Ouch.

I'm sitting here in shorts and flip-flops, nursing a cup of coffee, looking like I just went a few rounds in a cage fight with a rabid bobcat.

Long story short - the trails traversing the southwest portion of Tucson Mountain Park are fairly overgrown with all manner of cactus and thorny, leguminous trees. Moreover, monsoon-season runoff left many sections rutted to the point that the only rideable line is up one side of the trail or the other, further promoting adverse human-plant interaction. My arms and legs now look like red-on-pink roadmaps - a fitting punishment for having spent most of the last 8 months riding pavement on my skinny-tired bike.

The ride was wonderful otherwise - the morning air was cool and crisp, I felt strong in the saddle, BeanSS spotted a desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii Cooper), and it waited until after we got home to rain. The ride was so enjoyable, in fact, that I have more or less already forgotten about how yet another thorn defeated my Mr. Tuffys and I'm not even all that bummed that BeanSS's sussy fork blew a seal and splooged oil all over the place.

Coffee's empty, gotta' go.