It’s the midpoint of our six week stay here, so while we’re warming up and downing our coffee Rachael and I review our stats.  In 20 days (discounting our arrival date), we were completely rained out only once.  Otherwise, Rachael was out for a significant activity every day: 14 bike rides averaging 42 miles/ride, and 5 walks averaging 11.5 miles; and I biked 18 out of 20 days, averaging 39 miles/ride.  Pretty great we agree, and we give each other virtual pats on the back because she’s sitting on the couch and I’m sitting on the floor by the heater and too lazy to get up.
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Today’s report is a really thin one, posted to remind ourselves of the new route I came up with to get to Julian Wash.  we’ve only been out there twice since we arrived - once on an OAB that began down the Aviation Way bike path, and once on my birthday ride, when we went ‘around the horn’ of the loop past the VA hospital. 

As much as we like Julian Wash itself though, we really don’t like either of those accesses to it.  We weren’t enthusiastic about them in the past, but they’ve both become less comfortable since we were here last, with maybe the worst homelessness and trash problems in the city.  

When Rachael took her walk down Treat Streat to Reid Park last week it gave me the idea to look again for some different route south through town to the wash.  And I found one - the south end of the Treat Street Bike Boulevard ends at the Aviation Way bikeway, but far enough  along it so that it puts us past its the least pleasant  parts.  So here’s the route I mapped out for us today:

And, I’m happy to report, this turns out to be an excellent route for us, one we’re certain to repeat a time or two before we leave Tucson later this month.

We’re just out for a ride today, so there hardly any photos at all other than a couple I took of the water reclamation pond at Sam Lena Park because the amount of water in it this year is so startling.  I’m not sure about last year, but certainly in the years before that it was virtually dry.

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Keith AdamsCompletely disregarding the No Swimming signs, I see. Scofflaw.
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10 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Keith AdamsPied-billed grebes are really tiny birds, as far as waterfowl go. Pretty near-sighted too, I think. He probably couldn’t read the sign way above his head, even if he could read in the first place. They should probably place some warnings at ground level.
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10 months ago

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But that was on the way back.  On the way out we ride nonstop past Rita Road until we have put in enough miles to meet the standard 42 mile quota when we got back.  It’s an unusual day in that we enjoy a modest tailwind on the way east, the reverse of the usual conditions here.  About fifteen miles into the ride Rachael passes me and picks up the pace, saying she isn’t sure how far she’ll go but will meet me on the way back - and I pick up the pace and stay with her as we kept a 15+ mph average for the next six miles until we call time and turn back.

I’m sure keeping pace like this for maybe an hour and a half is something I haven’t been able to do for at least two years.  on almost all of our out and back rides Rachael rides ahead and disappears in the distance, routinely putting several more miles in than I do.  This has been partly because I stop for photos, but also because I haven’t really had the ability to keep a sustained pace for this long.  It is so great to be able to ride this way again.

On the way back, we stop at Roy Schoonover trailhead for our mid-ride break.  While Rachael’s in the wash house I check the mail and see that Kelly is headed our way, following the route I sent her this morning as a suggested loop alternative that cuts off the west end of the loop by dropping down Treat Street and the other connecting bikeways from Rillito to Julian Wash.  From her departure time I guesstimate that we might cross paths somewhere near the point that she first joins Julian Wash.

And that’s just what happens.  I see her coming and call back to Rachael to get her GoPro working, and she manages to get a clip of Kelly pulling off to wait for us.  It makes a nice add-on to the video she just captured a few miles back of probably the highlight of the ride, when we follow a mother with her son on the back of her bike and a young daughter out front on a bike with trainer wheels, looking classy with her bright magenta Mohawk helmet as she coasts into the dark underpass beneath Alvernon Way and squeals with delight as she rides though it.

We chat with Kelly for several minutes, long enough to make plans for a dinner next week with Susan, and then continue on.  A few miles later we come to the KERP basin again and I stop for a few photos while Rachael continues on.  As I said, a nice ride.  A definite keeper.

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