[AZRyder]

Went for a ride down to Tucson this weekend. The ride from Phoenix to Tucson is pretty boring.

Rode up Mount Lemmon just outside of Tucson on Saturday. That's what I love about Tucson, you can be up in the Mountains in 45 minutes or so away from the 100 plus temps in the summer. I created an album with some of the pics.

There was a vicious forest fire there in June of 2003 and I hadn't been up there since about 2000. My parents owned a cabin up there for about 20 years and I spent a lot of my summer time up there when we lived in Tucson. It was both beautiful and sad at the same time. The weather was beautiful and so was most of the scenery except for the large areas that were decimated by the forest fire.

Beautiful twisty road which is a favorite for riders year round. Towards the top, there was even some snow still on the mountain even though the temps were high 50's low 60's. Kind of a neat ride to ride with snow on the sides of the road.

Ran into two riders from Montreal there who had been on the road for 9 days so far, they rented Harleys and came down through Vegas to Phoenix to Tucson and were going to San Diego the next day. He told me it was -22 in Montreal now. He came up and complimented my bike and said it was because he had the same year and model and wished he had it to ride instead of the Harley. He had me take a pic of him next to it so he could send it to his wife and tell her he bought another one.

At the top of the mountain is a little town/village called Summerhaven which unfortunately was largely destroyed in the fire. There used to be a nice old lodge that we'd have a couple of beers (light of course and waited a couple of hours before heading down) at or maybe lunch before heading back down. It too was destroyed. They're rebuilding a lot of the cabins but the area, once heavily forested was pretty desolate and devoid of trees. You could look up at the nearest ridge and see that while the grass had grown back, the pine trees were still blackened and dead. They say it will take 100 years or more before it's back to the way it was...

Didn't get a chance to go see if our old cabin had survived. From what I understand it did, but I'd hate to go look and see it gone, we had pictures of that cabin from the Arizona historical society that dated back to the early 1920's. So many memories (and girlfriends when I was younger lol but don't tell my wife..)..

Anyway, going down was a lot funner despite my wife freaking out a bit. She doesn't understand that a 30 mph turn for a car can be taken a leetle faster on a bike. Not to say I wasn't cautious but at that speed, the bike is harder to control around a turn. I think I was taking them around 40 or so which isn't bad, especially since I was still pretty familiar with the road having driven and ridden up there 10-20 times a year before I moved up here.

All in all a fun ride. Next time I want to camp up there.