Fantasy Island

Today we took the mountain bikes out to Fantasy Island. We got them back yesterday from FairWheelBikes.  Both of them needed new chains, general tune ups, and I needed new handle bar grips after the depredations of the wretched packrats in Issaquah.  I must say, my bike is riding as if it was new.  The brakes and shifting are better now than they have ever been.  I am a happy camper.
Anyway, Tucson had a pretty good monsoon season this summer.  We didn't ride a lot of the Island, but we could definitely tell there was water running where we did go.  Water was running here, out on the flat part of Snake Dance.  Many of the washes have fairly deep sand.

It was an aggravating ride; just after we started my heart rate went up to right around 160 and stayed there.  It's been reasonably good since last June, but today just sucked.  When it's that fast it makes me breathless and tired. I really hope this is not a harbinger for a new round of heart issues.  It just makes me crazy that I can't just go for a ride, and not wonder if I'll need an air evac.  Wah, poor me.

On the bright side, I have a product review for all of you who are suffering from terrible tap water.  Tucson has some of the worst water; it's very hard and I can not drink it.  After four years of filling gallon containers at the reverse-osmosis water stations, we bought a Brita water pitcher.  It works!  We are using it for all of our drinking needs and the water tastes as good as bottled.  If you have terrible water, try one.  I am very happy about not having to give up all of the under counter storage space for 6 1-gallon containers.