Thursday, December 12-15, 2022
From Picacho Peak, we went Catalina State Park, which is in Oro Valley, a northern suburb of Tucson. It was a relatively short drive, under one hour. Our first stop was the public library, where we did some "work." Laura was interested in applying for Artist-in-Residence opportunities at National Parks, Hawaii in particular. We were going to look up information about the Artist-in-Residence Program in general, as well as search out opportunities in aprks she thought would be a good match in terms of travel arrangements and time of year.
Related to this, she and I had discussed continued travel over the next year or longer, as she continued her quest to hit all national parks. She had heard about the program in Hawaii, at Haleakala National Park, about a week earlier, and indicated we should go together. And we had also figured on hitting other parks in the continental USA in Fall 2023, as well as Alaska, eventually.
I also sent Laura some information on copyright, which I found on my former websites from work in the library at Western Connecticut State University, and I started working on a project that thought would be useful for Laura's daughter, Helen. Helen does a lot of interviews, and Laura mentioned Helen would like to publish one or more research/information articles. I think she could use Grounded Theory to do data analysis of these interviews to find commonalities and come up with a theoretical framework for them. But, we ran out of time, and we never returned to the topic.
OK, back to travel. There are mountains surrounding Tucson. I even looked it up, and I found there are five different mountain ranges! One of them borders on Catalina SP, and it is a dramatic rise from the campground. I did a couple 90 minute bike rides just outside of the park, and I did a 5 mile hike one day, too. Laura did a ride in the park on a couple days. She also visited with Paul and Maureen, the aunt and uncle I met in Phoenix, as they live in Tucson. She stayed at their house one night.
On December 15, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, we did an eight-mile loop that winds through the east portion of Saguaro National Park. Our ride was relaxed to some degree, but it was also strenuous at times, because there were some long and steep hills. Magnificent scenery was abundant!
On one long uphill there was an overlook. We pulled over and Laura decided this was a good spot to place some of William's Ashes, as she does at each park. This was only the second time I was aware of it, and she told me she was glad I was there and that William was glad she had someone to travel with, too. It made me feel good to know.
Although I felt the chemistry between Laura and I was very good, which I have mentioned several times, she did not often say things like she was glad to be traveling together. She was not verbally expressive of it in the way I was. I would often tell her that a hike, a bike ride, a walk under the stars, or a campfire was great, in part, because I was doing it with her. And we did a lot of those activities! I figured maybe it was just not her style, being verbally expressive in that way. I mean, many people are not expressive this way. Or it could be maybe she just did not feel the same way about it.
Whatever the case, it was nice to hear it at Saguaro ...
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