Probably Palmer's Agave.

https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/taxa/index.php?taxon=3061

Please take other interesting door photos if you see any.

The tops against the sky look pretty here.

That bright blue makes the watermelons and grapes pop. The light was great there.

Hearted not because its good, but because spreading awareness of an issue this massive and somehow largely overlooked is important.

Thanks for the great review, Kelly. As I muse about treating myself to one more bike for these later years I've contemplated a high-end internal gear system. Those two make the list. I see at the good comparison posted at cyclingabout that the Pinion is slightly heavier, but for me it is the quieter operation that would nudge me toward it. My bikes are almost always heavier than needed already. (I figure that contributes to the fitness I hope to maintain.) But, I've always been annoyed by creaking, scraping, ticking or any other small noises. Thanks again. We're enjoying your current account. Those roads were we last toured, in late January, 2020.

Mark,

The fixing of the Rohloff was a process. We called Rodriguez Bicycles first (thinking we might need to call Cycle Monkey). The tech there said that had we called when it started to get hard to shift, it was just a tightening of a cable connection. When we pulled it, the connection came undone inside of the hub. They offered to talk us through fixing it. We chose to send the wheel back to Seattle.

When we got the wheel back, we took it to our local shop to have it installed. Now the cable was too short? Troy (local mechanic) called Rodriguez. They said to install a longer cable. OK. Except the bike wouldn't shift through all of the gears.

Skipping much of Troy's frustration. Rodriguez was not helpful on subsequent phone calls, shame on them, as they did the original repair and didn't support our local guy when THEY didn't put on a long enough cable. Finally Troy hit on the idea of using compression free cable housing. Now the Rohloff shifts fine. All of that for want of tightening a connection!

The Pinion bike was ordered back in May, it took three months to arrive. Jacinto likes to buy and try. He doesn't need a reason, it's all an experiment.

The Priority 600 came with a 12 speed gear box. Jacinto would have had the 18 speed, but it wasn't a choice. The advertised range of the 12 speed is slightly more than the 14 speed Rohloff. Jacinto says the jumps between the steps are a little more noticeable, since they are larger.

The Rohloff and the Pinion have the same bar end barrel shifter. The Pinion is stiffer to shift.

The Rohloff is noisy in gears 1-7. The Pinion is quiet in all gears.

He likes how easy it is to take off the rear wheel to change it, very similar to a front wheel.

He thinks that the Pinion has better climbing gears and the Rohloff has better go fast gears.

He bought the Rohloff in 2019. He's supposed to change the oil every 5,000 km. Supposedly, the gears get quieter as they break in. Jacinto says it is just as noisy now as when it was new. Not annoyingly so, but audible.

He has 629 miles on the Pinion. The oil change on that is every 7,000 km.

Both are belt drive, which is Jacinto's very favorite!

Sorry you had rain! Hopefully you will have nice weather tomorrow with a nice headwind.

Clever idea!

How would you compare your Pinion to the Rohloff, Jacinto? Did you abandon the Rohloff after your problems with it in Wisconsin?

I need to learn origami... If only it were that easy.

I remember teachers showing us how to fold 6 sided snowflakes, and not being able to do it. Then in the mid-80s I sat down and figured it out so I could cut out initials of people at work and give them away on their birthdays. Took about a dozen times of re-figuring before I actually got it. Second nature now after many hundreds of birthday snowflakes. Have not made one in quite a while. I think the last was in Oct. for a kid who made Eagle Scout.

So, snowflakes are the extent of my origami.

I need some Tyvek!

Do you do origami?

I presumed they were dead? Every so often at home I will see an aspen tree fence, in a similar style. I can't imagine how long it would take to gather up enough straight aspen of the correct width. The the ocotillo fence, I want to know what sort of gloves are necessary!

Seems to work well. Some even take root.

Google search ocotillo fence.

Nice! Back when I bike commuted, I used bread bags and rubber bands over my shoes. Only good for one day, getting ragged, so I kept every bread bag in the house for years, even after I retired, till I realized there was a huge bag full of them that never got used and I finally tossed it... :-)

I do almost the same thing to cut windchill for riding down into the 30s, but use tyvek folded down over the toes, then over the sides before sliding into my sandals, then wrap around my ankles and fold the top of the wool socks down about an inch or 2, holding it in place.