I sort of hate to admit it, but the Baja trip took a lot out of us… Or added a lot… of dirt. For our first week back in Tucson, we spent the time working on the motorhome or just resting up.

One beautiful exception was accepting an invitation from our good friends Chuck and Christina to go for a ride in the mountains. They drove us up to the top of Mt Lemmon. We have all been there before, having driven up in late afternoon and spending time in the observatories. But we all felt like we’d never noticed how nice the views were on the trip up. Maybe we were too focused on getting to the awesome observatory complex. (You can read about our stargazing trip here.)

The road twists and turns its way up to the summit, affording wonderful views all along the way. We stopped often to enjoy the view and look for birds. The birds seemed to be taking a holiday… but the views were great.

This Manzanita was interesting – the gorgeous deep red branches growing intermingled with the grey dead branches of the previous occupant of that space.

A roadside campground gave us a good spot for birding… except we saw only a few. A couple of sparrows and Cherryl saw a couple of Acorn Woodpeckers.

Plenty of fun rock formations –

We did get to see a beautiful bird up close… this Arizona Woodpecker seemed to almost pose for us.