Amado and the Longhorn Grill

February 25, 2025

I’m alone with my thoughts as I repeat the freeway drive south to Amado this morning for the out and back ride to Arivaca I’ve had on my wish list for a few winters now. Rachael’s planning a hike but there’s not really anything suitable along this twenty miles of flat, dry road so she opts for another hike into the west hills to the Bowen Stone House, approaching it from the west this time.

And since she didn’t bring back any photos this time let’s just throw in her map, congratulate her on her accomplishment, and get back to the bike.

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Just a few miles past the exit for Madera Canyon I pull off the I-19 at the Amado exit and park the Jeep outside the Longhorn Grill. It’s one of the attractions of this ride for me, and looks like an interesting place to look around after I return from the ride.

Its just turned ten when I pull up, and as I’m pulling on my bike shoes (I drove down in my sandals) I watch a dozen or so other riders just leaving town with the same destination in mind. I’m watching them recede and then turn back to my shoes with surprise because I’m having trouble pulling them on because my feet are swollen, enough so that it looks like I just got off a transoceanic flight. Actually I think they started swelling up a few days ago but it didn’t really register. It’s concerning - not just for the swelling itself and what it might mean, but also for the cycling. I wonder if it will be an issue biking forty miles on a hot day with cramped shoes. Probably.

I’m not alone with my idea for the day. A separate group three times this large raced west out of town just as I drove up.

So that’s one thing I notice. The other comes when I’ve unloaded the bike, locked the car, and biked across to the other side of the road. The tire is flat again. Crap. There must have still been something embedded in the tire that I couldn’t find. That kills the ride though. I’ve brought the other tube along as a spare in case I flatten, thinking that I should be able to patch one or the other of them; but I’m not starting the ride this way.

So Arivaca goes back on the wish list for another year and today’s outing gets rebranded. It’s not a bike ride, it’s a bird crawl with an interesting meal stop. Could be worse. There are two birding hotspots close at hand - a small wastewater aeration pond on the other side of the freeway looks worth a look, and then a few miles north on the way back to town is the Historic Canoa Ranch, which is being developed as a wetland preservation project on something of the scale of Sweetwater. Between the two of them I’m hopeful something new will show up.

The Longhorn Grill won’t open for another hour, so I start with a short drive over to the wastewater treatment site. It’s small, and there’s not too much action this morning. A Neotropic cormorant flies across as I drive up, and there are a few grackles on the aeration platform, plus this one dark lump that won’t turn sideways and give me a decent view:

Great-tailed grackles, on the aeration platform at Amato’s small settling pond.

Maybe there’s enough there to identify. Merlin and the iPad both just recognize it as a bird and stop there, but maybe I can do it the old school way.

There’s little on the surface of the water either, and nothing novel. Coots, wigeons, ring-billed ducks are it. With one exception: a female bufflehead, surprisingly the first I’ve seen this year. And later when I study duck profiles I see that my frustrating black and white lump is her mate.

I’ve still got a few minutes before the restaurant opens its doors so I look around outside, take some landscape shots, and look at the few birds around - lots of house finches and house sparrows, but across the way there’s a small, lone bird in the open that stays put just long enough to get my camera on him. Rock wren!

The Longhorn Cafe doesn’t disappoint, and there’s just enough of interest to catch my attention after I’ve finished unloading and studying the bird photos. Well, there’s one disappointment. For some reason I thought they served breakfasts and I’d have really preferred an omelet, but the brisket soup, chicken breast and sweet potato fries fill the bill nicely.

I take a last look back after breakfast before driving off, surprised to see that another biking group had arrived without me noticing them.

Canoa Ranch is a much more interesting destination, and well worth the stop. There’s a large pond with a walking path around it, a marshy ribbon bordering it, and then open desert that runs all the way to Mount Wrightson. Everyone else looks to be here for the birds too, and there are plenty of birds to be seen. And they’re all different ones than you see up in the canyon - sparrows, towhees, waders, flycatchers. There’s plenty of action to hold my interest for the two hours I spend slowly hobbling around the perimeter, stopping at every shady bench to admire the views and the trees and wait for developments.

I was trying to shade the sun and get the whole tree, and have the annoying choice of showing the whole tree or lopping it and my finger off.

Mock vervain really hauls in the pipeline swallowtails. There must be a half dozen hovering over them today.

The ubiquitous American wigeons seem to show up anywhere there’s shallow open water.

It’s getting on mating season for the pied-billed grebes.

There’s just time for me to make it over to Fair Wheel Bikes when I’m back in town. I’ll pick up some spare tubes, but I’ll also have them repair the flat so that hopefully they’ll find the thorn that flattened the last two. In a last frustration for a day that’s had a few already, this errand doesn’t get checked off either. The freeway exit dumps me off a couple of miles east of the bike shop, so I pull out the phone to navigate back. It’s just two miles up the street but I want to take a side road that brings me in to the right side of its parking lot.

Having the phone for navigation really works well, as long as you’re paying attention. I’m not though, and just blindly follow its directions along an unlikely route that doesn’t make much sense to me. Twenty minutes later I come to a dead end at Toole Street wondering why I’ve been lead to this spot. I’ve overshot the bike shop by a mile, so that twenty minutes into this I’m no closer than when I started.

And then it registers. I’m staring at a bike path, and I’ve had the navigation in biking mode. Pretty funny.

At home later I’ll read up again on steroid symptoms. The swelling is a commonly experienced one that’s spared me until recently. Two others catch my attention though - leg cramps, which have been severe foe the last several days. And knee pain, and in particular joint instability. I wonder if these don’t tend to come as a set, with the swelling aggravating the others.

In any case, I decide that this is the end of biking for the duration. We leave for Portland in just a few days anyway and I’ve got my rheumatology visit the day after we arrive, so I’ll wait and discuss it with him then.

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Kelly IniguezIf the swelling is going to be a continued issue (hope not), you might consider a pair of bicycle sandals. I recently had surgery for ingrown toenails (both sides of both big toes). Coincidentally, the podiatrist is also a cyclist. He said I could ride when I can comfortably wear bicycling shoes. My one attempt at street shoes resulted in bleeding toes (sorry if TMI), but the sandals with velcro straps for adjustment work just fine.

Friends have a dog who is on prednisone. The dog is continually hungry and begging for food. She has gained near half again her weight, and is now on a strict diet. Aren't you glad that isn't on your list of side effects?
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