In Tucson

December 29, 2022 to December 30, 2022

Thursday

We’re fortunate to have good conditions for the long drive to Tucson. A day or two ago it looked like we could be driving in the rain but this is just about perfect, dry but with a lightly overcast sky to cut down the glare. It would have been a fine day to be on the bike too, and the valley tugs at us a bit as we drive away. If we had it to do over we’d drop one or even two of the nights we stayed in Paso Robles this time and stayed here longer instead.

Leaving Borrego Springs under a moody sky. Pretty sure we’ll be back.

The drive to Tucson, mostly along the freeway once we drop down and past the Salton Sea, isn’t the most exciting but at least it goes fast. Other than to refuel there’s not much to tempt us to stop, except the vision of a second breakfast when we cross the state line and immediately come to Yuma. Yuma just sounds like a place that would have an attractive rustic diner in the heart of its old town, but if there is one we couldn’t find it. Instead we found The Garden Cafe, which looks good but immediately disappoints us when we sit down and look at the menu. It’s 10:45 and they stopped serving breakfast fifteen minutes ago, and all the options now look too big and likely slow to be served for what we’re after this morning. We slip out immediately and start driving again, and I make do with a bagel and peanut butter and some baby carrots as we drive through the rest of the way.

Now that I look again though, Penny’s Diner looks like they’d do the trick. Not sure how we missed it, but we’ll take note for when we repeat this drive some day. After a few hours of driving I’m ready to get off the road and rest my eyes for a half hour or so, and a fast but decent breakfast is perfect.

We make it to Tucson at 2:30, happy to be coming to a place with a lockbox so we can just let ourselves in when we arrive. There’s some tension at first though when we’re standing on the sidewalk with the car half-unloaded on the sidewalk and find the box won’t open after several tries and no one answers when we call; but then Josh comes out of the house, apologizes that the room’s not quite ready yet, and says he needs another half hour or so. No worries - we cart our stuff up to the porch, head back to the car, and drive to the nearest Safeway where we set a new Team Anderson record by ringing up a $257 bill.

The place is huge! Stop on by.

Our spacious home for the coming month. Might as well take a few shots before we lay waste to it.

The master bedroom, complete with a crib.

The back hall along the rear of the house.

The second bedroom. We’ve room for guests if you happen to be passing through. Don’t bring your infant though - the crib’s in our room, and we’re not swapping.

I exercise my driver’s prerogative and decompress from the long drive with a local blonde while Rachael unpacks the groceries.

Friday

We’re slow getting out on the road this morning for our first Loop ride of the winter. First we run a couple of errands - we drive over to Fred Meyers so Rachael can pick up a replacement for her GoPro mount that’s cracked and we’re concerned might fail; and then over to Roma Imports in the Lost Barrio to pick up some frozen lasagna for our New Year’s Day dinner because we’re not likely to find a suitable restaurant open.

That goes surprisingly quickly and we’re back at the room by 9:30; but then over an hour or so gets swallowed up when Rachael tries to arrange a local prescription refill for her thyroid medication. She discovered this morning that somehow she brought down an old bottle with a lower dosage than she’s prescribed for now - not a catastrophe, but she’d like to be using the right dosage. It goes excruciatingly slowly though as she calls a local pharmacist first and then Keizer to find out the procedure for getting a prescription authorized and filled remotely. We give it up for today after waiting a full hour for a call-back from Kaiser that never comes and decide we need to ride before we lose the day.

The ride, once we finally get out the door, is excellent. Even with our late start it’s cool today, feeling about like it did on our rides from Paso Robles. It’s not much past fifty when we leave the neighborhood, and after only about five blocks we come to the Saint Mary’s access to the Loop and head north down the Santa Cruz. I stop for a photo almost immediately and Rachael keeps going, but not a half mile later I come to her stopped on the path. She’s just seen a roadrunner, running across the path and then flying across the wash. Not even a mile into the first ride, and our first roadrunner sighting already!

How lucky is this? Less than a mile into our first ride here and we spot a roadrunner! Rachael was ahead of me and got a really good look as it ran across the path and flew across the wash. I was lucky to get a shot off just before it disappeared in the brush.

We’re on an out and back today, following the Santa Cruz north to the end of the spur of the loop that ends a few miles south of Marana. It’s a ride we take some variation of several times each year but we’ve never seen it quite like it is today. There’s more water running in the Santa Cruz (once you get a few miles north of town; it’s just a dry wash within town, for the moment at least) than we’ve ever seen before, and when we come to our traditional spot to stop for lunch we’re stunned to see a large lake brimming with ducks where in the past there’s only been a dry sandy expanse.

