Wow, Arizona

Since my last post, we have been keeping busy doing things here we would not normally be able to. We went to the University of Arizona and visited their creative photography center. They had several dozens of high quality photographs of all sorts of people and places. The images were all very sharp and clear as we all are trying to get ours to turn out.
We went to the Starizona store in Tucson; it is an astronomy store and has anything you might want for a telescope. Some people bought books, videos, or photographs of various things from the store. The man running the store was nice and gave us a few tips on how he stacks videos using RegiStax.
While getting everyone the data they need, which takes more time than it sounds, is the most important thing we have done, the most fun was the hike we took today. We split ourselves into 2 groups, one that did not want as long of a hike, and one that wanted a long one. I went with the long hike group. Our hike went to the peak of a mountain about 5,000 feet above sea level; it is the highest one within the park that its in. Bottom line, awesome hike. I really liked how much of the mountains were brick red, and we walked on top of what seemed to be rusted rocks. On the peak, we could see the entire surrounding area, other mountains, cities, the desert museum, a canal, etc. The trees below us looked like patches of grass. However, my favorite part was just being at the tip of the mountain, above everything else; there was no "wouldn't it be cool to be up there," because I was. The hike was about 9 miles (4.5 one way) and a bit tiring, but I want to do another just like it.
Fun Fact: Dane and I did a little math to estimate the average step taken during the long hike (first part) to increase our elevation by 1.3 times the height of a pizza box. It may be slightly off, but its pretty close.