First Week in December

Wednesday Ken and Rachel came with the new cooling unit for the refrigerator.  There are some things an RV owner just should not see; and your refrigerator face down on the floor is one of them.
This is Ken beginning the process of removing the old cooling unit.

 

It came up easily, Ken said they usually put up more of a fight.

 

Taking it out the door and away.

 

Part of the trim was bent during transit.  Here is Ken using precision tools (hammer and giant screw driver) to return the trim to its original shape.

 

The new cooling unit is now installed.  There was much fishing of wires up the back of it.  There are definitely no user serviceable parts here.  It is so nice to have this fixed.  I will never take the freezer for granted again.

 

Yesterday we went to REI.  This was taken on Ruthrauff Road.  Traffic was necked down to one lane.  Do you think people will wait their turn?  No, they all want to run up the right side and then stick their noses in at the last minute.  I find this breach of manners so infuriating.  One young woman came up very quickly, and then tried to make a right turn around the fire truck.

 

Only to find her path blocked by one of the cars involved in the accident.  So at that point she had the entire intersection blocked.  The number of accidents in Tucson is high, and I suspect many of them are due to the running of red lights.

 

Sadly, today was the end of an era.  A great man has died. 

That's all I have to report from the Old Pueblo.

Good Weather and a Sunrise

The weather has been spectacular as of late.  Yesterday was just stellar in its perfection.  Unfortunately, the GPNW will be sending us their wretched low pressure and things will deteriorate over the next few days.

 

This was dawn today.  We were up at oh:dark:thirty to go see the ear nose and throat doctor.  Sunrise was very impressive.  The visit to the doctor was painful.  For reasons not clear to me he dumped some steroid ear drops onto my perforated ear drum.  As they ran through my middle and inner ear and then on to the back of my throat, the pain was just excruciating.  It took several hours and the better part of another perfect day to settle down.  Note to self, no steroid drops in the ear, ever.

 

We have another Christmas Cactus blossom.  I took this with my Canon Elph 110 HS.  It does a pretty good job with shooting close up.

 

This is Orange Grove.  Look sort of in the middle at the white sign.  It says the bike lane is closed ahead.  Yes, I believe it might be closed as they are digging up the old road.  Hopefully this project will complete in my life time, and there will be a good bike lane.  Now that Campbell has bike lanes, one can ride up and down without fear of being run over.  The addition of Orange Grove bike lanes will make a good loop.

 

Ken will be here in the morning with our new cooling unit for the refrigerator.  Happy I will be when the refrigerator is fixed.  I am looking forward to not shopping every other day.   We have Pilates and then I have PT almost immediately after, so it will be a very full day. 

A Black Friday Bike Ride

I like this picture of the back seat of our truck.  It describes the last couple of months of our lives.  Top left is my surgical boot, then we have the Pilates mats, and at the bottom are the bike shoes which I can finally wear.

 

We got a Christmas cactus from Lowe's.  It's happy, and it's entertaining us as it blooms.

 

Today we rode 34 miles with Don and Jamie.  We stopped at Starbucks for coffee and a nosh at mile 26.  At that point I was fairly cooked.  This is the court yard where there are restaurants and shops.  It's pretty.

 

After we finally returned home, I was really cooked.  Tomorrow will be a non-riding day.  We bought lights to put on our palm tree so we're going to do that, and laundry.  There is always laundry.  How do two people mess up that many clothes?

 

The sunset tonight was impressive. It went from some anemic pink streaks to this in a matter of seconds.
 

 

That was today; ride and go to the grocery store because we still do not have a functioning refrigerator.

A Thanksgiving Bike Ride

Today was the day.  I put the road shoes on, and we went for a ride on the trail.  It was only 21 miles, but it was good.  We saw a big hawk hanging out by the trail.  Of course, as soon as the camera came out, he took off.  He was a big bird.

 

We parked at the Christopher Columbus park, so I could get directly on the trail.  I wasn't sure how it would go, and decided to skip the road portion down Mission.  Since I start on my left foot, there were a couple of sharp (paved) climbs out of washes that I walked, but overall it was good. We took a bike path we don't normally ride, that goes way north.  Tucson has added on to it, we ended up very far north, up by Gladden Farms.

 

It was just a glorious day.

 

Happy Thanksgiving, maties!

Looking for Content in Tucson

The problem with parking oneself in Tucson for several months is that I've pretty much said everything there is to say about the area.  It makes posting difficult.
Our refrigerator remains dead.  It started venting something to the atmosphere so Ken turned it off.  We're currently living with the teeny tiny frig and an ice chest for ice.  We're shopping a lot, we're feeling very French as we make our daily market stops.  The tiny refrigerator is interesting, we set the temperature to max cold because the ice cream was at the soup stage.  It promptly froze half the food in the main part of the refrigerator, but not the ice cream.  It's curious as to how that works.
We're giving Pilates a try.  There is a studio next to where I go to PT.  The goal is to leave with a 30 minute routine that we can do safely which will increase our core strength and flexibility.
We're in day two of howling winds.  Jim was out at 2:00 am looking for the grill cover that we use for the mountain bikes.  That is the first time it has ever blown away - it's heavy.  This morning he found it up against the park fence, some distance away from the RV.  It would be nice if this would stop, you haven't lived until you've ridden an upright bike into 25 mph gusts.
Here is my puny photographic offering for the post, taken a couple of days ago after our huge rain storm cleared out

 

Rain on El Tour and the Streets of the Old Pueblo

Today is the Tour de Tucson.  This morning we went out to look for water in the washes and wet riders.  This is the Santa Cruz River - it's usually dry, but today it's running.

 

The tour route this year goes down the frontage road, which is way better than Silverbell.  In many places they had brand new pavement.  These are the faces of misery.

 

Check the poncho billowing in the wind.  Almost no one had fenders, and we didn't see any mud flaps.  The spray from the wet roads has to have been atrocious.

 

Crossing Sabino Creek.  Why this is even part of the route is beyond me.

 
Tucson road riders, do you recognize this? This is the road you take when you come up the Rillito River Trail, and turn left onto the road so you can get to the trail on the other side of the river.  The road is closed at the moment as the Rillito River crosses it.

 

Water coming from the east.

 

This is the best thing we saw today.  We were driving south on Tucson Boulevard, which is one of the streets that doesn't have storm sewers.  This is only 27 seconds long and it's amusing.  There is music, so if you're at work, mute.

If you don't have video bandwidth, here's us being sprayed by a fire truck in transit.

Late this afternoon, it looks like the system may be moving out, which would be good.