We canceled our stops at Colossal Cave Mountain park and Kartchner Caverns SP. After seeing Carlsbad it didn't seem worth it to pony up $100 to see these two parks. So today we had only two stops in Tucson, Saguaro NP - East and the Apple Store to have our failing laptop looked over. First was Saguaro NP. Brutally hot and not very crowded, go figure. After entering the visitor center the ranger motioned for us to look out the back picture window. There was a family of Javelinas (baby included) resting in the shade of the building, pretty cool. We had decided that Jessie and I would hike the 2.5 mile Cactus Forest Trail while Alli drove the car around the loop drive back to the Visitor Center to wait for us to finish the one-way trail. We would then call her to pick us up when we were about 30 minutes from finishing so we would not have to wait long in the desert heat.
Jessie: We started off very excited, our CamelBaks were full, and we were taking pictures left and right. The scenery was beautiful. Tall, majestic saguaros jutted into the sky creating a nice foreground for the mountainous background. Since it was so hot, and standing out in the open with no shade, we drank plenty of water. The first half of the hike seemed to go quickly. We were keeping up a steady pace, taking plenty of pictures, and making good time. Both of us thought nothing of this two and a half mile hike, especially me. And why should I? We hiked up mountains, all over, in the summer and never once had I been broken. This hike seemed, at the beginning, to be a piece of cake. But soon things started to turn to the worse. I first realized it when I started sweating bullets, generally a first for me. I continued to drink plenty of water, as did dad, but soon my stomach started hurting. I thought maybe I was getting dehydrated and continually drank water, and much to my dismay, my stomach continually got worse. I finally realized that we didn't eat lunch. Now, I don't know if you ever had this happen to you, but hiking in an extremely hot desert with no shade and no food in your stomach with a belly full of hot water doesn't exactly make you feel fantastic. Our pace got slower, and when the trail started going uphill we felt as if we were on death's door. I shared that my stomach was hurting and dad made me drink more water, making it feel worse. I felt so bad and complained so much that dad explained later that he thought he was going to have to carry me out. There's the saying about how time flies when you're having fun. Well, when you're dying out in a desert time goes so slow that one minute feels like one hour. I swear that if I would've heard dad say we were almost there one more time I would've lost it. When he felt that we were actually close he called Alli, and she was on her way. After what seemed like an hour but was more likely ten minutes he tried calling her again, with no answer. At this point, we weren't taking any more pictures, we were just trying not to die. The rocks I collected felt like boulders, and having the one person who was supposed to save us not respond, was depressing. Finally, though, we made it to the end of the trail and we tried calling four more times and on the fourth call we got an answer with Alli saying she can't find where we were. Not to worry though, she found us about two minutes afterward and we were saved.
Dad again: Later that night Jessie and I went out to Tucson Mountain Park to take some sunset photos. While there Jessie's was bitten on the thigh by a tiny bug. Don't know exactly what it was but 1.5 days later it's still red and swollen. Made a WalMart stop to load up on medication, hopefully that will do the trick.
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