A kindred spirit, one tired puppy, cactus needles and green slime

Last night we met a new friend at a tapas bar (you know, like in the Spanish hors d'oeurves... where was your mind?) at the Montelucia Resort and Spa, a beautiful five star resort here in Scottsdale. We had dinner and Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay (one of our very favorite wines) with Sarah McLean. Sarah is a dynamic, eloquent expert on meditation, and has her own meditation training facility in Sedona, Arizona. She has worked with Deepak Chopra and several other experts in the field. She and Suzanne hit it off from the start, and are obviously on the same wavelength. As I have said in a previous blog entry, it's the people you meet on a trip like this that makes it all worthwhile, and we are very fortunate to continue to meet truly beautiful and gracious people this summer.

This morning we got an early start for another desert bike ride. It was already 88F as the sun was rising, and Suzanne chose some new, harder trails for us to ride. I let her lead; since we hadn't ridden these trails, I figured she would find the rough spots and warn me when to be careful. Luckily, she didn't fall into any of the thousands of cacti (that's the plural of cactus) on the sides of the trail. However, the heat and sun started to get to her, and she needed a break halfway through, so we pulled into a picnic area which had a few shaded covers. She looks like she might have passed out, but rest assured she has survived the ride, but I think she's looking forward to missing her workout tomorrow because she's presenting her S.O.A.R! Workshop in Scottsdale.

There are several varieties of cactus (cacti?) here. I wanted to know whether the spines ("needles"?) were really sharp, so I tried the age-old male's method of scientific discovery... pressing my finger into the end of a cactus spine/needle... Eureka, those are sharp little buggers!!! Suzanne just sort of shook her head in wonder... what did she mean by, "Yes, men are from Mars..."?






One of my tires got a flat this morning, so I tried a new solution; rather than pulling off the wheel and tire and patching it, I used something called Slime, a green miracle liquid that you insert into the tubes of your tires. The container stated that it will seal leaks up to 1/8". With some trepidation I followed the instructions (Suzanne will say that that is unusual for me to begin with) and pumped up the injured tire to full pressure and continued our ride. Amazingly enough, the Slime appears to have worked beyond my wildest expectations. The repair held over the next hour and a half and appears to be holding pressure like a new tube. I would not normally put a product endorsement/commercial on this blog, but what the heck... it's a great product and their Summer Blob Tour poster caught my attention. (Full disclosure: I am not a SLIME stockholder).

Lastly, I think this little devil might have been the cause of my flat. The tree/shrub shown is called the crucifixion thorn (Castela emoryi). It is all over the area, and has lots of spiky thorns and no leaves to speak of; "all twig ends are drawn into straight, stiff, very sharp thorns. Do NOT ride into this shrub!