Ahh, warm.

I just got back from a very enjoyable road bike ride. Eighteen miles is only a little further than some people do on their rollers in the parking lot before a race, but I only had a limited amount of time to get the ride in. The rolling hills and northwest breeze kept things interesting.

I'm surprised I was motivated to go at all, given that I announced my intentions yesterday. Like I've said before, a ride bespoke the night before often happens not. The temperature went right past the forecast high of 78° and maxed out at a nice, warm 82°. You've got to love having sock tan lines in winter.

I'm going to go grab the last 3 Horses Lager from the refrigerator, take it out into the wonderfully mosquito-free yard, and watch the day end.

This is February, right?

I don't know what Punxsutawney Phil said about winter this year, but this is what the National Weather Service's Tucson Forecast Office has to say about tomorrow.

Sunday


Mostly
Sunny
Hi 78°F

I managed a nice singlespeed ride last Monday and the weather wasn't even this nice. If I don't get out tomorrow - mountain or road, it doesn't matter which - then I am truly useless.

Gila's Fifth

Ride bikes, lift weights, walk dogs, watch birds, ride bikes, lift weights, walk dogs, watch birds...these are my main pursuits or hobbies or stress relievers of whatever you want to call them. Well, as I sit here blogging through the middle of a winter storm, I'm feeling the rumblings of my fifth hobby: Nordic skiing. That's cross country to all you Europhobes out there. Actually, Nordic skiing includes ski jumping, so perhaps XC is more apt.

I haven't schussed a trail since BeanSS and I lived in Sacramento. We made a couple of trips into the Sierra Nevada/Tahoe Basin, once to ski at Camp Richardson (a quiet park in winter, a bustling RV campground in the summer) and another time to cruise along the shore at Donner Lake State Park. Yes, as in Donner Party. Prior to that, when we lived in Arizona the first time, we went to the Flagstaff Nordic Center, some snowplay areas, a few Forest Roads, and the Mormon Lake Lodge Ski Touring Center. There were some false starts and frustrating times, but overall, we had a whole lot of fun. I still enjoy fun, and so I want to try it again. Also, I was an even bigger lard ass back then and I've been wondering what my somewhat reduced mass and newfound upper body strength would do for me in the snow.

Back to the present. Yesterday, in the coincidence of coincidences, I thrift scored a nice set of used touring skis with NNN bindings to go with the used NNN boots I thrift scored last year. Besides wanting to test my revised fitness level, I've been trying to slowly update my gear from my old 75mm stuff. The 3-pin bindings work just fine, but damn they're hard to release from when my legs are all twisted up after one of my still-too-frequent wipeouts. Turning and stopping remain focus areas for me.

I also thrift scored a very nice pair of back country skis that'll need sturdier boots which I hope can be thrift scored in the future. I can be patient with the BC stuff as I can barely keep things together with touring skis on a groomed trail. Going off piste with free heels and fully-edged planks is asking for broken ankles, lacerations, impalement, or worse. Have I mentioned I can barely stop or turn?

Anyway, here I am, with the Santa Catalinas just across the Tucson Basin from where I live. Snow is probably falling right now, and may even reach the valley floor tonight. Rose Canyon Lake, yet another intolerably overcrowded summertime camping spot, will be a nearly silent, snow-covered paradise tomorrow morning. I won't be there, unfortunately, as I have other commitments for this weekend. Nevertheless, the seed has been planted, and I'm very much hoping to hit some snow sometime, somewhere in Arizona before this winter runs out.

And if I have jinxed things merely by mentioning that I would like to go skiing, all of this snow will eventually melt, thus subsiding Gila Hobby No. 6: fishing.

In other matters, I really feel for those poor souls camping out at 24 Hour Town right now. If the rain quits sooner rather than later, the course could be a peach. If it keeps dumping, there'll be a coupla' thousand people caked in a slurry of water, cow shit and decomposed granite desperately trying to find fresh brake pads at the expo. You know, like in 2005. I am still finding grains of sand hidden in the nooks and crannies of my components.

Go see Cal. Or not.

As in Buteo jamaicensis calurus; the western subspecies of red-tailed hawk. Or at least that's what I wanted to call this especially pale-breasted bird before reconsidering the I.D. Could this be an example of the southwestern subspecies, B. j. fuertesi, named for famed bird artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes, master of avian portraiture? A coworker feels it's not pale enough to be a Fuertes. Either way, check out the little patch of windblown, out-of-place breast feathers.

Oh, and overhead utility lines made a startling photographic comeback right after I said I was glad to have had a shot of a raptor free of them. It's not my fault - the buteo took wing moments after I took this photo, but my digital camera's maddeningly long shutter lag kept me from getting off a second shot before the bird went out of sight over the house.