How to work off that Christmas Day food

Location: Peoria, Arizona, USA
Housesitting: Fanci, a small standard poodle
Weather: 55ºF (13ºC) and breezy
Forecast: High of 55ºF (13ºC), low of 43ºF (6ºC)
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Note: You'll see some photos with grey skies and darker land than the others. Without realizing, I clicked on one of the filter settings on my phone. There really were blue skies and the land wasn't that green. Oops!

Today we went to the Thunderbird Conservation Park in Glendale, one of the neighbouring cities that makes up the Greater Phoenix area. It's a 1,185 acre park dedicated to preserving the desert environment. It has about 15 miles of multi-use trails of varying lengths and degree of difficulty. As we didn't have the trail map with us, we just started by following everyone else. I was surprised by how many other people were there. 

That's Greg in the photo, with the black top and light-coloured shorts. There are actually six other people in this photo, but they very quickly look like ants on the hillside.

I was surprised by how many other people had shorts on, as it was cool for Arizona weather. We saw everything from people in shorts and muscle-shirts, to those in layered clothing, wearing hoodies, toques (knitted hats, for the non-Canadians) and gloves. 

That photo was taken at the base of the hill. We soon came across the first trail post, where we had a choice of either an easy (flat land) route or a moderate one. I chose the easy one, but Greg decided otherwise. So, off we went up the hill.

This was taken not long after we started our walk. In the background you can see the access roads into the area, and the roofs of the housing on the flat land. These huge hills just rise up out of nowhere in Phoenix. It never ceases to amaze me.

We always seem to put Fanci up against our dark clothing, and she just disappears! Her owner did comment that Fanci was smiling in the next photo. It took me a while to realize that the tiny light mark where her head would be is her open mouth. Only a "mom" sees things like that!

There were lots of people going in both directions on the hill, but not enough that it felt crowded. At first everyone who passed us on their way down looked a lot younger than us, and that had me a little concerned. It wasn't as difficult as I thought though, as the path had constant switchbacks, thank goodness. However, given this was the moderate path, I wouldn't like to tackle the difficult ones!

Check out the elf going by Greg and Fanci in this photo. How did she get the day off today?

This photo was taken just before we turned to go back down. No, we didn't make it to the top, as we always cater to my back and hip issues. However, we had a good walk and we all enjoyed it, Fanci included. 

When we went home, Fanci opened up her gifts from her owners. Yet another squeaky toy, who's already wet and slimy, and yet another snowman too!