Look who came by our home to say goodbye!

It’s getting hot here in the Valley.  Most days it has been in the 90’s, and a few days ago it was 99 degrees.  It’s time to move to our mountain cabin in the cool tall pines.

We’ve packed the Turtle (our F350 truck and slide-in camper) and the Rat (our 4Runner).  We’ve loaded Roadrunner and Wile Coyote (our eBikes) onto the back of the Rat, and we’re off for months of fun—exploring new trails hiking and on our bikes, revisiting our favorite grasslands and forests, camping high up on the Mogollon Rim, holding each other as we dance, and relaxing on our decks as we watch the elk and deer who live in Pine with us.

On the road to Pine….I’m the scout in the Rat, and Dan is the rear guard in the Turtle.

The drive to Pine is spectacular!  Ten minutes from Nuestra Casa we are out of Mesa.  We wind along the Salt River to Saguaro Lake and the Supertition Mountains, and past the the Four Peaks Wilderness to Mt. Ord.  Then the Matzatzal Mountains follow us to the west all the way to Pine as we climb to 5,000 feet elevation several times just to go back down again down into the Tonto Basin.  

The Mogollon Rim stretches 200 miles east and west in the distance at 7500 feet.  As we crest the hill into Payson we are suddenly right beneath the Rim.  This is where were we will hike and cycle for days on end this summer.  

And all along the 80 miles to our cabin the hills are covered with saguaro, prickly pear, cholla, and barrel cacti…..and yellow blossoms are abundant between the cacti.

This is Dan’s very favorite part of the drive:

We’re leaving Nuestra Casa and headed up to our cabin in the little hamlet of Pine for the next 5-6 months.  We’ll return to our beloved home in Mesa when it gets too cold to hike and cycle at 6000-7500 feet elevation in the mountains.

Before dawn on the day we headed to the cabin we cycled our 125th 50K in support of Candice’s Ultra-marathon Guinness World Record achievement . 

We will not be cycling 50K on the bumpy dirt roads up on the Rim.  125 is our 50K Leisure World Record….and we’re awfully proud of ourselves!

Candice took off running this morning on Day 167….after today she will have 32 more day to run a 50K to reach her goal of 200!

 On our last day at Nuestra Casa our friends came by to say goodbye…..

And look who welcomed us when we arrived at our mountain cabin!

We love our home and our life in Leisure World so much that we were a little sad to leave this morning.  

But here we are sitting our on the back deck of our snug little cabin in Pine.  

We are gazing at my new Valentine lot behind our cabin and at the Mogollon Rim towering in the distance…..and LOVING IT!

Evening sun on the rim…