Had surgery in Yuma, AZ just before Thanksgiving/2007. Spent 2 weeks in a nursing home in Yuma, 1 month with friends outside of Denver, CO and another month with friends in New Jersey. I was back on the road again in mid-February.
Hung out in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge north of Yuma for a month or so. Had a lot of doctor stuff to do. Also made several trips to Algodones, Mexico for enough medications to last until I returned to Yuma in Novermber/2008. Temperatures in the 90's most of the time I was near Yuma. Yup! 90's in mid-February and it didn't cool off much.
Kofa is a pretty cool place and I usually spend a couple of weeks there whenever I'm in southwest Arizona. One section has some decent hills on the dirt road. I attacked these several times a day trying to get my strength back. There's 2 week limit on camping so I had to move on.
Moved up to Lake Havasu City with temperatures still in the 90's. If it wasn't for the 15-20mph winds it would have been unbearable. There's a nice road with a steady incline I like to walk. This time, however, there was an old lady camped along the road. She had 4 dogs, one of which was very agressive and came running at me barking its fool head off. I don't take kindly to dogs trying to intimidate me and picked up a couple of rocks. The old lady was pretty unhappy with that.
Later that day I took another walk up there. This time I had a walking stick and a hunting knife. The dog came running at me again and I swung the walking stick like a baseball bat at it to back it up. The old lady came running out MF'in this and MF'in that. I told her if she wouldn't control her animals I damn sure would. If that dog came close enough I'd try to break it's back.
The hassel just wasn't worth it, though, so I moved on up to Lake Mead outside of Las Vegas. While walking the roads in Colorada another aggressive dog came at me. The next time I went by there I had some pepper spray. That straighted that dog right out.
And would you believe I ran into another aggressive dog at Lake Mead... two of them actually. The owner wasn't too happy with me defending my self but at least was calm and sensible about it. But I moved on again.
Between the dogs and being sick a couple of weeks and with a sore back another couple of weeks I haven't progressed as well as I could/should. Temperatures have been in the 70's though at Lake Mead but there's also been some big time winds, probably in the 30-40mph range.
Enough dilly dallying around. I'm headed up to Zion National Park in Utah. There are a couple of trails there that will show how far I've come or how far I have to go to get back in shape. If I can't do a trail the first day I'll go back the next day and again and again until I get it. I think much of my problem had been lack of confidence and I'll take care of that in the coming months. If it doens't kill you it makes you stronger, right?