One Foot Out the Door

The buckhorn chollas continue their spectacular bloom this season.  There are some huge specimens that are just stunning.  Unfortunately I haven't gotten pictures.  They look like Christmas trees, they're just covered in blossoms.

This is a small example of their exuberance.  I'm still looking for a pink one, they are the best.

Monday we drove up to the storage unit and rode the bikes from there.  It was suboptimal.  It's about 20 minutes to drive there, then one must walk in to the storage area and get the bikes, which is grueling in the cycling shoes.  We decided that this was stupid, and brought the bikes home.  Currently they're orbiting between the bedroom during the day, the kitchen at night, and then out for an early ride in the mornings.  It has helped having them easily available, we were both edging up to the slough of despond with our latest mechanical setback.  Getting some exercise with no snakes has improved our mental health.  Between the heat, and the wind and the pollen, it's been very uncomfortable here.

Work continues on the Santa Cruz river.  Now there are new piles of rock in the river bed.

This is zoomed in on the part of the river wall that they've spent months armoring.  Now they appear to have terraced it and are planting trees in the bottom of the river.  I do not understand this at all.  This project really needs a website so they can explain themselves.

After seven years, Jim's Ryobi rechargeable batteries would no longer take a charge.  This rendered the skill saw and the drill useless.  We went to Home Depot and bought this set.  Two batteries cost the same as the kit which has two batteries, a charger, a drill and a really nice bag for it all.

Look at the difference in battery size.  It's pretty amazing.  The lithium battery is about half as tall, and weighs half as much as the old battery.  What's really cool about Ryobi, is that their batteries are backward compatible.  The old skill saw will run on the new battery.  This is not the case with many of the rechargeable batteries.  It was a good acquisition.  We use the drill and the saw for craft projects more than we thought we would when we started full timing.  Leaving the chain saw out of the bag was good, we really haven't needed it.

Progress on the truck is being made.  The frame has been repaired.  The new base plates were supposed to arrive yesterday, but did not.  We haven't heard from them today, and since it's 4 ish in the afternoon, I don't expect it to be ready today.  We are so ready to be gone.  One of our many life lessons learned from this is to do a shake down cruise early in March.  That way if there are problems after being off the road for months, one knows about them in time to have them fixed so that one is not marooned in Tucson in April.

They called!  It's done.  Now all we have to do is get Ken out here to replace the vacuum generator on the dash air conditioner.  Then we will leave this place.