro arm was dripping into it. On a 90 degree, dry as a bone day. That Saguaro had given up the ghost in a bad, bad way, and was leaking water and rotted flesh all over.

Here’s the base:

You see dead and dying Saguaros all the time down here, but I can’t recall ever seeing puddles from leaking ones. Quite the cycle of life that cactus had — easily 100+ years old.

On to the trail in the fading light, and mercifully cool temperatures!

Last Friday was 102. Today only 98, and the difference was quite perceptible.

Plenty of hair on each of those fuzzy heads. None blooming yet, though. That’s also the Saguaro that gave the trail its name (Lost Arrow). There’s an archer’s arrow straight through it, near the middle. Dumb, but it takes a heck of a lot more than being impaled by an arrow to make a Saguaro flinch.

Just another gorgeous evening in the desert.

We talked a lot as we rode home (an hour or so), stopping for burritos and cold horchata on the way. I commented several times how good I was feeling (sometimes to the annoyance of Paula as I’d start riding faster than normal). The best I’ve felt on a Friday ride in months. Not sure how much is fitness and how much is environmental, or perhaps even mental. But I’m not going to squander it.

This weekend Mt. Lemmon calls. I am planning some stupidity, but also the opposite.