New Bikes & Cold Weather in the Desert

Behold the magnificence of the new mountain bikes. This is Jim's.

This is mine.

Full suspension. Schweet!

We took the bikes back out to the Rillito River trail Sunday. We used the rack in the bed of the truck. We're not doing that again, getting Jim's front wheel back on without the front disc brake dragging was a pain in the patootie. We must have a bike rack that does not depend on removing the front wheel. To that end, I have ordered this rack (there's sound in case you're reading this at work). It's not beefy enough to ride behind the RV, due to all of the motion, but I'm hoping it'll be fine in town. If not, back it goes. It was a fun ride, we went further this time than the first ride.

First off, let me just say that I realize that any tale of woe about the climate in Tucson will get absolutely ZERO truck with all you people in the GPNW, Utah or America's heartland. Yes, you all are suffering more than we are. But having said that, it was cold and windy yesterday. We hiked, I hiked well, we're almost back to our pre-surgery times up and back.

Last night was just awful. We had high, sustained winds out of the southwest, so the wind was rattling the slide toppers and bouncing the RV all night. I kept having nightmares that the bikes were being blown to bits and flying away. It was a long night.

Today I saw the ear doctor. It went well. I HAVE DISSOLVING STITCHES. So I was a happy camper about that, no pulling sutures out of the oh so delicate skin behind my ear. I had thought he'd be removing all of the packing from my ear canal, but he only took about half of it. The other half stays in there for four more weeks. So that's four more weeks of showering with a dixie cup over my ear. It's such a pain. Anyway, he said the ear looks good. Recently I've been stressing because I had pain in the back of my throat, which I was afraid was ear drops running through my ear drum (meaning surgery failed). But it's not from that, it's an inflamed tonsil. But wait, didn't I have my tonsils out when I was 20? Why yes, yes I did. Today we learned that one has 4 tonsils, during a tonsillectomy, 2 of the 4 tonsils are removed, the remaining 2 lingual tonsils remain. So, that's what's hurting in my throat, the left lingual tonsil is inflamed. So, other than the dixie cup in the shower, it's going well.

Other than that, I have nothing new to report. Stay warm and wear a hat when it's cold!