Washed out

December 22, 2023 to December 23, 2023

Friday

We awaken to a changed world this morning, with yesterday’s clear skies replaced by a solid, dense gray in all directions. The heavy rains that began early in the morning will continue all day and linger into tomorrow. No biking today, obviously.

We’ve known this day was coming ever since arriving and have a plan for it. Rachael’s got an optometrist appointment this morning to get some new glasses, and I plan to take the Rodriguez in to Fair Wheel Bikes for a consultation about my worn chainrings. In the afternoon we’re going over to The Loft for a film, and then have dinner at home.

And in between, we’ll just hang out.

Not a bad spot for waiting out some stormy weather.

Rachael’s eye appointment is a few miles to the east of us, so I drive her over and after dropping her off head to a nearby coffee shop to hang out until she’s done. She has an interesting experience trying to locate and reach the optometrist’s office in the large mall I’ve left her at - a lot of dashing from one sheltered spot to another is required, but she makes it to the coffee shop 90 minutes later with two pair of glasses on order and not totally soaked.

The drive there and back is interesting too, and a bit stressful as we plow through one flooded intersection or low spot in the road after another and are temporarily blinded by a wall of water. When we get back it’s raining intensely enough that the idea of taking the bike into the shop loses its appeal - I don’t really want to stand around outside loading the bike into the car in these conditions, and then repeat the process three times - taking it out at the bike store, putting it back in again after the consultation and removing it again when I finally get home. And really, it’s not necessary yet - I’m doing fine riding without the middle chainring, and in another two months he’s going back into long-term storage for the next nine months. Unless things deteriorate fast, I can put it off for another winter.

It’s still raining hard when we drive over to The Loft for the 4:30 showing of Aki Kaurismaki’s latest film, Fallen Leaves. I’m really looking forward to this one, and was delighted to see it was showing during our stay here. Kaurismaki is one of my favorite directors, and I was surprised to see he was still making films.

If you’ve never seen a Kaurismaki film, you should really give Fallen Leves a try if you can get to a showing. I see that it won an award for the best international film of the year, and it sure seems to us like it deserves the honor. It’s really a wonderful film. The film itself is outstanding, but so is the music score - where else can you go to hear Gordon Lightfoot’s classic Early Morning Rain, in Finnish?

And if you can’t get to this film, you might see if Netflix carries Leningrad Cowboys Go America, a film that still makes me laugh whenever I think of it, fifteen years after seeing it during one of the film festivals.

Holoppa and Ansa, the protagonists of Fallen Leaves.

We’re pleased to find that the rain has temporarily stopped when I leave the film, so that we don’t have to race to the car. On the other hand, if it had still been pouring I might have realized I’d forgotten my parka in the theater.

Saturday

The plan for the day is for us to bike on the Loop together out to the point where the Tanque Verde Wash empties into the Rillito, expecting that it really will be awash today. When we checked the weather before going to bed it looked like the rains would cease in the middle of the night, but this morning it looks like showers will continue for another few hours yet. Fine, we’ll wait - it’s too cold yet anyway. While we wait, Rachael has a rethink and decides it’s colder than she’d like for a bike ride and so she maps out a walk for herself up to Sentinel Peak instead. A few hours later she sets off, and I wait another hour before leaving myself. There’s plenty of time - it’s a shortish ride I have planned, and at the other end I just have to be back in time for our 5:00 reservation at Reilly’s.

An hour later I’m suited up and rolling the bike out the front door, only to find that it’s showering again. It’s windy too and doesn’t look remotely appealing to bike into, so I step back inside to give it another half hour.

When I step out again a half hour later the showers have stopped, but this is when I discover my coat is missing. After a thorough search of the house and car I think back and realize I must have left it at the theater last night. I call and confirm it’s waiting for me at their Lost and Found, so I drive over to retrieve it. By the time I’m back though it’s questionable whether there’s still time to fit the ride in, so I bag it and decide this is the right time to recreate the two dozen routes for this spring’s ride up Spain that I deleted by accident in a clean-up effort gone bad.

Rachael returns an hour later, happy with her chilly 12 mile walk even though she decided to improvise a route along the Santa Cruz instead after seeing how gloomy it looked up toward Sentinel Peak. And she flips out the phone to show me the main reason I decided to put up this post - she saw two coyotes! She only saw one at first, down below in the wash, and slowly stalked it hoping to get a decent shot when it unexpectedly climbed up to the path, where she saw a second one waiting.

The Santa Cruz really is a river today, unlike the dry, littered wash it was just a day ago.

Some new street art, on Congress Street.

This one might be new also - I can’t remember for sure if I’ve seen it before.

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