Tubac Arts Festival

Today was the last day of the Arts Festival at Tubac.  Tubac is a small town that has reinvented itself as an artsy-fartsy little oasis of culture in the desert.  All snarkiness aside, they do have some nice stores with decorative items.  This band was playing when we got there, it was a peppy little tune.

 

Look at the little boy on the left, his dance style was pretty much up and down, but he was into it.

 

We saw a fair amount of this kind of yard art.

 

There was a lot of good photography.  This is a highly Photoshopped picture of a lunch counter.  It's printed on a faux canvas and they're asking $450 for it.  I personally think that perhaps they are pricing themselves out of the market.  Costco is doing prints like this for much less money.

 

This was the best place we went to today.  If you're in Tubac, make sure you go here.  They have Edward S. Curtis prints and cool stuff from Tibet.  If we still owned a stick frame house, today could have been very expensive.

 

They also have prints by this woman, Louise Serpa.  We had never heard of her, not being fans of the rodeo.  She died last year; she was the most amazing rodeo photographer.  Here is an obit from the New York Times, that is absolutely worth looking at. She was the first woman to get permission to photograph in the ring with the bucking horses and bulls.

 

This is one of her photos from Google Images.  It's probably copyrighted, hopefully I won't hear from the internet police.  Her website is here, and is also worth a visit.  We were just amazed by her images.

 

As is always the case with arts and craft fairs, there is food.  This is food alley.

 

This vendor was just amazing.  Those bacon wrapped brats were also deep fat fried.  Oy!

 

We saw a couple of cool looking dogs.

 

Isn't this one pretty?  Look at the eye color.

 

The other good store we stumbled up on was La Paloma.  They have pots.  There are many pots.

 

 

 

There is Day of the Dead.

 

It's a good store.  Definitely worth seeking out.  We bought pots for $6 each.  Now I will have to plant something
That was today, we enjoyed the event. We're hoping tomorrow warms up a little so we can get back on the bikes.

An RV Show at the Pima County Fairgrouns

Today started off noisy and stayed that way.  At times it felt like an airshow.  We're close to the 162nd Fighter Wing, and they were out flying today.  Here is an F16 captured from a parking lot near the airport.

 

It was cold today, and windy.  Yes, yes I know that cold is relative and it's not really cold here, but I was cold.  We decided to go out to the Pima County Fairgrounds for an RV show for something to do.  The fairgrounds are out in the middle of nowhere.

 

First we looked at the Class A's.  I don't really like the new ones.  They just do not speak to me.

 

This is the first thing I do not like, the use of the residential refrigerator.  This is a constant electrical power draw.

 

Look at the cook top, electric.  This RV will never be happy away from a power cord.

 

Another Class A.  I don't like it either.

 

This was the highlight of the RV show. Lifestyle is a new brand.  After Carriage went out of business, Lifestyle picked up their engineers.  They sent questionnaires out to full timers and asked them what they wanted in a 5th wheel.  That's what they built.  With the exception of the size of the basement, it's perfect.  There is a massive amount of storage and it's just beautiful inside.

 

This is the kitchen and living area.  For us, other than the fact that we're not buying anything, the basement is a non-starter.  It's too small to get two road bikes in it.

 

It was a fun afternoon, it kept us on our feet and moving up and down stairs. Then we had a nice sunset.

 

Tomorrow will be even colder, so we may go down to the arts festival in Tubac.

Stalking the Wily Crested Cactus

I have been reading The Good Luck Duck's blog recounting her search for and discovery of the elusive crested saguaro cactus.  This morning we decided that we would head out and try to find a crested cactus.  So off we went, stopping frequently to search the cactus forest.  The one we found is in this picture, can you see it? 

 

This is a different crested saguaro than the one the Duck found.  It's interesting, the first fan sprouted arms, and two of those arms are cresting.

 

The arm second to the left sort of looks like a sock puppet.

 

We did not find any other crested cacti. 
This is on the was back up to one the intersections of Yetman and Starr Pass.  Mid photo you can see the Tiki Guy, which is the rock formation we used early on to figure out where we were when we were hiking.

 

So, we still have not seen the cactus we set out to see, but I did bag a crested saguaro on the hike today.

Taxes and Riding

Yesterday started out with such promise.  We did a fun ride out towards Sweetwater with Don and Jamie.  Here we are in front of a saguaro.  He looks like he's been chewed on a little bit.

