Marana, Arizona - It's a Dry Heat!

A lovely desert sunset.....

A lovely piece of artwork outside the new Marana Library

Hi all,
Back from a nice trip to Tucson, AZ to visit family and transport some furniture to Jon and Amy’s place out in Marana. It was a nice trip, enjoying the open road, peace and quiet, and relaxing away from work. The weather was very hot, with temperatures around 105-107 degrees every day! We enjoyed staying out at Jon and Amy’s place, and got a glimpse of how enjoyable living in a house with no stairs can be.

Happy Birthday, Amy!

Jon and Amy's neighborhood has lovely bikepaths!

In other news, the Peugeot project is not going well. The search for a 1974 French threaded bottom bracket has proved fruitless, and Mark and I are working on alternative ideas. If our alternative ideas fail, I think I will just put the frame on the shelf and work out another plan for commuting to the train. Mark’s shop has several good possibilities, and the used market seems to have many bikes that would fit my needs.

I found a Felt X-City in the ads, with an internal 8-speed hub...

Speaking of riding the train, local news reports have written about the congestion of bikes on the Frontrunner Train. UTA, in its infinite wisdom allowed only two bike tie-downs per car. Passengers have noted that at the busiest times there are usually 15 bikes per car! This is both good news, and bad news. It’s good news that people are using bikes to get to and from the train stations, and bad news because UTA had such a lack of vision on how people would use Frontrunner. To their credit, UTA is addressing the issue to search for alternatives to make the trains more accessible for bikes.

On the way down to Hoover Dam. note the enormous catenarys (?)

On the drive home, we stopped briefly at Hoover Dam to take some pictures of the tremendous bridge building project. The new bridge will span the Hoover Dam, creating a freeway several hundred feet over the dam. To just look at the undertaking is really amazing. Not only because of the size of the project, but because of all the design that went into this nine-year adventure. I would have taken more pictures, but the car’s thermometer indicated 113 degrees!

Amazing...

Looking NE, the Lake Mead side of the Dam.

Other than that, it’s summer in Utah. Time to ride both the Little Red Bike and Four Bits, time to hike, time to play golf, and perhaps work my way down a long list of house repairs that need to get done. In our week away, the forsythia bush nearly doubled in size!
Enjoy the outdoors…
Jim