Hikes and Bikes and Wind

Greetings from the dunes!  Actually, no, that's the giant pile of dirt I previously complained about at Fantasy Island.  That's Jim on top of it.  We are still perplexed as to where all that dirt came from.  It's a massive thing.

 

Here we are at the top, surveying all that we see.  The red blob lower left is my mountain bike glove.  That appears in many of my photos taken while out on rides.  It was a short ride, but informative.  I had my crank set replaced at Fairwheels.  My bike has never shifted well, and I went in a couple of times wanting to buy new derailleurs.  However, after significant questioning by the staff as to when the problems occurred, they deduced that I had crappy chain rings.  So, now I have better chain rings and lo and behold the shifting is much quicker and more positive.  I appreciate their willingness to discuss the issues and properly diagnose the problem. 

 

Today we went for a hike because it was so steenking windy.  We went up Hidden Trail to the top of the hill.  We saw many blooming ocotillos.

 

And there were hedge hog cacti in bloom.

 

Going up we had shelter from the wind, but once at the top, we lost the wind shadow.  Here is Jim holding on to his hat.  We decided to go back the way we came.

Another ocotillo in bloom.  They're pretty good this year.

 

Tomorrow and Tuesday it's going to be really windy.  They're talking 30 to 40 mph sustained, gusting to 50 from the south west.  So we're probably going to have to bring the slides in on the driver's side.  Bleah.  One hopes it will settle down for our transit to Phoenix on Wednesday.  The bus acts like a pretty big sail when it's blowing, and then there's all that naked agricultural land in Casa Grande that develops into dust storms.  Double bleah.