As Seen in Tucson

Greetings and Salutations People of Earth.  There is, as has been usual, nothing very exciting going on in Ye Olde Pueblo.  Hike and some bike; read the newspapers, beat breast and rend the hair; the usual.  Today’s terrible news, other than the Nunes memo, was the fact that borrowing by the government will be double due to lack of revenue caused by the tax bill.  But enough of that.

The Tortolitas continue to be a favorite place to hike.  We’ve noticed a definite increase in the amount of gasoline consumed getting to the various and sundry trail heads.  Less gas was consumed when we were mainly biking from the RV park.

This is a dead Saguaro.  He was an old guy when he perished.  It’s always sad to see them dead, it took 100 years to grow arms, and now he is gone.



Jim on a promontory (well technically not, since it doesn’t jut out over water) surveying all that he sees.



Yesterday and today we rode on the bike path.  This is a new bike bridge the city built.  As I have posted in the past, Camino de la Tierra becomes a water course during heavy rains.  The road is effectively closed until the Rillito stops running.  The bridge was constructed to provide access during the rains, as well as to keep people from having to ride down a terrible road surface.  They don’t fix the road, because when it rains, it will just disintegrate again.



It is quite the structure.  I’m always amazed at the amount of trail building that is done in Tucson.  Phoenix metro has better parks, but we win in the bike trail department.



We think this is a gravel pit.  It was inactive for years.  Now there are large machines shoving dirt around, spraying water and burning diesel.



For the life of us we can not figure out what they are doing.  A little signage would be a good thing.  One wonders if it will be a golf course, similar to one we saw up near Oro Valley.



Maybe the pit will become this.



Back at the ball fields we saw this little bird trying to get a drink.



The water fountains are turned off.  He does not look pleased about this.



We’ve been looking at these structures along the trail for years, as well.  We never saw any people around them until today.  There is a guy wearing a harness standing on a wire up high, and then there is someone in a harness being lowered to the ground.  It took awhile to pry him off the pole he’s hanging on to so they could lower him.



Then there is the other side of the structure.  Eventually two people climbed up the poles on the far right.  One person walked across the cross member to the other person.  Then they stood there for awhile.  We were baking, standing in the sun, so we abandoned our observations.



It has been hot, approaching 80.  The talking weather head is warning that it could be in the 100s by March.  That would be bad.