Phoenix Trip Retrospective
Apr. 10th, 2023 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerPhoenix Getaway Travelog #12
Retrospective
Whew, it's been a week since we returned from Phoenix. I only finished catching up on my blog backlog from it Friday night. I've got this one last blog to write about it, a retrospective addressing some of the dangling questions. Here are Five Things:
1) 3 days was a good amount of time. I wondered in the lead-up to the trip if we were making it too short. 3 days turned out to be a fine amount of time. Critical to that was that it's wasn't Friday late night through Sunday; instead we left home early Saturday morning and stayed through Monday. That gave us an adequate amount of time to enjoy a weekend getaway.
2) 80° was fine pool weather. Phoenix had several weeks of cool weather leading up to our trip. A week out I seriously considered canceling because the weather forecast, only warming up to 80~81° as daytime highs, seemed like it would be too cool to enjoy splashing around in the resort's pools— which was one of the primary reasons we booked the trip. I decided to stick with the trip, largely for lack of a reasonable last-minute alternative, and it turned out fine. No, the weather didn't suddenly get warmer; but the pools were heated higher than I expected so they were plenty of fun to spend hours in each day. Of course, two days after we left, Phoenix was back to highs in mid 90s.
3) Packing light worked out fine. We made a command decision Friday night while packing our bags to travel light. Instead of taking a large piece of checked luggage to carry all our usual hiking equipment, we would instead leave much of that equipment behind. We both took hiking sandals instead of big, heavy boots; and Hawk took lightweight slings for water bottles instead of her full day-pack. I still took my day-pack. These changes allowed us to skip the checked bag, taking only carry-on bags. That simplified and accelerated the airport shuffle. And we didn't miss the extra gear on the hiking trail. ...Well for this trail our hiking sandals with good treads were enough. Knowing the territory was important to this decision.
4) Cooler weather was good for hiking. I wasn't thinking so much about it when I fretted it would be too cool for the pool, but the cooler weather was awesome for the strenuous hike we did up Camelback Peak. The first time we tried it years ago, it was already over 90° at dawn when we started. We were exhausted after the first few steep stretches. Doing the first part of the ascent in 70° weather made the whole thing more feasible. We got to the summit!
5) Aches and pains. I wrenched my shoulder on the hike coming down one of the steep parts near the end. I worried at the time, on Sunday afternoon, that injury would be with me for a while. Good news: my shoulder ache pretty much disappeared by Tuesday morning with the help of topical anesthetic. Bad news: aches in my legs stuck around longer. By Monday evening I could tell I had way overdone it with my quadriceps. It hurt walking down stairs or down ramps. On Tuesday I was weeble-wobbling around the house. My quads felt like rubber. Unhappy rubber. I was wobbly and in pain through Wednesday. By Thursday both the pain and wobbliness reduced but didn't disappear. Thankfully by Saturday morning I was back to about 90%, just in time for another weekend of hiking!
Retrospective
Whew, it's been a week since we returned from Phoenix. I only finished catching up on my blog backlog from it Friday night. I've got this one last blog to write about it, a retrospective addressing some of the dangling questions. Here are Five Things:
1) 3 days was a good amount of time. I wondered in the lead-up to the trip if we were making it too short. 3 days turned out to be a fine amount of time. Critical to that was that it's wasn't Friday late night through Sunday; instead we left home early Saturday morning and stayed through Monday. That gave us an adequate amount of time to enjoy a weekend getaway.
2) 80° was fine pool weather. Phoenix had several weeks of cool weather leading up to our trip. A week out I seriously considered canceling because the weather forecast, only warming up to 80~81° as daytime highs, seemed like it would be too cool to enjoy splashing around in the resort's pools— which was one of the primary reasons we booked the trip. I decided to stick with the trip, largely for lack of a reasonable last-minute alternative, and it turned out fine. No, the weather didn't suddenly get warmer; but the pools were heated higher than I expected so they were plenty of fun to spend hours in each day. Of course, two days after we left, Phoenix was back to highs in mid 90s.
3) Packing light worked out fine. We made a command decision Friday night while packing our bags to travel light. Instead of taking a large piece of checked luggage to carry all our usual hiking equipment, we would instead leave much of that equipment behind. We both took hiking sandals instead of big, heavy boots; and Hawk took lightweight slings for water bottles instead of her full day-pack. I still took my day-pack. These changes allowed us to skip the checked bag, taking only carry-on bags. That simplified and accelerated the airport shuffle. And we didn't miss the extra gear on the hiking trail. ...Well for this trail our hiking sandals with good treads were enough. Knowing the territory was important to this decision.
4) Cooler weather was good for hiking. I wasn't thinking so much about it when I fretted it would be too cool for the pool, but the cooler weather was awesome for the strenuous hike we did up Camelback Peak. The first time we tried it years ago, it was already over 90° at dawn when we started. We were exhausted after the first few steep stretches. Doing the first part of the ascent in 70° weather made the whole thing more feasible. We got to the summit!
5) Aches and pains. I wrenched my shoulder on the hike coming down one of the steep parts near the end. I worried at the time, on Sunday afternoon, that injury would be with me for a while. Good news: my shoulder ache pretty much disappeared by Tuesday morning with the help of topical anesthetic. Bad news: aches in my legs stuck around longer. By Monday evening I could tell I had way overdone it with my quadriceps. It hurt walking down stairs or down ramps. On Tuesday I was weeble-wobbling around the house. My quads felt like rubber. Unhappy rubber. I was wobbly and in pain through Wednesday. By Thursday both the pain and wobbliness reduced but didn't disappear. Thankfully by Saturday morning I was back to about 90%, just in time for another weekend of hiking!
