Windy, Closed Trails and the Cult

The skies were yellow-ish today.  It was really windy, throwing dirt and sand into the air.  Although it was a scheduled riding day, we wimped out.  Getting sand in the eyes is really painful when it's blowing that hard.  Instead we cleaned house.  The mystery of the universe is how do the floors (laminate) get so dirty, so fast?  I vacuumed, and then removed dirt with the Bona pad and cleaner.  Then everyone's indoor flip flops were washed with soap and then with clorox wipes.  We'll see if that helps with the dirt, since all surfaces are now clean.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a little calmer so riding will happen then.  Last Thursday was the first day we rode from the ball fields using the recent successful bike rack.  We were expecting to ride north and check on the construction project that had the trail closed at Cortaro when we were here last winter (which was the first three months of this year).  We got to the park where we always stop and saw this.  There was a "trail closed" sign, which we rode around to see if the trail was really closed.

Yep, I would say that this qualifies as closed.  This is the same sewer pipe project that was farther north in March.  So, there will be no riding further north than the park this winter.

So, we thought we would go check out the other route to the north.  Nope!  This trail is open only on weekends.  We don't know how much longer the during the week closures will continue.  It's related to the fact that they've dug up several miles of the freeway for widening, and are redoing a rail road grade crossing to an overpass.

This is another casualty of the interstate project.  Sunset has been mainly closed for several years now.  The road is gone, and the trail is cut off by the pile of dirt.

Doesn't this look great?  Doesn't this make you want to leave your cold climate and come bike the 131 miles of car free trails?  What this doesn't say is that the picture is of riding up Mt. Lemmon, which the septuagenarians can't do anymore.  It also doesn't say that much of the loop is actually on the road, on lanes painted green, hence the name Greenways.  It also doesn't say that at any given time, large swaths of the trail will be closed for road construction.  It's aggravating that when they do construction, virtually zero attempt is made to provide work-arounds for the bikes.  Some people actually bike commute, so this is a bigger deal for them than for the cranky old people.  Tucson spends a lot of ad dollars based on the bike trails, at the moment it's feeling like false advertising.

Last summer was horrible.  There has been a lot of tree death in the park.  It's odd to me, because there is irrigation everywhere.

This one will need to be removed soon before it's touching the park model.

This was seen somewhere while stopped for a red light.

These people are in a cult.

That's it!  That's all I have to say.