Up until now we’ve basically ridden together, but the ducks stop me in my tracks. I stare at them for the next ten minutes - shovelers, widgeons, pintails, mallards, coots galore - while Rachael racks up a few extra miles biking out to the end of the path and back.

We’ve never seen anything like this much flow in the Santa Cruz.

There’s not too much fall color left, but this is impressive. An Arizona ash maybe?

A photo from two winters back, for contrast. This is our standard lunch stop on this ride, the viewing area at Del Rio Park. In our experience it has always looked like this, a dry sandy expanse.

This year though it looks like this, a large lake filled with ducks. A woman we met out here last winter said this happens sometimes, but we found it hard to believe.

Pintail and mallard. It’s striking and exciting to see all the waterfowl out here. Like Borrego Springs, we’re here at a time unlike we’ve seen before.

The ride home continues excellent, as interesting bird sightings keep popping up. A dozen or so quail leave the safety of their cover and run one at a time across the path for the other side for some quail-specific reason. They’re too quick and just a bit too far away for me to get the camera out and focused on them, but I’m lucky enough to snap the last one executing a jeté in the middle of the path as it rushes to catch up with his group.

Gambel’s quail, gamboling across the bike path to catch up with his dozen mates.

A bit further on I pass a bird feeder, the wall beneath it crowded with doves and sparrows. I stop and check them out for a minute and then am startled to look down and see another roadrunner not far from me. He works the ground around him long enough for me to get off a few decent shots and then runs to the other side of the path and quickly disappears. That’s two in one day! We’ll have to start keeping an RPR (roadrunner per ride) statistic. 2.0 so far!

Two in one day! And look at those feet. I’ve never gotten this good a look at them before, enough to notice the way the claws curve upwards on the back.

Rachael’s of course gotten well ahead of me by now and I don’t really expect to see her again until we’re both home again; so I’m surprised after a few more miles to see that she’s just ahead of me. I’ll hear later that she took a side spur for a couple of miles to up her ride statistics for the day. I don’t quite catch up to her, but as we bike south on opposite sides of the wash I can see her across the way so I fire off a canned message to her from the Garmin to call me, and that stops her long enough for me to catch up. When she calls I tell her to look around, we wave at each other, and then she’s off again.

I turn back and see that I myself am being observed - doubly observed, as it turns out. We’re by the bird-rich Sweetwater reserve, and there’s a pair of birders scoping out the waterfowl there (ring billed ducks! A kingfisher!). The woman wants to know what I’ve seen across the wash and laughs when I tell her it’s just my wife, not some interesting bird sighting. For that, she suggests I should turn around and look at the hawk just behind me, safely perched behind some barbed wire and keeping a calm eye on me.

It’s great to be back in Tucson again! This is going to be a wonderful month.

It is I who should have turned around, to see this sharp-shinned hawk eyeing me about fifteen feet behind my back. Or he could be a Cooper’s hawk I suppose. They’re difficult to distinguish.

Four house finches. It took a few shots before I could catch them all looking the same direction.

Video sound track: Let Me Serenade You, by Three Dog Night

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Ride stats today: 43 miles, 900’; for the tour: 432 miles, 18,900’

Today's ride: 43 miles (69 km)
Total: 434 miles (698 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	7

Kathleen JonesGood catch on the trike brigade in your video, Rachael.
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1 year ago

Rachael AndersonTo Kathleen JonesThanks. I love seeing so many people riding such a variety of bicycles! It’s such great and safe cycling!
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1 year ago

Graham FinchI thought you'd use that 1960s Junior Walker song -- Roadrunner ;)
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1 year ago

Keith AdamsI think you forgot to enter the day's mileage in the post composer form. The auto text doesn't show, only your hand-entered total does. It makes the totals on the next page show a discrepancy.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Graham FinchThanks for the suggestion! I’ll make sure the videographer sees this. I trust we haven’t seen our last roadrunner this winter.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Keith AdamsThanks, Keith. I’ll miss this now and again and have to scroll through the entries to find where the omission was.
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1 year ago

marilyn swettWe've been in Tucson for the past few weeks and yesterday I spotted another crested saguaro. Maybe you've seen it? We were on Old Spanish Trail Rd. heading east toward the entrance to the national park. We got on that road via Valencia. I think it was on one of the climbs - on the left.
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1 year ago