E&E are back in the Airstream, and that means the fun begins anew!

We all tried to sleep in this morning, since their flight was a little late, and we ended up getting home around 12:45 a.m. But with the ladies on Eastern Time, "early" was earlier than I would have chosen. Oh well, at least my bed was warmer than it has been in weeks.

The "bad" OPD valve on our propane tank that I mentioned yesterday turned out not to be bad at all. Too bad I had to drive across town 30 minutes to find out. I was given bad information in Texas by another propane man, apparently. Now the tank is full and mounted back on the trailer, so we're ready to head out into some very quiet places in the desert for a little vacation, starting Wednesday.

Today we had a warm-up, hiking in Saguaro National Park (east side) with Bert & Janie. (Eleanor, still afflicted with a cold, stayed home.) For the past 36 hours we've been whipped by very dry winds, with the relative humidity dropping into the single digits, but finally they calmed and the sky became the sort of stunning blue that the desert is known for. We grabbed the cameras and headed out.

Our two short hikes weren't long, since we started around 4 pm and paused frequently to check things along the way (cactus, birds, washes, views). Hiking like this, you often discover things about your friends. Conversation seems to flow easily when hiking. Today, for example, I discovered that Bert was carting around a sample of alligator poop in his camera bag, a souvenir of Shark Valley in the Everglades. Apparently he's something of an amateur scatologist. The sample will be used for some sort of naturalist "Show & Tell" later. I wish I could be there to see the faces of Bert's audience.