 

We stopped at a park for a bio-break.  Look at the little palm tree, he died during the cold snap we had.  Many of the palm trees in the park are really brown.

Then we picked up the mail. May (Jim's Mom) has a long term care insurance policy.  We received a 1099-LTC for her. Apparently a person's LTC insurance benefits can be taxable.  So, I looked up the instructions for IRS Form 8853 as instructed by the 1099.  The instructions contain this sentence.

• Generally, do not include on line 24 any reimbursements for qualified LTC services you received under a contract issued before August 1, 1996. However, you must include reimbursements if the contract was exchanged or modified after July 31, 1996, to increase per diem payments or reimbursements.

May took out the policy in 1991, so we don't have to report the payments.  However, we must send in a Form 8853.  So what do I put on the form?  My H and R Block software knows nothing about a 1099-LTC.  The IRS has very little information about it.  I sent AARP a question about this, they don't discuss Form 8853.  Hello?  Who is the AARP demographic?  OLD PEOPLE,  many of whom are receiving LTC benefits.  This is giving me such a headache.  My next step is probably going to be calling the IRS on the phone.
Today was better.  We rode the Camaro Trail (named for a burned out car) at Robles.  Here is Jim putting on his new knee pads.  These are so good.  They're comfortable, they are not hot and they're good.  I rode well today, soon I will be able to clean Camaro, then it will be on to something else.

 

The weather today was perfect.  Low 70's, light breezes.  After riding Jim washed the mountain bikes, they were filthy.  Unfortunately, the GPNW will be sending us more of their crappy weather.  Thank you GPNW!

Egg Rings, Fantasy Island and New Knee Pads

Is this cute, or what?  We've decided we're sick of scrambled eggs, so we got egg rings to improve our fried egg results.

 

See, there they are in the skillet.  They enable nice round results, instead of the amoeba like free form fried eggs I was producing.  They are much easier to flip over when they're contained.

 

After breakfast we went out to Fantasy Island.  Jim reports that his new wheels have made his bike feel like it's brand new.  It accelerates way more quickly than it did and he's just overall happy as a clam.

 

See the rabbit at the bottom of the photo?  I stood there and watched him for about 3 or 4 minutes.  It's just amazing how still they can remain.  If he's not moving, he's invisible.

 

There's a new windsock up at the Bunny Trail roundabout.  There used to be a shark, but now it's a cute bunny.

 

It was a good ride, I rode the dreaded wash where I committed a face plant without incident.  I also made it across the big sandy wash that I usually walk. 
Afterwards we went over to Arizona Bike Experts and bought new knee pads.  The ones we have are big and puffy, and they're also heavy and hot.

Go here, to their website.  This is such cool technology, upon impact the material hardens up and protects the body part.  Then it returns to its flexible pre-incident state.  They also make cell phone and computer cases.
It was a good day, it was warm and nice.  Good day for the opening of the Gem and Mineral Show.

Hiking, Riding and a Dying PC

Jim continues his slow return to full health.  Wednesday we went out and walked out the Bowen trail for about 90 minutes.  It's a nice recuperative walk, fairly flat, with nice scenery.

 

Yesterday we rode with Don and Jamie, up the Santa Cruz trail and back via Mountain and the University.  It was the coldest that I have been a bicycle in years.  The weather forecast had indicated it would warm up, so we were dressing for the future; but it was a future that did not materialize.  Cold!  Really really cold!  We stopped at Starbucks for coffee and a nosh on the way home.  It ended up being 33 miles which was a good distance for the invalid.

 

We had a little bit of sunset.

 

After riding yesterday, we did five huge loads of laundry.  Guess who left kleenex in his pants pockets?  We spent this morning shaking off tissue bits from the darks we washed.  I think Jim is trying to get fired from doing laundry.  It's not working.

 

It appears that the touch pad on my laptop is dying.  It's very strange, it will move the cursor around when I'm not aiming at anything, but it's not working when I want to use scroll bars, slider bars or cropping photos.  It's unbelievably annoying.  Normally one could just go to the store and buy a new PC, but now with the advent of Windows 8, we can't do that.  I don't know if you've seen Windows 8, but I am not interested.  So, we're going to have to find a Windows 7 laptop online somewhere.  I think about all the stuff I subscribe to, and how many userids and passwords I don't recall and it just makes me crazy.