The first weekend of March, 2005, was one that I would never forget.  What started out as an overnight trip to San Jose, CA, turned into five days of fun and adventure.

One day, while surfing the Internet out of boredom, I discovered that my all-time favorite band, Duran Duran, was kicking off a full US Tour - this would be their first arena tour with the original line-up since 1984.  Since I was only 13 (almost 14) at the time of that tour, my parents would not allow me to go to the concert...and little did I know that it would be over 20 years before I would get the chance to see the original line-up in concert.

Looking at their tour schedule, I learned that they were not coming to Phoenix at all.  In fact, the closest they would come to Phoenix was Los Angeles and Las Vegas.  I e-mailed my best friend Suzanne with the news, and she replied that they were coming to San Jose, CA - in her neck of the woods - on March 2, 2005.  "Wanna come?" she asked.

Yeah, twist my arm!  I couldn't say no to that.  Not only would I get the chance to see Duran Duran in concert, but I would get to see them with my best friend, too.  This was going to be an exciting time!

Suzanne managed to score some awesome tickets through some connections that she had at work, so once she had them, I booked my flight to San Jose, CA.  I also requested off March 2-3 from work - this was going to be a quick turnaround trip for me. 

It wasn't long before my two-day vacation morphed into a five-day weekend.  After giving it some thought, I realized that I really needed to take Friday, March 4 off as well...you know, so that I could "recover from the concert".  I would use that day to get caught up on some projects, maybe go for a short hike, or just "veg-out" in front of the TV all day long.

John had a better idea; he would take the day off, too, so that we could go hiking in the morning, then go to a spring-training baseball game in the afternoon.  With Mary in school, we could do a more difficult (or at least a longer) hike...and the baseball game would be like a real date!  "It's a date!" I said, and with that, I got us a pair of tickets to see the Milwaukee Brewers play the Oakland A's at Phoenix Muni on March 4 - day two of Spring Training.

John's idea didn't stop there either.  During the week leading up to my trip, we found that the weather forecast for that weekend was going to be beautiful, with temperatures in the 80's.  He and I both agreed that it would be perfect weather for backpacking, so we started looking for trails to hike.  At first, he suggested that we do a trail in the Cave Creek Trail System - perhaps one that left from the Bronco Trailhead - but I suggested West Pinto #212 in the Superstitions.  Even though it was a further drive, that idea intrigued him.  He looked it up on the topographical maps, just to make sure that the elevation was right for camping overnight in March, and once he saw that it was only 3400 feet, I think he was sold on the idea.

Suddenly, my five-day weekend was packed with adventure!  I couldn't wait to get it started.

The weekend started on Wednesday, March 2, when I flew out to San Jose, CA, for the concert.  My flight was uneventful, and I landed in San Jose at 3:15 p.m., a few minutes ahead of schedule.  Suzanne had not yet arrived in San Jose - she was still in transit, as she had to make the trip all the way from Petaluma (some 55 miles north of San Francisco), so she was going to be a bit late.  "That's okay," I told her, "I'll just take the shuttle from the airport to the hotel."

And that was when I discovered why I like rental cars so much!  It took nearly ninety minutes for the shuttle to arrive...from a hotel that was only 1.3 miles away!  I had been told, when I called for the shuttle, to look for a Radisson van, but that Radisson van never arrived.  There was a Best Western van sitting at the shuttle stop, but no Radisson van.  About thirty seconds after it pulled away, I called the hotel back...only to find out that the Best Western van WAS the Radisson van; their van had broken down, so they were using another hotel's van!  I chewed out the lady, telling her that if I had known, I would have taken the Best Western van. 

So, once again, I had to wait for the van.  When the Best Western van finally arrived, I climbed on board and gave the van driver a proper scolding; I also gave the front desk clerk at the hotel the same scolding.  Then, I checked into my room and relaxed for a few minutes before getting ready for the show.

Suzanne arrived about a half an hour later, and only minutes behind her was her friend Alicia, who would also be going to the concert with us.  I had met Alicia about four years ago at Suzanne's 10-year anniversary party in Sonoma, CA, when all of us Arizonans flew out to help her celebrate it.  I also got to know her very well when she and I pulled all of Suzanne's friends together to buy her a very special gift for the holidays.  I was glad to hear that she was coming with us to the show, because she is a great person!

Once we were all ready to go, Suzanne and Alicia and I drove to downtown San Jose (only a short distance away) to find a place for dinner before the concert.  We found a nice steakhouse/micro-brewery about a quarter of a mile from HP Pavilion - it was close enough for us to walk to the show, so we didn't have to worry about parking there.  Finding this steakhouse was not easy, though, as we got lost along the way.  Apparently, just as there are two Napa Streets in Sonoma, there were two San Pedro Roads in San Jose!  After driving around for a few minutes, we found the place by accident!

We ate dinner at the microbrewery then walked over to HP Pavilion for the show.  At 8:00 p.m., the opening act, Ima Robot, took the stage.  I had never heard of them, and I wasn't too impressed.

Duran Duran took the stage just after 9:00 p.m., and for the next two and a half hours, I was a teenager again...only this time, I had money and I didn't need parental permission to go to the concert!

