Spur Of Moment Hike To Hereford Bridge

Stella and I could tell today was going to be much different than yesterday. She was ready to take her walk before I could even change into some clothes. Of coarse she and Heidi had to have their breakfast and they did ... at 4am !!!!  So this photo was around 5:30am and Stella was raring to go.

I could tell while walking Stella AND HEIDI !!!! that I was wanting to ride my mountain bike today and I wanted to ride a lot of miles for a long time. I wanted to climb some hills, ride some trails and check out some new roads I had not been down. I got more than that and may really pay for my riding today sometime Saturday morning.

Yes, you see Heidi's name in the sentence above. Only this time she figured out she could walk on the pavement and the dirt and not have to trot away from anyone ... that no one was chasing her. So she walked the pace she used to in the field back in 'the tropics', sniffing as many different scents as she could in that .66 of a mile walk. It was a cool 68° and that might have been a factor in her decision.

When we got back I didn't waste a lot of time changing into some bike shorts (padded seat area) and a bike jersey (keeps you cooler flicking off sweat). I had intended to do a lot of climbing on the "crossroads" where I ride on my road bike. My definition of "crossroads" are the streets that cross Cherokee Rd on the way to Ramsey Canyon Rd. All of them have long slight inclines. I also wanted to take a right turn onto a dirt lane I see people walking their dogs sometimes. .... that was all loose sand, a lot of rocks and a two track for a truck to someone's house. I turned around before getting to their gate.

I ended up riding out to the Brown Canyon house again but only this time I rode their "Natural Loop Trail". At the end of the trail is where I took my first fall. A large rock hiding in the tall grass on the edge of the path knocked the bike out from under me. I wasn't hurt and was able to ride back home.

I also checked out that area that I talked about yesterday and the satellite map was right ... what I thought was a trailhead was blocked by a locked private gate and a stone wall going each direction along the property line. I ended up riding the compressed gravel road to the left  to check out the property that had For Sale signs on it. I rode almost 29 miles for over 2 hours 30 minutes.

When I pulled into the driveway ... a beautiful long snake was laying stretched out by my garage door in the shade. As I backed the bike away, the snake turned around and crawled away quickly ... so quick that I could not find him.

With a ride like that I knew the only place I could replenish all of the burnt up carbohydrates and calories was Papa's 50's Diner. I was going to try something different on their menu this time. The air conditioning felt great as I walked in from 96°.

A nice size salad, meatloaf, mash potatoes, brown gravy was fantastic. But I needed some desert.

Texting my friend in Chicago last night during each of our different baseball games. She was in shock after they blew a 5 run lead in the last two innings of the game, losing by a Grand Slam HR. I wanted t show her that Papa's Diner supported her Cubs all the way out here in SE Arizona.

The desert was hot cherry pie ala' mode ... I didn't expect two scoops of ice cream. I told the waitress it tasted so good that I was tempted to lift the plate to my lips and lick the plate clean.  LOL Stella would have had a string of drool a foot long if she had seen that pie and ice cream.

My plan was drive through and look at Hereford, AZ. The town and area was evacuated in June 2011 when that forest fire, started by accident of course, ripped down the side of the mountains and across the dry fields of brush. My neighbor told me that large embers were blowing onto our rooftops. So I am driving out Hereford Rd., thinking I knew where I was going.

At first I turned left on Ramsey Canyon Rd because I wanted to see the condition of the road and how many miles it was to the base of the mountain or what I found out ... where the pavement road ended and turned to dirt. It was 5.9 miles from Hwy 92. When I turned around and took a left turn on Moson Rd heading south toward Hereford that was my error. I was checking out that road as a potential new place to ride my bike.

I did not realized when Moson Rd and Hereford Rd intersected that I was east of the town. It turned out great though because I ran into, by accident ... the Hereford Bridge Trailhead. I drove through Hereford on Hereford road after driving on the Hereford one lane bridge ... I did not see anything that suggested a town was there.

I had the whole area to myself, I had my cap that I had bought the other day and enough carbs stored up from that pie and ice cream I could have walked all the way back to the San Pedro House. It turned out to be a very short walk to the bridge. The whole hike if you want to call it that ... was no longer than Stella's walk in the morning.

With landscape like this it is still hard to believe this is the state of Arizona.

Although my iPhone was telling me it was 96° at 1:49pm, it didn't feel that bad. The nice thing is that I am not attacked by bugs or gnats or mosquitoes like I would have been on an August afternoon walk through the field with the hounds. When I stood still and just listened ... only the sounds of different birds were all I heard.

I think a lot of the burned trees I saw was from that 2011 fire .. maybe not.

I came to an intersection where I had three choices to chose from ... left right or cross this road and follow that thing that looked like a path. I did that.

I was hearing a bird from above me telling me hello ... I found it in the middle of the photo.

The friend in Chicago told me this looked like I was hiking in the African brush. The grass was taller than I was.

There it was ... out of nowhere. The solid steel ONE LANE Hereford Bridge on Hereford Rd. I took a short break from the sunshine and stood in the shade under the bridge. Some people have asked me about illegal immigrants in the area. On my two hikes, all my bike riding south of town and within 10 miles of the border ... I have never seen any signs of illegal immigrant's traffic.

Another tree that I think was in the June 11 fire.

After that I wanted to check out Best Buy ... no ... not for electronics or cameras ... I had a $25 reward left from my June purchase of a washer and dryer ... they gave me more but what I had left had to be spent by the end of this month or loose it. Online I had found what I call a velcro watch band for my Apple Watch, they call it a nylon watchband. Either way it fastens the way I wanted. They actually had some in the store ... so I walked out with the new band and only had to pay sales tax.

