Centipedes and spiders and bears, oh my!

Friday was a pretty interesting day.  Dave had the day off, so after a long morning getting some house
business taken care of we took a nap with the little kids. Ellie woke me up after an hour or so announcing that there was a snake in the backyard. We went downstairs to see what was up, but it was not a snake. It turned out to be a Giant Arizona Centipede- way scarier in my opinion than a snake and venomous too. Luckily this thing was half-dead, twitching his legs a little but not putting up any fight. Dave put his hand by it to compare size- he has really big hands and this bug was easily 6 inches long if not longer. It literally made me sick to my stomach to even look at and I am not usually squeamish. I made Dave take it to the trash can.

In the afternoon an kind friend offered to take our kids so Dave and I could go on a date. We decided to go hiking up Madeira canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains not far from our house. It was a great hike - it had rained earlier in the day so it was a little humid but there were hardly any other people around. We got about a mile up the trail and Dave mentioned that he saw someone ahead on the trail. We rounded the corner and not 150 feet away was not someone but something! It was a beautiful black bear! I got a few quick pictures before he huffed and wuffled and loped up the ridge. It was so beautiful and amazing to be that close to a critter that big in the wild. I was sad that I had the wrong lens on on my camera to get really good shots but wow! What a neat experience! We decided to hike the other direction away from the bear and warned a family hiking farther down the trail that they might not want to go that way either. From what I understand black bears are pretty timid and shy but we wanted to play it safe. We ended hiking to the top of a different ridge and enjoyed a picnic and some pretty great views.














Our last wild adventure happened on the way home. As we drove down the canyon Dave suddenly slammed on the breaks and swerved the car around. We got out and saw this huge male tarantula on the road. Once again you notice it's Dave's hand by it, not mine. I've always wanted to see a tarantula in the wild so I was pretty happy. We used a stick to flick it off the road so it wouldn't get run over and headed home. All in all a pretty great date and a pretty great day.

I just can't overcome my automysophobia

Clouds drifting through the valley

Happy Birthday America!  We shall celebrate by going camping!    It was my idea, I'll admit it.  Dave can think of things he would rather do with his vacation time but was a good sport about it.  I have so many happy memories of camping with my family growing up that I want my kids to have those memories too.  However, things started a little rough.  We were camping about 7000 feet up on Mt. Lemmon here in Tucson.  As we hit about 4000 feet, it started sprinkling.  We got to about 6000 feet and we got hit with an honest-to-goodness monsoon.  It was raining so hard that we had to pull over because torrential downpour + being inside  the cloud = no visual on the road.  When the clouds lifted a little we continued on our way up the mountain, but it was still raining like crazy.  We checked into our campsite, but stayed in the car because it was raining so hard.  The children were not happy about this.  We drove a few more miles to the top of the mountain where there is a little village called Summerhaven.  We popped into the general store and bought the kids some candy, which kept them entertained for approximately 2 minutes.  WHEN can we go camping?  WHEN will the rain stop?  He's looking out MY window!  Etc.  The rain slowed down to a drizzle and Dave found a little road he wanted to explore.  It was so beautiful!

The road took us to the front of the mountain, giving us amazing views of the mountain range and the valley of Tucson.  We even saw some deer and the largest wild turkey I've ever seen.

Big turkey

This guy stood easily 3-4 feet tall.  We finally drove back to our camp and got our tent set up.  The rain had stopped which I was very grateful for.  I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of the campsite with our tent and such, but everyone was hungry and tired so that took precedence.

After we got the kids in bed Dave and I made some hot chocolate and sat outside chatting for a while.  We could hear bats all around us catching their dinner.  Suddenly I hear this whirring sound and something large starts thrashing in my hair before crashing to the ground in front of me.  I screamed and flung my cocoa to the ground and started doing a crazed version of that dance Napoleon Dynamite does in his movie.  After a score of 9.7 from the judges I grabbed a flashlight and took a look at what buzzed me.  It wasn't a bat at all- it was a giant flying beetle at least 2-3 inches long with long horns.  So gross.  Dave killed it and we stayed outside a while longer, but every once in a while I could hear the ominous whirring of one of his friends.  Later, after we had gotten in our sleeping bags, I was almost asleep when I heard a slapping noise. Dave switched on his flashlight and held up a slightly squashed but still enormous spider.  "It was crawling over my hand" he announced.  I was a little twitchy the rest of the night.

 After the standard cold discomfort of a night in a tent we woke up (at 5 am) to a beautiful morning.  After breakfast we packed up camp and took a hike around Rose Lake with the kids, than drove down the road a ways to a pullout where we had a picnic lunch.

Rose Lake

All in all, (now that I've had a night in my comfortable, bug free bed) it was a fun experience.  The mountain and scenery were beautiful and well worth  seeing.  Camping with little ones is just challenging though and a LOT of work.  Dave and I decided that maybe for the next year or so we'll do day trips and have the fun of spending time in nature without some of the difficulty.