The band played all of my old favorites, from "Planet Earth" to "Ordinary World", and they also played songs from their new album Astronaut, including "(Reach Up For The) Sunrise" and "What Happens Tomorrow", both of which had become favorites, too.  I danced and danced, feeling absolutely wonderful; and when the show was over, all I could say was, "That was the best concert I have ever seen!"

Alicia took us back to the hotel, where Suzanne and I crashed almost immediately after we climbed into bed.  (Alicia, on the other hand, had to drive back to Oakland that night.) 

I awoke the next morning at 5:30 a.m., to get ready to catch my flight home.  Suzanne dropped me off at the airport at 7:00 a.m. then began her long commute to work, hoping to get there before her client meeting.  She was tired but still reeling from the show - I knew that she needed that little bit of an escape from the troubles she had been dealing with in her life, so it was nice to see that she had a little ray of sunshine to hold onto for now.  I was just glad to be a part of it, so that I could be there for her.

My flight home didn't leave San Jose until 9:00 a.m., so I had lots of time to eat breakfast and relax before boarding my plane. 

Now, in order to get a cheaper airline ticket and still get the 9:00 a.m. flight out of San Jose, I had to choose a flight to Phoenix that had a connection at LAX...or, what I would later call the "Flight Delay Capital of the World".  Although the plane boarded on time, we were not allowed to take off from SJC until nearly 9:30, because there were air-traffic control problems over Los Angeles.  Fortunately, those same issues caused my connecting flight to be delayed as well, so it all balanced out in the end.

Naturally, the pilots tried to make up that delay during the flight to Phoenix, and as a result, they managed to shave the delay down to twenty minutes...or so we thought.  I arrived in Phoenix at 1:40 p.m., but the pilot was in such a hurry to get to the gate he did not align the plane correctly to mesh with the jetway.  That meant that he had to pull the plane away from the gate again and repark it.  I couldn't help but laugh at that silly mistake, because that was the first time that I had ever seen anything like that happen before!

John was waiting for me at curbside when I finally made it outside of the airport.  He looked very tired; he had been up with Mary all night, because she had caught the same cold that I had had for the past two weeks.  ("Hmm," I said to John, "sounds very familiar..."  The same thing had happened to me on several occasions while John was away.)

John took me home, where I relaxed and got settled.  Around 3:30, I decided to go pick Mary up from school.  She had torn my heart out on Wednesday morning when she said, with her little eyes full of tears, "I don't want Mommy to go away!"  Now I couldn't wait to see her reaction when I showed up to pick her up from school.  When she saw me standing at the front counter talking to Ms. Rebecca about the show ("I'm so jealous!" she said), she came running up to me, jumped into my arms, and didn't let me go for a whole five minutes.  "I think I was missed!" I joked.

Naturally, Mary wasn't about to let me go again, so I think that she was a little disappointed when John and I took her to school the next morning.  Both John and I were dressed in shorts, so she knew that we weren't going to work that day.  Of course, when we loaded the Camelbaks into the car...well, that tipped her off, too.  She threw a fit when we took her to school, because she wanted to go hiking, too.

"We'll go hiking on Saturday!" we promised her, and with that, John and I dropped Mary off at school so that we could spend the day together.

The plan for the day was to hike the Pass Mountain Trail, in the Usery Mountain Regional Park, just north of the city of Mesa.  This 7.1 mile long loop trail was one that John had hiked by himself about five years ago, and he had been wanting to take me there ever since.  It was one of his favorite city hikes, because it wasn't heavily used, and it did give you a sense that you were out in the wilderness, even though the city of Mesa was only a few miles away.

To get there, we took the Loop 202 all the way to Higley Road, where the freeway ended, and then we continued from there towards Ellsworth Road.  (We stopped first at a Circle K, on Recker Road, to buy sunglasses and snacks for the hike.)  We turned left onto Ellsworth then took a right into Usery Park, where we had to pay a $5.00 entry fee to get into the park.

Our hike began at the Wind Cave Trailhead.  About fifty feet from the trailhead parking lot, there was a sign with arrows pointing in both directions, indicating the start of the Pass Mountain Trail.  We could either take the clockwise or the counter-clockwise loop.  John indicated that the best choice for us would be to take the clockwise loop, to avoid the long, steep climb up to the Pass.

"That's the only part of the trail that you're going to hate," he said to me as we geared up.  The first half of the Pass Mountain Trail was nothing more than a gentle climb through the bajadas at the base of Pass Mountain.  Then, at about the four mile mark, the trail descended steeply, losing about 500 feet in elevation in about a half of a mile.  The trail was described as slippery in that area, and hikers were warned to beware the loose gravel.  Great! I thought. My favorite stuff!

We began our hike at 8:30 that morning, after sharing our traditional trail kiss.  Just as John had promised, the Pass Mountain Trail started out as a very lovely walk through the bajadas at the base of Pass Mountain.  This year, the trail was especially beautiful, thanks to all of the rain.  The foliage was green, and the wildflowers were blooming everywhere we looked.  On top of that, the saguaros and barrel cacti were fat, having soaked up all of that rain water.  It had been years since I had seen the cacti looking that fat, and I liked it!

