a painful encounter with a cactus

Before I get to the catchy headline of this post, I just wanted to say that I had a great birthday. A friend hosted a BBQ with veggie skewers, marinated tofu and sangria. Yum.
Thanks for all of the phone calls and emails!

On Sunday I went for a hike in the superstition wilderness with a friend. It was a beautiful day and a relaxing hike until I walked directly into a prickly pear cactus! I have no idea how I did this and feel really dumb. If you ever wondered what it is like to stick your leg into a cactus, it was very painful! I had 4 large spines in my leg (some were embedded 1/4-1/2 of an inch into my leg) and countless little spines. The large ones were easy to get out but the small ones kept snapping in pieces and I am afraid that I might still have some in my leg.... I have black bruises under my skin where the large ones went in....Here is a photo (with the culprit in the background) after I took out the large ones but before I removed many of the small buggers:















On the hike we saw Weaver's needle (the large pointy mountain in the photo below) which makes me think of Karrie knitting something giant....