I’ve noticed that not many of the hiking guidebooks for the Tucson area are thorough enough to be worth buying a single one. Since that’s the case, I’m going to start compiling details about hikes online to make it easier to get information about the hikes in the future. From now on, as I do a hike, I will be putting up a post about it with detailed information about how to get there, what kind of hiking conditions are there, pictures if I bring my camera, maps, etc…

I’ve finished the preliminary integration of google maps into my site to maintain a list of geocaches I’ve found and links from them to the geocaching.com webpage associated with the caches. I’m still tweaking it a touch and making sure I can legally use the geocacing.com icons, but should be up and running before long. Next step is to fix the issue with the text boxes that I’m having and I’ll really be ready to roll. To see the work in progress, click on my page titled GeoCaches Found. I’ve also added a Google maps page for things to do around Tucson for when people visit us out here. For that map, click on the Tucson Sights page.

Just having purchased the GPS unit described in the previous post, I decided to put together a list of easier caches in my area that I want to find as I’m starting on this new activity. The below picture shows a bird’s-eye-view of some of the hundreds of Tucson-area caches that I’m going to look for first. Some are along popular hikes, some are within area parks, and some are hidden in neighborhoods.

While up in Phoenix, I stopped in at the local REI and picked up a Garmin etrex Legend GPS reciever for hiking, biking, and geocaching.

Aaron, Jenny, Lauren and I just got back from a bike trip around an 8 to 9 mile drive through the Saguaro National Park that is only 8 miles from our apartment and really close to Lauren’s uncle’s place.

It was a really nice ride that goes through the desert and was short enough and secluded enough (very few cars and people there) to allow Lauren to be comfortable and give her a good idea of how to use her new bike. For the most part, it was relatively easy going and down hill, but, in the middle of the ride, the balance for all the down was met with an uphill battle that was deceivingly long.

All in all, it’s a great place to do a little road riding without worrying about too many cars around. The one hill was quite doable in lower gears and led to a really nice downhill where I managed to top out my speed at 37. We’ll defiantly be going back again.

Aaron took one picture of all of us after we finished the ride, but I don’t have it yet, so when he posts it to his site or Flickr, I’m going to steal it and post it here.