Just before the trail began to curve around to the other side of the mountain, John and I stopped at a high point on the trail, and we looked out at the city.  "It's hard to believe we're so close to Mesa," he said.  He pointed out that the Boeing Plant was nearby, and with that, we watched a helicopter take off from the plant. 

The sights and sounds of the city soon faded as we followed the trail around the mountain.  Soon, we could see the canyon lakes (Canyon and Apache Lakes), as well as the wild Superstition and Goldfield Mountains.  The higher the trail climbed, the better views we had.  Soon, we could even see Four Peaks and the Sierra Ancha Mountains, far off in the distance.  John was right: hiking this trail was just like being out in the wild, without having to leave the city.

This part of the trail took place outside of Usery Park; in fact, we left the park boundaries about 1.5 miles into the trail.  John explained that most of the trail was outside of the park's borders, and we would not re-enter the park again until about fifty feet from the end of the trail.

The trail continued to climb, ever so slightly, until we were hiking directly below the massive rock walls of the mountain.  This part of Pass Mountain was very impressive, as the red rock face of the mountain was painted with vibrant yellows and greens.  Standing below it the huge monolith, I felt very small.

We stopped briefly along this stretch of trail so that we could snack on cheese and crackers.  It was only a matter of time before we reached the pass, and we needed to rest up for that part of the hike.

It didn't take us long at all to reach the pass after our break, and that was when we began our descent from the mountain.  As I hiked downhill, though, I kept wondering where the steep section of trail - the part with the loose gravel - was located.  By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, though, I realized that there wasn't a steep section at all, at least nothing that matched the description that John had given me.  John guessed that they had rerouted the trail sometime during the past five years, because that part of the trail was a lot better than he had remembered it.

As for me, I was just glad that we didn't have to do it!

By that time, it was just past 10:30 a.m., and we were almost halfway finished with the trail.  At our pace (which was roughly 2.25 miles per hour), we figured out (eventually) that we would finish the trail at approximately 11:30 a.m., giving us plenty of time to make it to the ball game by 1:00 p.m. 

The warmth of the late morning had caused the mariposa poppies to begin to open up all through the bajadas of the desert.  Suddenly, everything was not just green, but orange and yellow, too.  These poppies (among my favorite of the wildflowers) were certainly a beautiful sight; they made our hike just perfect.

We completed our hike of the Pass Mountain Trail around 11:30 that morning, having completed 7.1 miles in just over three hours.  We both felt great, too, because that was a pace that we had not been able to hike in a long time. 

Upon leaving Usery Mountain Park, we made our way back to the Loop 202 and drove out to the next stop on our day's journey: Phoenix Municipal Ballpark, where we would watch a Spring Training baseball game.  That afternoon, the Oakland A's would be hosting the Milwaukee Brewers - or, as I called them, the "Milwaukee Diamondbacks", as they had signed many of the old Diamondback players that I had liked.  In fact, from our seats out in right field, we were able to watch the Brewers warming up for the game, including Chad Moeller and Junior Spivey!

The weather during the game was beautiful, even a little bit hot at times; however, the lovely spring-like weather was not going to last the whole weekend.  At the beginning of the week, the forecast called for sunny skies and temperatures in the 80's all weekend long.  Then, by Friday, the forecast changed dramatically; it was going to be rainy and cold instead.  So, on Friday evening, we decided to cancel our backpacking trip.

We did not stay home, though.  On Saturday morning, bright and early, we loaded up our hiking gear and took a drive out to the Superstition Mountains, so that we could hike the Massacre Trail.  To get there, we took US 60 to Idaho Road and then turned onto SR 88.  Near the town of Goldfield, we took a right turn onto the road to the First Water Trailhead.  The Massacre Trailhead would be located on the right.

We stopped at what we thought was the trailhead for the Massacre Trail, but we soon realized that it was not.  We found ourselves at the Crosscut Trailhead instead, where we could hike the Crosscut Trail into Lost Dutchman State Park.

So, that was what we did; we hiked about a third of a mile on the Crosscut Trail, which was an easy trail that was just perfect for Mary to hike.  As soon as it left the trailhead, the trail crossed the creek then climbed up a small fifty foot hill.  It soon circled around to the other side and descended to the desert floor.  From there, it meandered through the bright green desert foliage, all the way to the state park boundary.

We didn't hike that far; in fact, we only hiked long enough to get some stunning pictures of Superstition Mountain before turning back.  At that point, it was starting to drizzle on us, so we decided that it would be best to get Mary out of the rain.

Upon returning to the car, John opened up his Superstition Wilderness book and looked once again at the directions for the Massacre Trailhead.  Driving away from the trailhead, he kept going along First Water Road until he found the correct turn-off for the trailhead.  Although we had no intention of hiking the trail now, he did take that muddy, slick road all the way to the trailhead, fishtailing intentionally along the way so that he could kick up mud.

With that came the end of our adventures for the weekend; we spent the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday doing chores around the house while it rained.  True, it didn't end the way we had planned, but it was certainly unforgettable.

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