January 9, 2022
Cruising to the sun
Tucson ride take 2
Yesterday it was the coyotes that sung as the sun rose while today it was the hoo, hooing of 2 owls. One was quite close to us but as it was still dark, I couldn't spot it in the trees. It was calling to another owl that was further away.
It was pretty cold out so we weren't able to leave on our ride until nearly 11 am. But the skies were clear and sunny so didn't take long to warm up.
The first part of the ride was a few loops around the camping area and then out to the dead end on the main road in the park where the hiking trails started. Don had made a few adjustments to the chain and wanted to make sure all was functioning correctly before we got too far.
The parking lot was full at this area as many people were out hiking on this nice weekend day. We stopped to use the bathroom and I took a look around the little store here, but didn't buy anything. One of these days we'd like to try some walks in the park.
As the bike was operating as expected, we left the area and headed north on a familiar route - up the hill to Rancho Vistoso and Sun City, then looping back to our start. This is one of our favorite rides as there are good bike lanes on the road, nice homes and attractive desert landscaping to look at, a slight climb to work our legs followed by a wonderful downhill.
From the parks's entrance, we accessed the Canada Wash trail which took us to another trail that ran west along Tangerine up to an intersection where we got on the road north. Usually there isn't much traffic through this area, but for some reason it was pretty busy until we got to Sun City. Don thought maybe everyone was getting out of church?? Who knows, but it was a little noisy. Lots of other cyclists were also out enjoying the day.
We didn't stop on our ride, but just rode along, enjoying the views of the mountains as we climbed higher and higher. Once we reached the apex of the hill at Sun City, the road curved and dropped us down south back to the shopping center near the park.
As we screamed down past the hospital, I held on tight and crossed my fingers that we wouldn't have a crash here in front of the emergency room! Don said later we were going over 30 mph!
Once we crossed Tangerine, we stopped at the Walmart to use the restroom and pick up a few things for dinner. As I waited outside with the bike, a couple cycled up and parked their bikes by us. They said "you must be the ones with palm tree"! It turned out that they were also camping at the park and had seen the palm tree we put up on our site. Too funny!
Shopping down, it didn't take long to get back home where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing outside in the sunshine. Gotta love the south!
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Today's ride: 20 miles (32 km)
Total: 1,650 miles (2,655 km)
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