The Past Week in the Desert

Greetings! I haven't posted for awhile. We have had two great weeks with Kim and Jim here. Kim took this picture of the snow on the Catalinas from the roof of their RV. It was pretty spectacular.

Thursday night we went out to dinner at the Cushing Street Bar & Grill. It's a really old building with a very cool bar. This is the bar. Three of us had the medallions of beef with a port wine reduction. It was really really good.


This is a lady statue holding up a light.

This is my glass of wine. I was playing with my camera and tripod. I took this with no flash and ISO 1600.

This is us!


The weather had not been all that great until Friday; which was total beauty. So we went for a hike out to the stone hut in Tucson Mountain Park.

This is the view out of the window of the stone hut.


Remember when I had my camera set on ISO 1600 the previous night? Friday I put my camera back in Program mode so I could have continuous (faster) exposures, forgetting that I had left the ISO at 1600. So these are really terrible pictures, since they are over exposed. But they are interesting enough to me that we'll look at them anyway.
This is a really steep trail full of loose rock and boulders. These people are having a very enjoyable day practicing getting up this trail. They would ride up as far as they could get, and then ride back down and try it again. We were surprised that they were not wearing body armor.


This woman was small but very strong.


We drove by to see the removal of a really old park model. The neighbors were out in their lawn chairs watching the work. The Arizona Room had been dismantled and was on a trailer heading out to the scrap heap.

This is the rest of the park model. It was old - really old.

Saturday morning, Jim and Kim loaded the wagons and headed out for Texas. We miss them already.



Today, being Sunday, was the breakfast ride to the Rincon Market. They do really good omelets to order. Here Jim and Dave are talking after breakfast. It was an absolutely glorious day.

We'll have a few good days, and then we'll have some more El Nino inspired rain.

Snow in the Desert

Last night's predicted thunder snow did not appear. The Catalinas got some snow, but we did not. Happy I am about that!

It's cold (yes, I know, I have no idea of the true meaning of cold, but I am cold) here! It's cloudy and really windy. Hopefully it will stop being like this soon. I had to laugh at us making lunch. We were trying to run a toaster oven and the space heater on a 20 amp circuit. Yeah, like that's going to be successful!

Today we went out to look at the Santa Cruz River. We met this dog on the way to the river bed. Don't you think the Italian Greyhound looks like a meerkat? She was very friendly, look at her front paws.


This is the Santa Cruz River bed - it's really running, the flow is really fast.

So - we're drying out now and it's going to be cold - really cold! Freezing, in fact.

Water in the Desert

Jim, Kim and I went out looking for water in the rivers, which are normally dry. This is the Rillito which is running pretty good after last night's rain. Click the arrow button to play the avi.




This is Tanque Verde Loop road. It's closed, due to the creek over running the road.



Road is on the right, creek is on the left.

View of the mountains, clouds and snow.


It's still blustery and chilly. We're looking forward to the return of nicer weather.

Weather in the Desert

Forecast for Tucson Metro/Marana/Green Valley

Updated: 7:20 PM MST on January 21, 2010
Tornado Watch is in effect until 10 PM MST this evening... High Wind Warning in effect until 5 am MST Friday... Blizzard Warning in effect from 11 PM MST tonight to 11 am MST Friday above 7000 feet... Winter Storm Watch in effect from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning above 4000 feet... I really want my snowbird rebate!

Photos from the Desert

Yesterday's sunset, courtesy of Kim's camera. Is it not lovely?


Plants in a desert parking lot. I like them a lot, I think they're agaves.


Rain and wind will probably be here tomorrow. Bleah.

MTB Drills from Camp

Here we are in the storage area of the RV park doing drills from camp. We're practicing counter steering which is so counter intuitive. When practicing turning at speed (to the right, for instance) one pushes the right handle bar away from one's knee. It's difficult, it feels wrong. While pushing away with the handle bar, one also puts all of one's weight on the outside foot, moves the hips off the saddle (as in doing a hip check), and points the hips in the direction one is traveling, annnnnnnnnnd looks forward to victory (which would be 2 cones ahead). We occasionally end up with the weight on the wrong foot, or looking in the wrong place or something, but when done correctly, it's a beautiful thing.




The people in the RV park think we're nuts.

I got this picture off the web. I think this is Gene (guy who ran the MTB camp), but I'm not positive. Whoever it is has completely and totally mastered the art of this turn. Look at the perfection of his form. My oh my.


It did not rain today as forecast. Unfortunately the wind is rising with a vengeance, it may be a noisy slide topper night.