Flat Tires and New Furniture

Tucson is back in the weather pattern of heavy wind from the east.  This is something we don't remember from past years.  Generally April is windy, but it's from convection heating and starts up around noon.  Winds from the east continue all through the night and into the morning.  It's dying off today, but there is so much dust in the air we decided against riding or hiking.  When the dust is up, so are the Valley Fever spores, so we're slacking today.
Monday we set out to find the new Julian Wash greenway.  It's a poorly marked urban trail, which involves riding on sidewalks, and eventually down a paved section of the wash itself.  We were following another cyclist who knew the route, so I took no pictures.  I disliked the route enough that I won't be back to photograph it, either.  The web site for the trail does mention that during monsoon the path will be under water and covered in debris.
Anyway, here is Jim fixing flat number 5 for the winter season.  One of the things about Tucson that just irritates the living snot out of me is the broken glass.  In the southern end of town, there is a culture of throwing unwanted items out of the car window.  It's a flipping miracle that we ever make it through a ride without flatting.   I think we're going to shift to Gatorskins to try to decrease the amount of time we spend changing tubes.

This is another thing that I find incomprehensible.  The red things in the curb lane (aka the bike lane) are Whip-its.  They're filled with nitrous oxide.  In addition to making whipped cream, they're also used to get high.  Apparently the getting high occurs in a car, while driving, and the empties are thrown on to the street.  This is disturbing on so many fronts.  Between the impaired drivers and running your bike over these things, there is much hazard available.

OK, enough rant.
We've had these recliners since the 5th wheel (6 years).  They haven't worked well in the current RV because the television is over the driver's chair.  I more or less broke my chair sitting in it sideways so I wouldn't have to turn my head so much.  Even with it pulled out and angled, it was not good.

Ta-da!  A new chair that looks pretty much exactly like the old chairs.  This one swivels, so I can face the TV, or people on the couch across from me, or Jim sitting at the dinette.  It's way more comfortable than the old chair.  The neck bolster on the old one was too big and pushed my head forward.  I am a happy camper.  Not having that wall of brown leather there makes the RV seem bigger as well.  When we're in Oregon we're going to have a small cabinet built under the window, so that our storage paradigm will be more attractive than cardboard boxes.

Tuesday we did have a successful ride involving climbing and suffering.  There were no flats.  Now, I must arise and go now because I have a massage scheduled.

Wind and Bank Stabilization

Greetings Earthlings!  How are things on your piece of the third rock?  It's windy here.  This is day three of blowing the dog off the chain windiness.  It can stop any time now, it's wreaking havoc with my contact lenses.
As you no doubt recall, I had a head and neck MRI awhile back to look for any potential causes for the headaches I've been having.  Friday I went back to talk to Dr. Grund about the results and I am pleased to report there's nothing up there.  Arteries are non-occluded, sinuses are clear, ears are clear all the way through; there's nothing up there that shouldn't be there.  So, as to what's causing the headaches, we have no clue.  I'm leaving it alone at this point, maybe there are too many negative ions in the atmosphere.  The good thing about the whole exercise is that we now have a GP in Tucson if either of us needs one.  Their office does family practice and geriatrics, so we're covered for the long haul.

Yesterday was also predicted to be windy, so we were up and out early doing hill repeats locally.  In addition to being a big weather baby about cold, I do not enjoy riding in gusting wind.  So we rode hard on the hills and stayed close enough to the RV to high tail it home if it became too obnoxious.

This was taken on Ina yesterday afternoon.  We were turning left onto the freeway, and the entire north of us was obscured by blowing dust.

There was no Sunday breakfast ride for us due to high winds, so we drove up to Starbucks with Don and Jamie.  It always annoys me at how dang loud the music is.  It's a coffee shop!  People are supposed to have coffee and converse.  Who can converse when being drowned out by mournful music?  The whole background music thing mystifies me.
After Starbucks we all went over to Home Depot.  Jim and I found a new carpet runner so we could 86 our previous runner; it's been creeping against the end we glued to the floor and had just uglied out.  This one is a low shag and it's heavier.  Maybe it will not creep.  The good thing is that it's long enough to glue both ends to the tile.  I have an industrial strength glue gun and I'm not afraid to use it.

In other news, work on the bike trail south of Silverbell is in full swing.  We've been looking at the project wondering why on earth so much heavy equipment and moving of dirt is required for a steenking little bike path.  Well now we know.
This is the bank across the Santa Cruz river bed.  The bank has been armored for those occasions when the river runs, so that the water does not undercut the trail.

Click on this to make it larger.  Apparently the Army Corps of Engineers comes in to do bank stabilization.  After they are done, some other government entity will come do the actual bike path.  It's going to be nice.  One will be able to ride out of the park and hit the trail without getting on the road.  Many of the park residents do not enjoy riding with cars, so this will improve their enjoyment of bicycling in Tucson.

Other than a clear head, and our continuing quest for a return to strength and fitness, there is not much else to report.  That is all, maties.

Ash Wednesday

Would you like fries with that?  We saw this sign next to a church just off campus.  It struck me as amusing.

I took this in the morning with my new Canon.  She He was in the top of the palm tree across the road, while I was sitting in the RV's passenger seat.  The camera zoom is pretty good at pulling in birds.

Not much else to report.  It's the curse of posting when nothing much is going on.

Sunset Tonight

Is this not lovely?

A Glorious Day Follows the Rain

Today was a glorious day.  It's always so nice after a rain.  The air is clear after the dust is washed out.  We hiked Hidden Trail out to the stone house and back via Bowen trail.  It was good.

This is the view from the stone hut.  The clouds make the light so interesting.

After hiking there was lunch, and then there was laundry.  A good time was had by all.

Rain in the Old Pueblo

The run of perfect weather ended today.  The giant storm that has been pounding California arrived in Tucson about noon.  It was late, it was supposed to start raining in the wee hours.  We managed to get a walk in this morning carrying hand weights, but that was pretty much the extent of moving around for us.  It's been really windy and heavy rain has come in waves.

See the streaky clouds we had last night?  There were high winds aloft.  It was a pretty sunset, not really colorful, but pretty. 

It's been a low key day, waiting for this infernal weather system to pass on through.   Right now we're watching Cowboys and Aliens.  It's not a terrible movie.

Update to post.  This is what we saw later.  It's a double.

 .

Later I found this on the internet on the Damion Alexander Team's facebook page.  Pretty cool!