I wanted to check out a store at the mall called Dillards. I was pretty sure what type of store it was but needed to see it. I was happy to see it was very very similar to Macy's back in Indiana. I like buying quality clothes when they are on sale. This place will always have sales and has good quality for clothes and shoes. Even if I do live in t-shirts and cargo shorts.  LOL

It does not feel like a Friday.  If I don't ride tomorrow, deciding in the morning by the way my legs feel, I will definitely go hiking somewhere. I think the iPhone camera is about all I need to take on these hikes for taking photos.

I hate to repeat myself ... but it really was a great day here in the Wild West.

Heidi Goes In Field Stella Escapes

It is not often I have enough to say and enough photos to put a blog post together 24 hours before it's published. This will be one of those rare posts and it all happened because of the shocking "historic event" of Heidi taking a walk with Stella and I in the field yesterday afternoon. I was so curious that I scrolled through her photos album and found out the last walk she took in the field was April 20, 2018 ... last spring.

She did stop two different times before she put a paw in the field so there were times she could have changed her mind and went the other way toward the house, but Thursday afternoon she didn't. After sniffing the air toward the field while standing in the middle of the backyard, she walked onto the path around Stella and led the way.

It was a beautiful 55° when we took off. Normally I would let her walk at her own pace and most of those times she would never finish the walk with us. She would spend time wandering in the front part of the field and would be in the yard by the time the bloodhounds and I would return. Not Thursday. I told her I'd wait for her to catch up and she kept walking.

Which camera took this flower photo? The Nikon D3200 or the Canon SX530?

Don't misunderstand Heidi's abilities to walk in the field and track scent. She probably had the second best nose in the house of four hounds at one time. Her specialty is flushing out rabbits. That is what any basset hound is made to do, flush out rabbits from heavy brush. Sadie had the best nose, then Heidi, Winston and Stella in that order.

So she does like taking her time on her field walks and checking things out with her nose.

With the weather being fantastic in the late afternoon I was in no hurry to finish the walk. There wasn't a sign or a bite from a mosquito anywhere, the winds were cool, no humidity and sunny. Perfect weather.

Normally at this point I would have kept walking and she would had veered off to the right toward the woods to snoop around but she kept walking the path and I stood there to wait on her.

I might have been waiting but her nose had found something interesting to check on further.

By this time Stella was rounding the first turn. I wanted to keep her within view today since Heidi and I would be walking further back.

So I have one hound in front of me and another hound behind me, both walking different paces.

Heidi jumped into a galloping trot to catch Stella, moving right past me without a wave.

I zoomed in to get this photo and was still surprised that both hounds were walking close to the same pace. In fact Heidi might have been walking faster than any of us.

Still with a good #2 nose, there are plenty of times she would have to stop and double check what her nose was telling her brain.

That meat at times Heidi and I would fall far behind Stella.

Both cruizin' up the path that runs parallel to the back edge of the field.

Interesting how both hounds make the left turn on their own as they follow the worn path.

At first I thought Stella was going to lead Heidi out to the overgrown ATV path. I wasn't going to stop them UNLESS they both headed toward the woods north of us.

This was the most 'nose exercise' I had seen Heidi get in a long time. It was like she was in a trance.

For a while I was beginning to wonder if she was lost and couldn't see that I was left of her too far to reach but close enough she would hear me calling her name. She kept walking straight ahead as if she heard nothing.

I was coming to a critical area ... I couldn't see Heidi ... you can barely see her in the photo below. This is why basset hounds have white tails on the end ... so they can be seen in fields when hunting. (true fact)

And ... Stella was getting too far ahead of me. I had no doubt that she would take this chance to wander over to the neighbors house. She had been looking in that direction for days, raising her nose to sniff that direction. There was something over there she needed to see or eat.

When I turned back toward Heidi and knew that Stella was going to take off on me, I knew it would be easier to catch Heidi later after I corralled Stella, who wasn't wearing her collar. You can barely see Heidi in the center of the photo.

I looked up ahead and didn't see Stella anywhere, even with the zoom lens.

I looked back toward Heidi and thought I saw something white moving but wasn't for sure.

Once she popped into view ... I took off running after Stella.

I guessed right. Stella had stopped to decide if she was going to cross the hidden ditch in front of her between the field and their yard ... or ...

let me know she was hearing me call her name and saying 'no' ... she kind of flinched trying to decide which way to go.

She decided she would come back to where she was hearing her named called. That was another surprise of the day.

With Stella just a few steps behind me, I turned to look for Heidi. I would walk up the return path toward her direction knowing I would eventually run into her.

But she had been running to catch me. Within a few steps I saw her running through the tall grass, almost hopping to get a higher vantage point as she ran.

Once she saw me she slowed to a normal walking pace as if nothing was happening, everything was normal.

She walked right by Stella, who was looking as if she wanted to go back to the neighbors yard.

It has been a long time since Heidi had to wait on us to finish the walk in the field.

Needless to say, after all of that exercise it didn't take long for her to jump up on the couch with the sunshine coming in the windows from the west for an early evening or late afternoon nap.

Stella was asleep just as fast, with probable dreams of getting next door without being caught.

I would rank this walk of Heidi's right up there with the times that Sadie and Stella would find deer to chase. Quite a surprise, exciting and somewhat shocking.

Some rain today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.