I saw great sights, rode great rides, and had a smoke. It was glorious. It was Easter.

A few of the more notable notes from that morning:

1.) Many churches are distinctively empty on Easter morning.

And there are a lot of churches on Tanque Verde, including the infamous “cool church”, which still intrigues and frightens me.

However, I drove past probably 10 churches and only saw cars in about 3 of them. I wonder if they all go to the same sunrise place. If not, there are a lot of random people in the desert staring at the sun on that Sunday morning.

Right next to the cool church was a large Lutheran church, however, and the line to get into that parking lot was about a block long.

2.) All the really cool places to ride in north-east Tucson are blocked off by ‘security gates’. Seems the rich don’t like sightseers on their driveway.

Nonetheless, I was able to see some really cool publically-available spots, such as this one:

This is at the top of a ridiculously steep hill on Snyder just off N Kolb road. The view was fantastic, and trying to get to the top was an interesting adventure on the motorcyele. Even more interesting was not rolling down the hill while taking pictures. I had driven past this road hundreds of times and had never taken the time to see the top. A sadness, really.

I also saw a decent number of folks wondering where the blazes I was going as I navigated my way straight to the end of several dead-ends and had to turn around, only to pass them yet again, causing some laughter in their hearts.

To me, it just reinforced the idea that life, like exploration, leads you to a certain number of dead ends. But if you don’t look around, you’ll miss some of the most intriguing sights.

3.) Easter is the time to be outside in Tucson

It was 65 or 70 degrees (F), and there was a slight breeze. The sun was shining, and the fauna was blooming just enough to give a slight smell to the air.

There were people everywhere. Everyone and their dog were outside walking or biking or shopping or pulling weeds.

4.) I need thinking time.

Except that I don’t remember the details about what I thought. I remember thinking through relationships, life goals, personal problems, religion, and the-life-less-ordinary, but none of it stuck through till today, Wednesday, other than that I thoroughly enjoy the quiet time to let my brain process all the info that had accumulated over the months.

It wasn’t the simplest process ever, but it was fun. I wussed out and just ran Win95 which was already on the old Toshiba, but it gets the job done. I put a couple extra pictures of the process on Flickr.

Another photo trip, this time to the Sierra Vista Hot Air Balloon Festival. Here’s a short selection of some of the better photos:

http://flickr.com/photos/8811797@N04/sets/72157602951844952/